Usually I wouldn’t cover the opening of a local shop (I’m no journalist) but seeing something close to the beloved Kinkos made me want to share my joy.

Print Mall has quietly risen in its ranks in the corner of the F-6 market in Islamabad to become a one-stop all-in-one printing shop for customers. Going in reminded me a lot of Kinkos, which has been very successful on the same model in the USA.

Walking in a breath of fresh air for printing buffs. Lines of color / b&w copiers, an HP plotter, two laser color and photo printers for all sorts. These people claim to do anything under the sun with printing, and they mean it.

Here is the best part:

They are not positioning themselves as a print shop. Instead, they want to be your printing partner. So no matter what printing need you have — business cards / brochures / proposals / director’s reports — just email it to them and forget about it.

They will take care of the whole process, SMS you when finished and even ship the results back to you by courier.

What does that mean? I only do business with one type of vendor: The person who can give me peace of mind. The person who can ask me to not think once in a while because he can figure out the best solution for you. The person that I can just give me needs to and they will not bother me with how they will solve it — they will find the printers / designers / paper / binders etc. and deliver a final product to me.

The person who works around me, and my needs. Not around their convenience. A partner.

What happens when I find a partner in a vendor?

(1) I know that I will be taking all of my future printing business to Print Mall (there is really no comparison) and

(2) 90% of the time, I never even really care to check the price — the value of that relationship and reliability in times of need itself is priceless.

I just hope they can install self-service copier machines (w/ guidance), and move to a 24-hours schedule to bring the Kinkos experience full circle. There is just a special connection between strangers all meeting in a bright room (Kinkos) at 3am to hear the sound of copiers running 500-pg documents in silence. It is artistic.