Jonathan Durham started with Regency in 2006 and was prospecting for potential franchisees when he found Office Mart in 2014. Office Mart was established in 1977 in Lancaster, Ohio by Pat and Susie Blake and prides itself in serving its local community at competitive prices.
When Durham found that it was for sale, he jumped at the chance to buy it with his partner, Jason Fisher. Of the purchase, Durham said, “I thought, this is an opportunity, a chance to open additional doors and since I grew up in the ‘Regency world’, I thought I could help.” With the sale complete, they went in and, to date, have retained 81 percent of the staff and have found that with the tools that Regency offers, the business has grown a great deal. Office Mart saw a 12.5 percent revenue growth from the first quarter of 2015 to the first quarter of 2016.
As he worked with Office Mart, Durham found that “the Regency platform could really help this company do even better” when it came to the technology that was available. With Regency, Office Mart was able to grow into a faster, stronger and better business because of the advantages offered through Regency’s expertise. The technology opened up the ability for the Office Mart sales representatives to go after other areas of revenue as it pertained to their pre-established customer base. It also allowed online customers a better shopping experience thanks to the single shopping cart Regency offers. In just 60 days, Office Mart’s entire customer base had converted to the new platform.
Office Mart is a franchisee of Regency Franchise Group, a company founded in 2002 based out of Raleigh, North Carolina that is one of the fastest growing print, promotional products, corporate apparel and office supply companies in the nation. RFG extends its innovative technology to its franchisees which enables them to consolidate transactions into a single shopping cart, provide customized account payable solutions, custom client stores, and participate in national buying power.