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How big is this market?
Perhaps this is one for the suppliers out there to answer but a couple of things have come to my attention this last few weeks that make me question how the signs market is developing?
Here on the Sign group several times a week someone new posts an enquiry with the intention of purchasing a simple plotter and entering the signmaking business. Nothing wrong with that, it’s how I started but on visiting my daughters school this week I was intrigued to see a small cutter in use producing stuff for special projects and no doubt the schools own signage! The local college is also using it’s art students to produce event Banners again using a basic plotter. Can the marketplace sustain this sort of bottom end growth, is it a realistic boom or is it just that I’m better informed as a regular visitor to the Sign group?
I can draw on Mike the Signs words of wisdom, roughly translated, ‘make the design good and get well paid for it’ but it does seem that the entry level costs are so low these days that anyone can and will have a go at the signs business. (:)
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17 Replies
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I guess its not about what you have, but how you use it.
Anybody can buy the basic tools for cutting vinyl, as can anybody “design” logos with a PC. You can try and establish a business by being cheap, or working out of a shoebox, or you can attempt to build a business with a name for good quality work design and service, the latter takes a longer time to achieve but pays off in the end.
I think we have the same thing happening here, there are 255 sign companies in Stockholm. Cutting vinyl is a small part of what alot of us do, I have always tried to offer more than my competitors, and be as proffessional as I can.
I guess you have to see what your own market is, and try and make a niche for yourself, so that you are noticed more than the competition.
Traditional signwriters often feel that the plotter/computer signmaking of today has destroyed a proffessional skill that was learnt over years in the trade. Its no so much about the medium you use but how you use it.
Buy a bag of carpenters tools and you don’t become a chippy overnight.
You see a good few people here turning out some cracking work, its these that will win through in the end. We all live and learn, I think we should help each other to produce great work to maintain the difference between the “hobby signmaker” and a professional shop.
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Here Here Henry Point well made
To the up and coming competition
Come and have a go if you think your good enough.Over the last 14 years they have come and gone more will come and more will go it’s not just about buying a plotter or a franchise.
It’s about being good enough to run a good business.
I welcome good healthy competion it motivates me to improve and be better and stay one step ahead. I remember when A Signarama opened a few years ago people were asking me how are you going to cope with the impact on my business? you can buy into a burger franchise and within 3 months with training make burgers as good as anyone else but If you buy a plotter or invest in a sign franchise its going to take years to develop your sign skills and gain the experience to rival someone who’s been around for 5 or more years who is still learning and improving.
Don’t get me wrong anyone who is just starting out the best of luck but remember it’s the survival of the fittest.
Neil…………
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There are no end of sign companies that still think doing a ‘design’ is using Brush Script instead of Helvetica.
And I love it when a customer turns you down for being ‘too expensive’ and then you see their vehicle driving round a few months later with an absolute travesty of a livery on it – usually cut in Happy Shopper vinyl that’s already shrinking or faded.
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I agree guys..
About 5 years ago, I was told of a few plotter manufacturers were thinking ahead of the others.
Basically what their aim was to introduce entry-level desktop cutters. These cutters will be minimal width, power etc and cost only about 3-400 pounds!
Why? Well.. Skip the sign trade and look at the printing..
Not so long ago we had a booming market for printing.. Business card, letterheads, you name it printers printed it. Then the pc comes about and now everyone and their aunties are making b-cards, letterheads and now t-shirts and more!!! All from home & why not. Saves them cash..
Every 3rd house has its on pc and printer.. But does it make printing a dying game?
I don’t think so. Yes the small corner printing shop is affected in some ways but the real printers, the ones good at their job and can produce the quality that the guy sitting at home can’t. They will stay in business with their head well above the water.
The same scenario is happening with lots of trades, but like you said.. If you’re not in it, then you probably not even notice…Martin, when our company started we paid just over 20 thousand pounds for a 13 inch wide spandex 4b cutter that would take about 15 seconds to cut a letter s 12 inch high.. 😡
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I agree with everything that’s been said so far. I started out about two and a half years ago. As green as green can be. Yeah I got my plotter nothing too cheap though about $3000 bucks worth, my computer and away i went.
It’s been the steepest learning curve I’ve ever been on but by far the most satisfying. I’ve tried stuff that I have had no idea how to do, such as 1.2 x1.1m foam letters. I’ve had to go and get an elevated work platform ticket so I can hire and operate cherry pickers and scissor lifts.
