Retail store looking for ongoing in house solution

[Alan Drury]

I reckon one of the new Roland 20" printer cutters or a second user Versa cam would suit. What sort of money are you intending to spend?
Alan D

[Ross Jones]

Hi Alan – thanks for the reply.

Budget wise I’d say we would be looking somewhere £1500 – £2500 – although could be advised above or below!

thanks.

[David Hammond]

How much money will this save?
And how long before you see any real return on your investment?

How many posters do you print per month?

I produce outdoor posters on a stiff PVC, they can be stapled, nailed, pinned to a anything, the inks are waterproof, and will easily last a year.

If you have designers in house and can supply print ready files the printing of some posters, or banners shouldn’t be overly expensive. Especially if it was a reasonable order.

Is your price just for the machinery, or have you accounted for materials, training, maintenance?

You must be knocking out a hell of a lot of print if this is going to be worth while?

[Ross Jones]

Hi David,

I completely understand what you are saying and yes there is an element of naivety when I posted that budget, i guess thats initial outlay with little thought about ongoing upkeep and colours etc.

Currently the volume of work it would do may not justify the price but I suppose the key factor really is convenience and speed of printing.
We want the store to be self sufficient and not have to go through the process of requesting a new sign, having it designed, getting a quote from a printer, ordering it up then waiting for delivery each time. A lot of times these are quick and snappy price changes or offers – things that might be changed on say 50 or so products once a week and maybe last just a couple of days to a couple of weeks – its so nice to be able to do that in house in one process – no messing about.

To be honest we are almost there with the old good quality laser printer and laminating – but it just isn’t quite good enough – if there was a next step up solution, print to even A3 from our desktop PC just with waterproof ink on a very thin PVC rather than paper then even that would work out for us!

[David Hammond]

My personal view is this.

I assume all of the posters will be very similar. ie: Same layout, colours, theme. Things that will probably change for each poster is: Image, Price and little bit of text.

Provided the image supplied is good enough then it’s not a problem, account for the time taken to copy the text, place the image and press print. Each poster ‘should’ cost the same regardless. Next day delivery is available by most carriers, and if you’re ordering several posters in one order then it will save there.

Same with a sign – If it was regular then I would have the materials in stock, cut to size. Same principle change the content keep the layout, fixed price.

OK you don’t want all the posters the same layout/theme – Design it in house e-mail over, printed and shipped out for next day delivery.

To me it makes no difference what is printed on a poster/sign/banner so long as it is within the capabilities of my machine I charge a fixed price. I print at 1600mm widths so I am bette suited to running larger quantities.

You can get posters printed cheap as chips, but might not last long, delivery may be late. Or pay that little bit more, have someone who knows your company, how you work, what you expect, and build a working relationship.

All of the above will speed up print and production times, and bring down costs. As a printer that would be my preference- Client though, they usually want everything different.

[John Harding]

Hi Ross

Well your decisions are in my opinion simple either

1 Talk to some local signmakers and get the best deal you can on delivery turn around and if you commit to a decent spend price should be competitive.

2 spend sensible money to achieve what you need in house and already said a 20" roland or second user versacamm is the minimum really but once you factor in all the sundry items and the learning curve to produce I think you would need to outlay minimum 10k plus an annual salary for a sign dedicated worker involved in design then print and finally producing the signage

There’s no real in between

John 😀

[David Hammond]

Thanks John – That’s what I was trying to say – You’ve summed it up in 7 lines :lol1:

[Peter Dee]

Have you asked the professionals who do your main signage?

[Ian Johnston]

was going to write a long winded post , but decide to just copy and paste what’s on the top of the FORUM PAGE

uksignboards.com
“created by sign makers for sign makers”

With respect, as professionals we dont ask were you get your stuff when we go into your shop, so that you can get a living,

let us get one too!!

Ian

[David Rowland]

Where’s the like button Ian

[Peter Dee]

Quite so Ian. That’s why I posed the question "have you asked the professionals who do your existing main signage"? I can imagine the answer would be less polite than the responses here.

[David Hammond]

Whilst I agree with what Ian has said, are we better to educate that condemn?

We as professionals know that they are either printing many posters a month, or simply paying to much. Also that what we do isn’t a case of pressing a button and out pops a lovely finished print.

