GoGoPak
Industry: Advanced Manufacturing
Jobs: 19
Investment: $280,000
PROJECT OVERVIEW:
GoGoPak is an Oakville, ON family owned company specializing in the sale of retail packaging and promotional products. The company has $1-2M in annual sales with services including custom printing solutions on packaging products such as bags, boxes, tissue paper, ribbon, labels, and string tags. In 2018, they were looking to the U.S. for expansion for various reasons. The high employee and power costs in Canada, their high percentage of U.S. sales and raw materials, bridge issues and delays for importing U.S. raw materials and sending orders to U.S. customers were all factors in their consideration of a U.S. facility. GoGoPak was also looking to bring the outsourced manufacturing for both their Canadian and U.S. orders back in house for better control over the product quality.
PROJECT SOLUTION:
Invest Buffalo Niagara assisted the company with cross border due diligence work and identifying a possible building site. We first held a day of meetings in Buffalo Niagara to educate them on cross border due diligence needed to move forward with an U.S. expansion. We covered the topics of tax and accounting strategies, U.S. incorporation, immigration considerations for key employees and owners, U.S. banking, U.S. human resource considerations and more. Once they were comfortable with those items, we assisted with a site search to identify possible building locations based on their specific needs and arranged a day of site tours. The company moved forward with a property and leased over 6,000 sq. ft. in Lockport, NY. This facility will have employees assisting in warehouse distribution, post-printing work, customer service, and marketing.
Today, GoGoPak has moved into their new leased space, stocked their needed inventory, and installed a stamping machine to emboss company logos on custom boxes and bags. More equipment is on its way to start making the boxes in-house to streamline costs and quality for their customers. Additional employees will be added to assist with the various services and products being offered to their U.S. customers.