PlastikCity celebrates a decade of business

Online procurement and marketing platform PlastikCity has reached a very exciting milestone, as the company celebrates ten years of linking buyers and suppliers in the British and Irish plastics market.

Starting out with a handful of partners and only five site categories, the PlastikCity platform has grown to include over 260 partners and 400+ categories of equipment and services required in the plastics industry.

PlastikCity was founded by Carl Futcher on 26 October 2012, with the official website launch in May 2013. The idea came about back in 2011, when the plastics industry was facing difficult times; it was evident that managers had less time to meet with prospective suppliers, yet still wanted to ensure they were being offered the latest technology and competitive prices. As the industry started to get busier, time pressures worsened, as companies tried to keep headcount low. Alongside this, it was also clear that everyone, regardless of age, was using the internet to conduct market research, find suppliers, and compare products. Carl decided to start a business and platform that would address these issues, which led to the formation of PlastikCity.

PlastikCity is designed to modernise the way the plastics industry operates, bringing more efficiency to manufacturers in the UK and Ireland by providing a choice of leading suppliers and comparative quotes, all in one step. The company has stuck with its initial principle of only promoting established UK & Ireland based businesses – known as PlastikCity Partners – with high-quality equipment and services. All PlastikCity Partners are vetted and must meet certain criteria before they’re able to join the site, ensuring users can buy with confidence.

As well as helping plastics processors to source equipment and services to keep their mould shop running, PlastikCity also assists all sorts of companies in finding suitable manufacturers for moulding projects in the UK. This has involved helping to reshore many moulding projects and bring more manufacturing back from the Far East to the UK, of which PlastikCity and its teams are huge supporters.

Carl Futcher, PlastikCity’s Founder and Managing Director, commented:“I’m incredibly proud of PlastikCity reaching this milestone and how far we’ve come during the past ten years. This decade has been full of both thrills and challenges, but we have an excellent team here who have worked together to keep growing the company year-on-year, ever since we were first established.

“We don’t intend to slow down at all – we have lots of new ideas coming through the business that will benefit our partners and continue making the British and Irish plastics industry more efficient.”

Not only has the PlastikCity platform grown hugely in the past ten years, it has also been through many iterations and upgrades to improve user experience and increase its value to the industry. Some of the most notable changes over the years include the addition of an Industry Jobs section in 2014, which has now become the busiest and most popular jobs board for roles in the plastics market, and the PlastikDigest, where users can learn the ins and outs of the plastic manufacturing process.The most significant addition of all, however, was the launch of PlastikMedia – now one of the leading digital news publications in the UK plastics industry. This started out as a small ‘Partner News’ section on the PlastikCity website, but was migrated over to a sister website www.plastikmedia.co.uk due to high demand. PlastikMedia now publishes all the latest news in the industry and from PlastikCity Partners.

As the media and marketing branch of the business, PlastikMedia is also home to the company’s specialist marketing solutions. Services offered include email marketing, SEO, webinars, press releases writing, account-based marketing, and more.

Communications Director, Jess Clarke, explained:

“We only offer these marketing services to companies within the plastics industry, as this is where our expertise lies. We know the ins and outs of the processes, products, and target markets, which is invaluable to busy professionals – we have the knowledge and ability to take care of marketing their company, allowing them to get on with their job.

“This USP has meant that PlastikMedia has played a huge role in the growth of PlastikCity as a whole – whether it be us promoting PlastikCity Partners through our news publication, or through additional tailored marketing packages. We are now privileged to work with some of top companies within this industry, which sometimes causes ‘pinch me’ moments.”More exciting innovations are being planned by PlastikCity as we speak; this includes the PlastikCity Community, which will be launched within the next couple of months.

The PlastikCity team have planned several celebrations this year to honour this momentous occasion, the first of which took place in the summer. Carl hosted a barbeque for the team at PlastikCity HQ in Leicestershire. The whole team will also be attending this year’s glamorous Plastics Industry Awards in London for more celebrations.