Printing services provider Magna IV was hard hit by, but has begun to recover from, the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also provided the Little Rock company with a new opportunity.
The company has been selling kits with the signage businesses need to reopen.
Magna IV gave away several generic kits to local businesses, containing just government-required signage, but it is selling expanded kits, President Kristi Dannelley told Arkansas Business.
These expanded kits include a mix of floor graphics, window clings, posters, sandwich board stands, sandwich board inserts and banners. Magna IV can even customize the materials with their client’s logo, she said. The kits are made on demand by a four-person department.
“We really just wanted to put something out there so that our clients can have some directional signage,” Dannelley said, “And that’s what we do, is print stuff, so it was just a natural thing for us.”
Still, Magna IV's revenue plunged in April, and she expects its revenue to be at just 75%-80% by the end of the year based on current trends.
Dannelley also cited uncertainty. “As a business owner, I think it's so important to preserve liquidity right now because you don't know what's coming,” she said. "So you need to be making sure that you have appropriate operating capital to weather what could come."
In addition, the company furloughed 50% to 60% of its employees when the pandemic struck, but it has been calling people back to work every week since the worst of it.
“We do a lot of work in the state, but we, the core of our business is national brands, regional brands with multiple locations,” Dannelley noted. “So the restaurant industries, fitness industries and nonprofits and events, those are our major categories. So you can imagine” how those businesses closing had a ripple effect on Magna IV.