I’ve had to buy equipment as I went and my family has had to suffer for this. I’ve learn’t a wealth of information here that helps me every day. I’m lucky, Jenny’s a designer who helps me with my layouts to an extent.
It’s been the hardest time for my family financially the past couple of years and now it’s just starting to change. I’m getting repeat business from existing clients, we’re offering printing to those clients, window tinting and anything else I can offer to make them happy.
Buying a plotter and corel isn’t going to affect your business too much I think. It certainly hasn’t been all roses here.
The great thing you guys have in the UK is people. Our population here is 1.2 million people in Western Australia in an area that’s many times the size of the UK. I’d love to have a crack at your population.
I’ll stop blabbering now…
Lee
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I gave my start-up story on another thread, the franchise one if I remember correctly, so I won’t bore you all with it again.
The low cost start-ups don’t worry me personally as they are not going to take away my big corporate clients overnight, and not ever if they aren’t any good, but they will take the one man and his van type business and that is where a lot of you make your living.
These people WILL affect you. In the long term they will be gone but in the meantime they are taking your business. It may provide some satisfaction to look at one of their poor jobs and have a laugh but it is still one customer that you have lost.
And don’t forget that although these people may not last for very long, once they have gone there will be others coming in to replace them in a constant cycle.
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Personally I have no fears about the competition as there’s a big difference between being able to do something and being able to sell it. Whether your sales be achieved by better design, better service or better contacts, as you say, a graphic designer armed with a plotter still has a potential mountain to climb.
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Martin…
Can’t totally agree with you there. Our local electrician bought himself a cheap computer and cutter. We have not done an electricians van from that day to this, and many of the other tradesmen like plumbers and carpenters, that he meets on-site have disappeared as well. He doesn’t need to be able to sell because these are people who know him and will buy from him anyway.
It’s all lost business.
About twenty years ago, with the advent of the Gerber Graphix 4b at about £20k a pop, this industry was a licence to print money. The margins were phenomenal and the first people in made a fortune. As the price of admission has dropped so have the margins deteriorated.
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I was talking personally John. I’m first and foremost a Salesman, but have yet to need to get out there and sell. That’s what I mean by having no fears about whatever anyone else is doing at the moment.
When this electrician has exhausted his contacts will he have what it takes to keep going?
Out of interest are you just assuming that he’s picking up all the work?
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Martin…
This lad is, for the moment, only doing it as a sideline. He still earns his main income from being an electrician. When, and if, the day comes when he decides that he can make more money from signage, or if he just prefers the work, then he will no doubt go full time.
He is getting the work and taking it from other full time sign makers in the area. We have no problems with each other and get on quite well as we are not after the same customers. He still does our electrical work and we help him out with advice and other things. He is quite open and tells me whose vehicles he has done. To be absolutely fair, he has done some nice work and when we can’t do a job, or if it’s not our type of work we will often send them to him. He also lent us his wife for three weeks to do some weeding and taping when we were exceptionally busy. 😀
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that you do not need to be a salesman to start in this business. This electrician isn’t, but he now has a base, albeit small, from which to grow if that’s the direction he wishes to take.
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I lost a few customers from time to time as we all do but how many times have you lost a customer because you couldn’t do the job quick enough for him. He wants it yesterday and expects you to drop everything. You can’t do it because of the workload so he goes off to a sherbert down the road.
On one occasion I simply didn’t have the time to go and do an advertising hoarding. My customer went elswhere.
I went past the sign hoarding when it was completed and couldn’t believe my eyes. It was absolutely awful in its layout. They simply did’nt have a clue about layout and design. then one week a whole 3mm foamex panel came off the hoarding smashing to bits on the ground.
A few weeks later another panel came crashing down.About a month later I get a call. Guess who from? I told them I could do it but that they would have to wait a short while.
This time they waited!
Yes they can be a threat but sometimes it can be a lesson to the customer
If we can produce eye catching and stimulating signs like ‘Mike the sign’ then I think we will be creaming the market a little bit more.
Then we can leave the time wasters to those can afford to waste time with them.
John
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There will always be a market for good quality, not just in the the design but the approch to creating the sign, educating the customer that you are the professional so heed what i say and finally the fitment. Because a sign that looks good and stands the test of time will always bring work to your door.
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Ah well, I was going to be one of those small start up compaines, but I think Ive changed my mind.
I think I will go and get a McDonalds franchise instead.
– now where did I leave that spare £150,000.00.
