Profile
Lynka Promotional Solutions
Pioneer on the Polish market
Polish-American know-how: Lynka is one of the pioneers on the Polish promotional textile market.
W hen John Lynch received his first or-
der for imprinted T-shirts in 1993,
there wasn’t even a word for “promotion-
al textiles” in Poland. Even today the US
American describes the call from a brew-
ery from the North of the country to his
office in Krakow as destiny-making, since it
more or less laid the foundation for the pro-
motional products industry in the Eastern
European country. “In the post-communist
countries, most of the firms were former-
ly state-run companies, which didn’t even
have their own logo, and certainly didn’t
have the need to advertise their products.
Marketing was quite simply superfluous in
communist regimes, especially the imple-
mentation of promotional products,“ recalls
Lynch today. The corresponding structures
were not available to procure or customise
promotional products.
Up until the day he received that all im-
portant call, John Lynch and his tiny com-
pany had concentrated their efforts on
procuring and imprinting T-shirts for the
souvenir distributors of the arousing Polish
tourist business. Until then this was easily
manageable supported by six people and a
hand press – until that brewery rang to say
they needed 4,000 T-shirts imprinted with
their logo. A major problem: At that point of
time there wasn’t a single T-shirt manufac-
turer in Poland. Lynch telephoned all over
Europe and found someone in the Nether-
lands who was able to provide him with the
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desired number of garments at such short
notice. However, since nobody wanted to
give a Polish company credit at the time,
Lynch hired a delivery van, drove 14 hours
to Amsterdam, loaded up the shirts and
paid the 5,000 Dollars in cash. It took him
two days to finalise the customs formalities
and then he drove the goods back to Po-
land. Where they were then imprinted day
and night on the small hand press. Lynch
had to recruit students from Krakow Uni-
versity to help him, otherwise he would
never have been able to finish the work on
time. The order was completed and proved
to be a huge success: Two weeks later a fol-
low-up order for 5,000 shirts was placed.
Lynch, who had quickly realised that he
could earn more money in a month with
such orders than he had done previously
within six months, jumped into his van and
drove back to Amsterdam.
Setting up structures
These initial wild years of the promotional
textile business are now a thing of the past
– something which can also be put down
to the merit of Lynch and his company Lyn-
ka Promotional Solutions. Lynch is a mar-
keting professional through and through,
who took a degree at one of the most fa-
mous universities in the USA for economics.
“At the start it was an absolute advantage
for Lynka in Poland that I am American. It
was the quality seal and almost like a blank
cheque,“ Lynch said looking back to the
days when the reputation of Polish compa-
nies and products wasn’t exactly the best.
Lynka’s initial marketing strategy was to
sell to foreign companies, predominantly to
German and US companies with subsidiar-
ies in Poland. Their marketing concept was
better defined than that of the Polish com-
panies.
Lynka set up procurement and sales
structures and played a large role in open-
ing up the Polish market for promotional
products. The company has expanded from
being a 6-man business with premises cov-
ering 70 m² into a concern employing 120
people, who work in 3 shifts at the com-
pany’s own premises stretching over 3,200
m² in the South of Krakow. Lynka is a tex-
tile wholesaler whose portfolio includes the
large brands of the promotional textiles
branch: Fruit of the Loom, B&C, Russell,
Kariban, etc. Lynka is allegedly the largest
textile wholesaler in Central Eastern Euro-
pean.
However, Lynka’s real expertise is the im-
printing business: Hardly a single garment
leaves the warehouse without a personali-
sation. The Polish company has won more
than 40 international awards in Europe and
the USA over the past ten years for textile
decoration – “more than any other Euro-
pean company,“ states Lynch. Lynka dis-
poses of machines for screen-print, offset
printing, pad printing and embroidery. One
Profile

This is the core of the company: Lynka’s strengths in-

clude a well-functioning sales department and the tar-
John Lynch is the mastermind behind Lynka. geted acquisal of new customers.

of Lynka’s specialities is the application of
several customising techniques on one gar-
ment, as well as imprinting difficult parts of
the clothes such as the sleeves or the inside
of the collars.
One-stop shop
Lynka’s philosophy: One-stop shop. “We
want to take care of everything for the cus-
tomer, from the procurement of the tex-
tiles, the imprinting, packaging, dispatch,
through to the customs formalities, etc.,“
explains Lynch. Lynch orientates himself on
the US market in this respect: “There the
one-stop shop service is taken for granted,
whereas in Europe it is only taking on very
slowly.“ In the meantime Lynka doesn’t just
limit this service approach to textiles: The
Polish company also introduced other pro-
motional products to its assortment in 1999
(they are partly purchased from large im-
porters and partly directly from Asia), which
meanwhile make up 50% of the turnover.
Since Poland became a member of the EU
in 2004, Lynka’s export business has ex-
panded enormously: The company now
delivers products to 20 different countries.
“Our most important markets are Germany,
Austria, Scandinavia and Benelux,“ com-
ments Malgorzata Migacz, Export Manag-
er at Lynka. In the meantime 35% of the
company’s turnover is generated outside of
Poland. Whereas Lynka presents itself as a
promotional products distributor within Po-
land due to the historical development of
the company, selling products directly to
the industry, the Krakow company acts as
a supplier on an international level, where-
by products are exclusively exported via the
promotional products trade channels. Never-
theless, Lynka also delivers to distributors
within Poland: Via its own brand Avalon.
Custom-made designs are however not
part of John Lynch’s business philosophy.
“We don’t want to keep our customers
waiting with long development phases. We
have 27 different T-shirt cuts, how many
more can be invented?“ he asks rhetori-
cally. “The promotional textile manufactur-
ers’ offer has changed and is much more
oriented on current fashions today. The big

The textiles are individualised and subjected to strict quality controls in the large, light-filled factory hall.

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 Colours galore!

textile companies keep on bringing out new collections. So we have

a fitting solution for 90% of all customer requirements. Our offer
allows us to deliver the goods to our customers more efficiently and
follow-up orders can be processed much faster,“ is how he under-
lines the advantages of his philosophy.

The future: Polish companies

The concept works well for Lynka: Today the company is the largest
provider of promotional products in Poland. Lynch also sees growth
potential here for the future: “The Polish companies have in the
meantime also recognised how important marketing is and are im-
plementing promotional products more and more. Our business with
small and middle-sized companies is constantly increasing, we are
now profiting from the structures that we have created, and from
the educational work we have performed on the Polish market for
years.“ As well as carrying out pioneer work in establishing prod-
ucts (polo shirts were simply not available in Poland up until 15 years
ago) and in the environmental protection sector, ensuring high busi-
ness and labour-ethical standards, vis-à-vis their own employees as
well as their customers. This is not a matter of course in Poland even
if the country is an EU member: Bribery is still very much on the daily
agenda in the world of business and makes life incredibly difficult for
many foreign companies. Nevertheless, one only hears positive com-
ments about the EU from Lynch: “We have profited immensely from
the EU funding and were able to finance training for our employees
for instance as a result.“ BM

Lynka has won over 40 international awards for its printing quality.
photos: Brit München © WA Publishing

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