Cartridge World - History

History

In 1988 Cartridge World which was originally named Australian Cartridge Co was founded in Adelaide, Australia by Bryan Stokes.

The article following is written by company management and should be viewed bearing in mind it is intended to be advertorial

In 1992 the company’s name was changed to Cartridge World and was brought into the Franchise Market when Bryan joined forces with Paul Wheeler. Together they planned the franchising structure of Cartridge World and in 1997 the first Cartridge World franchise was sold. The second, third and fourth followed in rapid succession.

Critical to the growth of the company was the decision to Master Franchise in early 1999, which enabled a significant expansion of stores worldwide. In 2000 the first international Master Franchisee was established in New Zealand.

In February 2001 the first United Kingdom Cartridge World franchise was established in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

In 2003 the first Cartridge World franchise in the United States was established in Orlando, Florida. It continued to rapidly grow over the next year by roughly one store per day. In August 2005, the company celebrated the opening of their 1000th Cartridge World store, in Atlanta Georgia.

In August 2007 Cartridge World was purchased by an Australian private-equity firm, Wolseley Private Equity. An independent New South Wales private equity firm who make value-adding investments in well-established companies across a wide variety of industries. Wolseley purchased Cartridge World with plans to double the size of the business during their ownership, but are more likely to halve it going by recent performance.

Later in 2007 Cartridge World Headquarters relocated from Adelaide, South Australia to Emeryville, California. Headquarters still remains in the United States but has now relocated to Spring Grove, Illinois.

Over the years, the network of shops has continued to develop and grow, and reached over 2500 stores worldwide. However, there has been a steep decline since 2008 and numbers are now down to 1700 and falling. Many doubt the business can survive long term having been near to collapse in 2009. In the UK store numbers have almost halved from 300 to 160.