Rhys 😉
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When technolgy matures and the barriers to entry drop , more and more climb on the bandwagon , yet to realise that they are being sold tools that promise the earth into an already saturated market , like companys that are selling vinyl cutters (Like roland with their stika) on a “make $300 a day in your spare time” basis.
Yes , it is true , buying a sewing machine does not make you Coco Chanel but signage has changed in respect of that one no longer has to be a craftsmans with ones hands to excell.
Today one has to be creative have vsion , know a million materials AND be supremely technically geeky as well as being a financial whizz to do well , difficult to find these days , folks that use both sides of the brain equally as well.
One also has to invest a lot more to adequately service a market , a 300 mm wide cutter is very limiting in a lot of respects and a serious machine is still not cheap as is the package to run it well and the computer it is attached to.It is also really hard to break into an established market without a portfolio or a decent set of samples , if the startup guy with a plotter can make inroads , the area they started up in is obviously not overtraded.
The problem is that the startups are lean and hungry and actively promote and aggressively cut pricing to get market share , this is difficult to fight and despite ones delivery , service etc , they do start nibbling painfully at your heels and WILL take some business away. Often their pricing structures mess up the market long after they have gone.But having said that , I do believe the days of simple vinyl letter cutting as a mainstream signage application are numbered. Digtal print and cut machines can do more and as cost effectively
Lasers can cut anything , including vinyl , formicas and a whole lot of other substrates to replace vinyl. Im sure most of us here do more than cut out letters on car windows , it is a combination of skills and procedures and other techniques using a cutter as a mere helping tool that makes for a good sign.
Customers demand more than just letters in fancy fonts. The signmaker must offer a whole solution , from design to rigging and often the signage one is required to design has a lot to do with advertising and impact , not just cut and stick.
When all and sundry can afford to and are entering what was once a specialist market , I think it’s maybe time to worry and diversify. -
After 24 years in the Navy I or we bought this business (three years ago) from an old couple and we didn’t have a clue! (we hadn’t even seen a vinly letter close up let alone make one) Unknown to us they had a bad reputation. Although they could produce signs, customers were never given a choice and very often spelling mistakes etc.etc. went out of the workshop often with a refusal to change it.
The plotters (2) were 4b’s. We struggled for about 2 months with these but it was the joining and being so limited that got us down. It really does spoil a good design.
So we retired them under the bench where they lay even now and bought a 610 machine.
Now we wish we’d gone straight for a print and cut but we learn every day.
We have maintained a slow but steady growth and have taken our son on this month.
We still class ourselves as very green and in many ways could be classed as a start up. We do chase work but not national contracts. Nice but not yet!
As the world of signs constantly changes the larger signmakers will always be able (or should) to stay one or two steps ahead and feed off the bigger orders leaving us to get the fall off. That’s how companies grow.
I was one of those people who bought a hot foil printing machine many years ago on which I used to print souvenirs for the ships etc on. (Earned quite a bit of pocket money!!)
This has now been brought out of retirement and into the business for key fobs etc for our existing customers who we have developed logos and artwork for.
A secondary income for one design 😆Keith
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Hi Martin
Dug up your post from July. Interesting stuff. Maybe a way to guess at the size is to ask some other questions and perhaps ‘guestimate’ from the answers. Maybe some machine suppliers will offer some info:How many plotters or printers or whatever have suppliers sold in 2002?
Let’s see if anyone’s interested.
My history in the industry starts with Screen Printing, small time as everyone. Over the years it was a constant wonder where all the vinyl label work went! – To the printers in the sign trade of course. It was damn annoying at the time – but I think it’s called progress. UK is also a different work society – similar to Japan. Lots of little guy’s (scuse the pun) supplying bigger guy’s. In other words a lot of ‘self employed’ Problem is that the word ‘profit’ is only used by big boys – the little guys compete with each other to earn a living!Lets see if anyone’s interested in ‘How Big’
Regards Dave Standen -
i agree totally with all you comments, i don’t know how cut throat the business is in your area, but up here the the north east it’s mad!!
i moved out of the city to the country, workshop 20 yards from house, great for doing all the odd hours, and no one to bother you.
In the city it was so competitive, and the customer was getting absolute rubbish, (one so called sign maker, was actually a builder) they put the joy of doing our job, down the drain. i also had nine staff and overheads (nightmare always chasing work).Now life is better than ever, if a customer does not like the price i do not haggle, i just say if you want a cheaper job then go else where, You only get what you pay for. there is only myself and partner now (future hubby to be) no staff, work is now enjoyable!!! and i am making more money!!
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