By most standards, A1 Graphics is a small operation — but behind the scenes, it runs like a high-volume ecommerce powerhouse.

Today, the business manages more than 90,000 SKUs, processes over 200,000 orders annually, ships worldwide, and competes across major marketplaces — all without scaling operational complexity alongside growth.

That level of scale didn’t happen by accident. For years, outdated systems and manual workflows limited growth and created operational bottlenecks. After switching to Linnworks, A1 Graphics transformed its operations into a scalable, automation-first ecommerce engine.

The results:

• 139% order growth in just two years
• 21.4% increase in average order value
• More than 730 hours reclaimed annually through automation and streamlined workflows

Now, with ambitious expansion plans ahead, Linnworks sits at the center of A1 Graphics’ ecommerce strategy — powering the next phase of global growth.

About A1 Graphics

Founded in 2013 in Annan, South of Scotland, A1 Graphics began as a local signage and vinyl wrapping business. Over the following years the company expanded steadily, broadening its offering to include workwear, business cards, and branded materials for local businesses.
In 2017, the business made a decisive move into the personalised product gift market — adding laser cutting, printing, and embroidery capabilities, and launching Laser Chimp, a dedicated personalised giftware brand, alongside their core operation.

Today A1 Graphics manufactures and sells a wide range of personalised products — doormats, record slip mats, apparel, gifts — shipping globally from a single facility in the UK.

The evolution from local signage shop to multi-channel personalised product manufacturer brought significant operational complexity. Managing tens of thousands of SKUs across multiple marketplaces demands a platform that can genuinely keep up. For several years, A1 Graphics didn’t have one.

The challenge: A platform that couldn’t keep pace

Before Linnworks, A1 Graphics relied on a different platform to manage its operations — and the limitations ran deep. Mapping and linking products across platforms was difficult and time-consuming. The interface was slow and overcomplicated, making it hard to train new staff and easy to make errors. Adding new products to the system was a laborious process, and the platform’s inability to connect with key sales channels — including TikTok Shop — meant entire revenue opportunities were simply out of reach.

The most acute problem was order dispatch. The platform converted every individual order into a separate PDF document before printing, which required hours of manual effort. The knock-on effect on the rest of the operation was significant: with key staff consumed by the mechanics of getting orders out, there was little capacity left to focus on growth.

With no API access and no ability to customise or extend the platform, there was no way to build a path forward. The business had outgrown its software, and the software had no way to grow with it.

“It was at a point where our previous system actively played a part in our business struggling. We spent so much time fighting the system. There were too many times where it just wouldn’t work.”

Chris Thomas, Founder, A1 Graphics

Finding a solution built for scale

Chris had encountered Linnworks over a decade earlier during a previous venture but the timing and circumstances hadn’t been right. Returning to it for A1 Graphics, the contrast was stark. Linnworks was intuitive in a way the previous system had never been. It worked exactly as expected.

For a business with a full-time developer in-house and tens of thousands of SKUs across multiple channels, the ability to integrate via API and build custom workflows around the platform was not a nice-to-have — it was essential. A1 Graphics needed software they could shape to their specific needs, and Linnworks provided both the flexibility and the stability to do that.

“Linnworks has been worth every penny and more. You can’t really put a price on productivity and efficiency.”

Chris Thomas, Founder, A1 Graphics

730 hours saved annually — and a fundamentally faster operation

Migrating 90,000 SKUs onto a new platform was never going to be simple. For a ten-person team, the transition meant stepping away from daily operations for weeks to clean and standardise data, rebuild product structures, and add missing attributes like weights, dimensions, and categorisation from scratch.

But once live, the operational impact was immediate.

With order views that allow products to be grouped and filtered intelligently, orders now batch together in a logical way. Manufacturing runs are cleaner and more structured, pick sheets are easier to follow, and dispatch flows at a pace the business can actually sustain at scale.

On print and dispatch alone, the team has saved an estimated 730 hours per year. When you factor in grouped order processing and broader workflow efficiencies, the real impact is even greater — with leadership estimating closer to five hours saved per day across the team.

“I feel like I was almost undersold just how good Linnworks was going to be. You don’t realise how amazing the platform is until you have experienced how bad things can be.“

Chris Thomas, Founder, A1 Graphics

Linnworks has also given A1 Graphics something they hadn’t had access to before: reliable, actionable data. Reporting and insights across all channels — top SKUs by revenue, top SKUs by margin, order trends — feed directly into product and merchandising decisions, helping the team identify what is and isn’t performing and where to invest attention next.

With Linnworks providing the operational backbone, A1 Graphics has also been able to expand its channel presence in a way that simply wasn’t possible before. TikTok Shop — a channel their previous platform had no way to support — is now fully integrated alongside Amazon, eBay, and Etsy, with all 90,000 SKUs managed from a single platform. The speed to market Linnworks unlocks is equally significant: new product ranges that would previously have taken weeks to list and launch can now go live in days. In the space of a week and a half, the team recently launched 200 new doormat designs and 92 new vinyl record slip mat designs, search-optimised and live across all channels.

For a ten-person business processing 200,000 orders a year, reliability is not a small thing. In two years on the platform, Chris can count on one finger the number of times something has gone wrong — and it was resolved within hours.

“I think I can count on one finger in two years how many times something hasn’t quite gone right — and it was sorted within hours. It just works.“

Chris Thomas, Founder, A1 Graphics

139% increase in orders in two years

Since switching to Linnworks, A1 Graphics has seen consistent growth across every key metric. The operational improvements have translated directly into business performance.

•       139% increase in orders over two years

•       21.4% increase in average order value

•       200,000+ orders processed per year across Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and TikTok Shop

•       730 hours saved annually on print and dispatch, with an estimated 5 hours per day saved across the business

•       90,000 SKUs managed across four channels from a single platform

•       New product launches accelerated — 200+ new designs brought to market in under 2 weeks  

Building for what’s next

A1 Graphics has plans for significant growth within the next 18 months. The roadmap includes automated packing — barcode scanning integrated into the fulfilment workflow, automated label generation, and eventually automated packaging machinery. A1 Graphics wanted a system they could grow with, and Linnworks offers exactly that.

Ten people, one facility in a small town in the South of Scotland, open every day of the year, competing at scale with global reach across major marketplaces. The internet does not stop, as Chris puts it — and neither do they. What makes that possible is a platform at the centre of it all, a platform they can rely on.

“Linnworks is a core part of our business. It is massive. Without it we would struggle. I can’t even quantify how much time and money it saves us — it just works.”

Chris Thomas, Founder, A1 Graphics