can anyone help with setting up vinyl skin business?

[David-Foster-]

Hi Helen

Are you looking to be similar to http://www.decalgirl.com?

I think you will struggle with a limited budget but as the skins will be small you could manage with an A4 or A3 printer with a CSS ink supply and a Cutter with OPOS registration mark system.

A combined printer and cutter will be expensive. More experienced people on here will be able to help, just throwing in my limited knowledge.

Don’t worry about coloured vinyl. You will just be printing on white digital stuff.

Good luck with your venture. I know what it is like to start working from home coping with an illness.

Edit: Just a thought, you will need templates for all the gadgets you want to do skins for. Looking at the kindle it has a full keyboard to cut out.

[Helen Butcher]

Hi
Thanks for your response.
Decalgirl offers the products I would like to but it will be many a year before I reach their scale!!

Can I just use any printer to print on vinyl? set up the CISS and buy a roll feed?

Templates – yes I will have to spend many hours creating them but will start with the easy ones first – laptops. I doubt very much if I will be able to buy templates.

Will now go and look up what the OPOS registration mark system is 😮

Lots to learn.
Helen

[Chris Wool]

need to buy a few and pull them to bits to see what they are made of etc.
interesting use of wrap films i would imagine that its a solvent print on to a wrap vinyl with thin overlaminate. a machine that would do that is the new baby roland with the added bonus of a metallic type ink, i can’t imagine a suitable material for cheap desk top type printer.
the baby roland does print a suitable quality but a bit slow.
the biggest problems are cost of the machine, designs and template creation. after that its take the orders + dosh and print away
😉

[David Rowland]

i would do it if it wasn’t for the fact of artworks, i mean i am PC gamer and I have skinned my own machine with a Call Of Duty MW skin but I can’t sell it really as i dont own the rights to the artwork.

[Martin Pearson]

Would need to look at the products in a bit more detail but if they are printing onto a wrap film then your start up costs are going to be pretty high. What sort of budget are you working on?

Problem is that there are different types of vinyl for doing different jobs, you can’t just go out and buy any old roll.
Same goes to an extent to printers, depending on what vinyl you would need to use will have an effect on what type of printer you use, you can’t just go out and buy any old printer.

Other thing I would ask is what makes you think you would be able to do this for a living, sorry you said that ill health has stopped you doing some types of work but obviously didn’t say what sort of illness you had. Not being nosey and asking what’s wrong with you because that’s your business but it obviously will be a factor to consider.

I’m not trying to be negative at all but I would hate to see someone spend what money they have and find out they have wasted it for one reason or another.

[Gavin MacMillan]

These are brilliant, is there anyone in the UK doing similar?

G

[David-Foster-]

Gavin, I think you can get them delivered to UK. Another Company…

http://www.gelaskins.com/store/tablets_and_ereaders/Kindle_3/collection/Most_Popular

Helen, as Dave says, unless you are an artist creating your own designs, you are going to have a problem with copyright.

[Helen Butcher]

Hi

quote :

i would do it if it wasn’t for the fact of artworks, i mean i am PC gamer and I have skinned my own machine with a Call Of Duty MW skin but I can’t sell it really as i dont own the rights to the artwork.

Dave designing the skins is one of the things I am looking forward to! I have a creative mind and love photography and design – I am not so good at painting and drawing but designing using software is right up my street – I can actually create the designs I envisage without my lack of skill letting me down!

quote :

quote :

Other thing I would ask is what makes you think you would be able to do this for a living, sorry you said that ill health has stopped you doing some types of work but obviously didn’t say what sort of illness you had. Not being nosey and asking what’s wrong with you because that’s your business but it obviously will be a factor to consider.

Martin – thanks for your concern. Having worked for myself for the last 19 years one of the reasons I chose this form of work for my future income is because I know I can cope with it. If it were to get really big then I would have to employ staff – but suspect that’s a long way off.

quote :

These are brilliant, is there anyone in the UK doing similar?

Gavin there are a few in UK doing it and you can also import from USA, China & Hongkong and some also offer dropshipping.

If I can’t afford to set up my own printing process then I will start by using one of these suppliers and build up from there. If I do set up myself I have considered offering a dropship service myself – but would need to be able to offer good range of devices and designs for me to feel I had a product-range worth offering on a dropship basis.

Now off to buy school uniform for kids then back to do some more research!

Thank you all for your help.

Helen

[Phill Fenton]

I would start off by designing all your skins yourself and get friendly signmaker to produce these for you. These are fairly small and providing you can do all of the artwork yourself you should be able to negotiate a trade price that would allow you to still be able to add a reasonable mark up and yet still offer these for sale at a competitive price.

This way you would minimise your start up costs and enable you to establish that you would indeed have a market before investing in expensive equipment.

