It couldn't be prevented any longer. We are broke. For 23 years we owned a print shop. We started small and were able to grow nicely. But the internet increasingly found its way into everyday life. Our sales slowly kept shrinking. On top of that came the heavy competition from online companies. We couldn't compete on prices. Flyers were being offered at a price that is completely unprofitable for us. We were increasingly caught in a bind and today we face: bankruptcy sale.

Everything is up for sale. Our business premises and our home go under the hammer in the bankruptcy sale. One last hope remains: that nobody wants to buy. Where there is no buyer, there is no sale. Then nothing would happen for the time being and we could stay in our house. Since we live in the country, we hope we can stay here for a while longer.

It's the last resort: bankruptcy sale

When there is no way out, everyone eventually faces a bankruptcy sale. Everything is then turned into cash so that the creditors can be satisfied. We have no cash available. Orders collapsed sharply step by step. We don't live in a big city and that was presumably our undoing in the end.

Our larger customers started to cut costs or relied more on online and gave up advertising for the mailbox. There are also newsletters, which have largely replaced flyers. On top of that, more and more mailboxes were fitted with a sticker: "No advertising, please".

Print media, apart from newspapers and magazines, are dying out more and more:

  • fewer flyers
  • fewer advertising stickers
  • more online advertising with banners

The trend can't be stopped. We couldn't lure our local customers back with special offers either. Companies' cost-cutting grew year after year. Even our very good contacts were no longer of any use.

What comes after the bankruptcy sale?

Right now we don't know how to go on. Our hands are very much tied. We have thought about having our daughter start a company and going into online sales. What still holds us back is that she would ultimately be fully liable. What if something went wrong? She is only 19 years old. But for now we have no way out and are still hoping for a miracle.

That one day we will get up and the whole nightmare will be over. It was just a bad dream. But there is no hope of that. It is more likely that no buyer will be found any time soon.