With more than 6,000 Dunkin’ Donuts stores out there, Mike Cronan is forever getting calls from franchisees.
“I need an apple crumb,” they say. Or, “I need a Bavarian cream.”
They’re not looking for the actual doughnuts; they’re looking for the little signs that are affixed to the front of the trays of doughnuts, muffins and bagels at each Dunkin’ shop.
And only Cronan, owner of Classic Display Inc. in Pawtucket, has them.
“This is the whole library, right here,’” Cronan says as he thumbs through a few shelves of nameplates that say things like “Sugar stick” and “Everything” and “Queenie’s pick of the day.”
“They are always coming up with new flavors,” Cronan says. “I’ve done these things in Arabic, too.”
Churning out these little signs isn’t the only thing Cronan and his 25 employees do at Classic Display. The company – located in a mill building that it owns on Fountain Street – specializes in custom product displays, display cases and brochure holders.
On one recent day, several employees were busy on the company’s 50,000-square-foot manufacturing floor assembling clear plastic tabletop display cases that rotated and locked. Cronan said they were ordered by a jewelry distributor and were destined for various stores around the country.
Elsewhere in the factory sat a full-length rotating display that will eventually contain inspirational jewelry – a big niche for Classic Display. “The way the economy is, a lot people are looking for inspiration,” he says.
Cronan is open about the economy’s effects on his business.
Sales are off 50 percent year over year, although he notes that 2007 was a banner year for Classic, with about $2 million in sales.
“Then in December, orders just fell off the table,” Cronan says.
Calls from Dunkin’ Donuts franchisees aside, Classic typically deals with product manufacturers and distributors, not the retailers themselves. But he has been hearing reports that the stores are telling distributors to hold back on deliveries in light of the economic uncertainty.
That, in turn, is hurting orders for new displays.
Although he acknowledges that this sudden downturn is unnerving, he has seen them before.
Cronan started his business in 1985 in Attleboro as a screen-printing company – he had worked for a similar company for several years before – because he said he needed a day job so he could play guitar in a band at night. Somewhere in the early 1990s, he added display manufacturing to the company’s repertoire.
By 2000, the company needed more room and leased part of a mill building overlooking the Blackstone River. When that building was sold and converted to condos, Cronan decided to buy the mill on Fountain Street, near Tolman High School. Classic also rents space to other tenants.
Now the company can complete custom orders ranging from 25 units to 500 units made of plastic, wood, metal or cardboard. Classic even produced 10,000 brochure holders for a national book publisher.
And Cronan has maintained his original line of business: screen printing. In a corner of the factory floor one recent day, presses turned out polo shirts with a business’ logo on them.
As late as last fall, things were chugging along at Classic. “It was so busy at the time, it was difficult to take on new business,” he says.
It’s a bit different these days. While there is still lots of activity in the mill building, Cronan is searching for ways to expand his lines of business. He’s optimistic that the orders will return in greater numbers when the economy recovers. After all, he says, the company offers quality products at a good price.
In the meantime, Classic has the market for inspirational products to rely on, among other things.
He shows a visitor a cardboard display that will probably end up in a Christian bookstore. The display is made to look like a brick wall with religious phrases spray-painted on it. “Spiritual graffiti,” it says on top of the display.
In one bit of good news, Cronan explains, cheap plastic displays constructed in China haven’t been able to knock him out of business because of the cost of shipping the displays to the U.S.
Many of the plastic cases are unwieldy and take up a lot of space on a container ship, making them expensive to transport long distances. “The Chinese haven’t figured out how to ship air inexpensively yet,” Cronan says. “And that has saved me.” •
COMPANY PROFILE
Classic Display Inc.
Owner: Mike Cronan
Type of Business: Product display designer and manufacturer
Location: 80 Fountain St., Pawtucket
Year Founded: 1985
Employees: 25
Annual Sales: $2 million in 2008
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