I think it’s a great idea, but you will have to be able to sell a lot of these if you want to have a viable and profitable business.

The design and marketing of your product is the hard part. Producing them is the easy bit

Good luck 😀

[Martin Pearson]

Phill’s post makes a lot of sense. If you concentrate on what you are good at which is the design side you could set up with a lot less outlay and you wouldn’t need a lot of space either, you could also forget about having to learn how to actually manufacture them as well.
If you found a local person then it would be easy to keep in touch with them, pop round for a chat about any problems etc etc. Like Phill says, negotiate a price which will probably be per linear metre, supply the artwork ready for them to print and away you go.
As the business grows if you feel that you have reached a point that it would be more cost effective to bring the printing of the skins in house then you can look at buying equipment by that stage you will probably be earning enough money that paying for a machine won’t be a problem.

[Richard Martin]

quote Phill Fenton:

I would start off by designing all your skins yourself and get friendly signmaker to produce these for you. These are fairly small and providing you can do all of the artwork yourself you should be able to negotiate a trade price that would allow you to still be able to add a reasonable mark up and yet still offer these for sale at a competitive price.

This way you would minimise your start up costs and enable you to establish that you would indeed have a market before investing in expensive equipment.

I think it’s a great idea, but you will have to be able to sell a lot of these if you want to have a viable and profitable business.

The design and marketing of your product is the hard part. Producing them is the easy bit

Good luck 😀

Beat me to it, top advice.

You would have to sell a lot of these before you even see a break even point if you are going to buy the kit to start. Find a local printer have a chat and negotiate a price if you have the artwork ready to go and get a reasonable amount printed at once it would be more viable.

The other thing you have to take into account is the fast turn around of gadget so just keep stock low as whats selling one week will be old hat next week!!

Best of luck

[Neil Speirs]

quote Richard Martin:

quote Phill Fenton:

I would start off by designing all your skins yourself and get friendly signmaker to produce these for you. These are fairly small and providing you can do all of the artwork yourself you should be able to negotiate a trade price that would allow you to still be able to add a reasonable mark up and yet still offer these for sale at a competitive price.

This way you would minimise your start up costs and enable you to establish that you would indeed have a market before investing in expensive equipment.

I think it’s a great idea, but you will have to be able to sell a lot of these if you want to have a viable and profitable business.

The design and marketing of your product is the hard part. Producing them is the easy bit

Good luck 😀

Beat me to it, top advice.

You would have to sell a lot of these before you even see a break even point if you are going to buy the kit to start. Find a local printer have a chat and negotiate a price if you have the artwork ready to go and get a reasonable amount printed at once it would be more viable.

The other thing you have to take into account is the fast turn around of gadget so just keep stock low as whats selling one week will be old hat next week!!

Best of luck

another thing to think about Helen, if it was that easy to produce & make money selling these things, then hundreds of us on here already with the equipment could be making them tomorrow but we don’t 😕

[Helen Butcher]

Hi all

Must admit with all the forum help and advice and trawling the net I think I’ve come to the conclusion that to produce the products the way I want I would need some expensive equipment. If money was no object I think I would be looking at something like a Versacamm SP300 with CISS but I cannot afford new and have only found a few for sale and I can’t afford them either!

So, was thinking of buying a separate printer and cutter – there appears to be some acceptable machines on EBay and around on the net.

But, I have also been thinking that to start off and get a feel of the market share I can actually attract with my limited marketing funds (I am confident these things sell ) I should find a local printer and work with them.

Bit more legwork to be done with my plan methinks.

Helen

[Craig Ross]

Would definitely start by designing some of your own and find a local person who could print them for you. Until you get going as no point spending loads of money on a venture that might not take off.

Good luck! Let us know how you get on.

[Helen Butcher]

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.

Helen

[Martin Pearson]

What do you call an acceptable machine Helen, also any plotter you buy will need to be able to read registration marks for contour cutting after the printing has been done.

[Helen Butcher]

Hi Martin

quote :

acceptable machine Helen, also any plotter you

I would be looking at a solvent printer min 24" wide

I will have to check out registration marks are possible – all 3 of my printers have the ability so hadn’t occured to me something I consider a professional printer wouldn’t have this option.

Helen

[Richard Martin]

I don’t think martin meant the printer needing to align to registration marks more the cutter. You can print what ever registration marks you want but if you cutter doesn’t have the ability to see the registration marks it will be very hard work cutting your print out accurately.

[Helen Butcher]

LOL

quote :

Posted: Sun, 04 Sep 2011 11:27:07 Post subject:
I don’t think martin meant the printer needing to align to registration marks more the cutter

my ignorance showing up!

Helen

[David-Foster-]

you are better off doing your designs and get someone else to print them at first. See you on Dragons Den 🙂

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