I would spend my time looking for an alternative supplier rather than a new printer. Listen to what the suppliers say, take on board their advice, most of us will give advice to get the job, not to get more money from customers.

[Ross Jones]

Thanks John, David, Peter and Ian,

The last thing I intended was to offend anyone so apologies if that is the feeling I have caused – would never sign up to someones forum and try and stir up trouble, or intend to show any dis-respect etc.

I appreciate the sign-writing trade is an art form and tip my hat to all of you for the stellar work you are doing.

I have indeed asked the existing contact this very question – we get on well, he wasn’t angry or offended thankfully. He is a small owner operator and specialises mainly in large 3d acrylic shop front signage, big projects for supermarkets etc and anything such as banners or vinyl lettering is done as and when he finds time. Whilst he was happy to advise or suggest for what type of things I could look for his expertise in these areas, as he himself admitted, wasn’t his strong point, which lead me here.

I think the key point, and perhaps I didn’t sell this very well, is that I’m not trying to take this business away from anyone. We do all the pricing signage in house ourselves anyway, so nothing would change – it is just a case of creating something that can be printed on a more durable material that will last well and be waterproof outdoors. I guess I was hoping there was a simple solution I had missed, you know someone might have come on and said that for what I was after I could purchase a simple a3 colour laser printer and print of onto thin pvc type paper and this should suffice etc.

Appreciate the feedback so far and again apologies if I have offended anyone.

Thanks

[Alan Drury]

Reading you budget I would agree with the other comments here and go and outsource it with print ready files. I’m a full time professional signmaker and although I do vinyl in house even I outsource my digital work.
Alan D

[David Hammond]

I doubt you will find a PVC that can printed to using a Laser. But I could be wrong.

It sounds like your supplier ‘has bigger fish to fry’, and you’re more of ‘as well as’ client.

Myself, I target smaller multi branch businesses, as that is what I am equipped for, and can handle with relative ease.

I am sure if you searched hard enough you will find a willing supplier not to far away. 😉

[Cheryl Smith]

If you are looking for a professional job…where are you located….I could do it for you.
If you are not local to me…Id shop round decent signmakers until you find one who will suit your timescales and requirements….

[Martin Pearson]

Problem is Ross that the next step you refereed to is actually quite a leap. The step up from desktop inkjets & lasers to an eco solvent machine or full solvent machine is not only a large initial outlay on equipment but also in ongoing costs like maintenance contracts etc.

To give you a better idea I was a full time signmaker and couldn’t justify the expense of a large format printer suitable for the work I was doing. On top of the initial price of a machine I would have had to find somewhere between 2-4K a year for a maintenance contract for the machine.
The machines really need to be running all the time and don’t suit sitting around waiting for someone to need something printing the same way a desktop machine does. The inks dry up and clog the heads which normally means a replacement head. Some of the newer machines now have a maintenance cycle to help prevent this but that wastes ink so your paying for it even when not printing anything.
I use to buy any digital print I needed in from a trade supplier, just send them the print ready file and they would print and send back to me. If the volume of digital work had kept growing I would have reached a point where it was worth the expense of bringing it inhouse but I never reached that stage.

[David Hammond]

I’m not a million miles away, and would certainly discuss some options with you.

I am sure it’s against board rules to add contact details but I’m sure you can find my contact details online… 🙂

[John Harding]

Well Ross is in Leeds so David although not in his backyard is a lot closer than you cheryl 😀 by about 350 miles 😀 😀

And yes I agree with David, this is an open forum where non signmakers and would be signmakers can come on and discuss stuff so we should be honest and open in the answers we give.

In this case its not the easy answer Ross was hoping for but maybe will give him a heads up in the way forward 😀

John

[Ross Jones]

Thanks for all the feedback Alan and Martin.

I’m going to accept the general consensus that the next step up is to actually pay someone else to do it and that i just need to find a better, quicker and more interested someone else to do that.

Thanks for the interest David and Cheryl, I may well be in touch!

Regards
Ross

[Chris Wool]

hello ross

you can get waterproof sheets of film for lasers and laser print is waterproof anyway will just fade fairly quickly if not laminated.

you could use overhead projector film and back with cheap white vinyl or pink if you fancy.

ps i have a A3+ laser for sale just thought i would mention that in passing 😉