Small shop getting into wraps?

[gnubler]

Sounds like vehicle wraps are a love/hate thing around this forum. I'm a one person sign shop and contemplating adding full wraps to my skill set and offering it as a service. As far as I know there's no one within 60 miles of me doing wraps, and I get calls asking about wraps about once a week, and turn them down. Some questions/thoughts:

If you added full wraps to your shop services, what led up to that? Market demand? Hiring someone experienced in wraps?

For one person shops, do you hire an installer to handle it, or to work with you?

Any tips on training for beginners? Is it worth it to attend one of the national training workshops and become certified?

For design/layout, is it better to use purchased template files, or take actual photos/measurements of the vehicle in person, or both?

If you don't print in-house, would it be foolish to get into printed wraps? (eg: Screw up a piece and have to wait 2-3 days for a reprint to arrive, meanwhile the vehicle is already halfway wrapped. Also limited choice in materials/brands.)

What's the strangest or most challenging thing you've wrapped? I've been asked about wrapping outdoor utility boxes, boats, truck toppers, and a tow truck. (turned them all down)

I'll probably have more questions...

(and wouldn't you know it, I was halfway through typing this and someone walked in asking about vehicle wraps for a race!)

 

[signheremd]

Definitely worth your time to take a national class. Learning how to wrap will improve your application skills whether you are wrapping something or not.

A color change on a car would start at $2500 - so a full wrap is not cheap - a printed wrap can go several times this amount. 90% of your calls will be from people who have no idea how much labor and expense is involved. So adding this should be about serving your existing clients more so than opening up a new market.

We do jobs mostly for businesses, so we wrap as a part of an advertising package. We do not do color changes - just not what we see in our market.

Biggest tips in application: instead of squeegeeing left and right (90 degrees to the edge of the adhered vinyl) you sort of slice across with low pressure (squeegee on a 45 degree from adhered edge). Don't use heat until the end unless you have stretched the vinyl and need to shrink it back into shape. After the vinyl is laid, post form heat so it retains the new shape (adheres to the vehicle's contours).

You should learn - the class will be money well spent even if it means you decide that it is not for you.

 

[Boudica]

My two cents... Commercial wraps are a large part of what we offer. That said, with a two person crew.. the owner/installer; and a production manager/graphic designer (me), and a contracted professional wrap installer for some of the projects.... It's a process from layout options, pricing, approved layout and cost, production and getting it on the schedule for installation... As a newb, you're inherently unable to schedule that as a one person operation, while dealing with other jobs, that you have been learning. Get your feet wet, sure, why not. Just don't get more business in this area, without being prepared for the onslaught of pita requests.
Vehicle wraps are easy for the experienced... Expensive learning, properly trained or not. Mistakes happen, weather on the production end, or installation, gotta be prepared for needing to reprint something. If you didn't supply the graphics/ vinyl... You best have an experienced professional installer, because you can't fix boo-boos by reprinting.

If I were you, stick to "spot" graphics, move up to partial wraps. Offer full wraps and possibly color change when you have a professional, experienced installer you can hire. So you don't spend weeks on the one job.

 

[caribmike]

I was trained to do wraps among all the other techniques taught at the 3M Professional Installer course I took several years ago. However, I found that designing, printing and installing them was just too time consuming and I could make much more money sticking with signs and banners.

 

[Pauly]

Im just going to give you some general answers. We dont do wraps, but know a few people who do.
I hope this gives you some advice.

Sounds like vehicle wraps are a love/hate thing around this forum. I'm a one person sign shop and contemplating adding full wraps to my skill set and offering it as a service. As far as I know there's no one within 60 miles of me doing wraps, and I get calls asking about wraps about once a week, and turn them down. Some questions/thoughts:

If you added full wraps to your shop services, what led up to that? Market demand? Hiring someone experienced in wraps?

For one person shops, do you hire an installer to handle it, or to work with you?
If you have time to do it yourself, then sure. Otherwise i see plenty of people hiring a subcontractor for full
wraps. get pricing. see what they charge etc.
Any tips on training for beginners? Is it worth it to attend one of the national training workshops and become certified?
100% do a course. Know what you're getting yourself into
For design/layout, is it better to use purchased template files, or take actual photos/measurements of the vehicle in person, or both?
Either Or. A well taken photo with measurements can do the trick, provided the customer brings you the car.
If you don't print in-house, would it be foolish to get into printed wraps? (eg: Screw up a piece and have to wait 2-3 days for a reprint to arrive, meanwhile the vehicle is already halfway wrapped. Also limited choice in materials/brands.)
I would suggest finding a good trade printer with the stocks you want to use. if this is the case. Good ones can turnaround jobs like that in a day.
What's the strangest or most challenging thing you've wrapped? I've been asked about wrapping outdoor utility boxes, boats, truck toppers, and a tow truck. (turned them all down)

I'll probably have more questions...
Do some homework, Get pricing on how much full wraps cost, get pricing on printed vinyl to your specs. get pricing on a subcontractor
(and wouldn't you know it, I was halfway through typing this and someone walked in asking about vehicle wraps for a race!)

 

[Stacey K]

It sounds like you need two people for full wraps which is something I don't have so I just do what I can handle as one person and an occasional helper. If you could get into wraps and get enough of them, you could eliminate a lot of the smaller orders - something that would make ME happy around here LOL

 

[Billct2]

We looked at getting into wraps when they first came around since we do lots of vehicles. I knew a few shops that were into them and worked with them on a few jobs.
But I was reluctant to go full bore and get a new printer/laminator. Kinda glad I did wait now. The best wrap place I knew just about stopped doing them because they couldn't get the money.
So many places started offering them the prices went to hell. We will do commercial wraps on box trucks and did do some color change wraps for regular customers who couldn't get
vehicles in their colors due to the shortages. But these are work vehicles so they are not picking apart evry little detail.
One big problem is the average persons misunderstanding of wraps. We get guys wanting to do a color change wrap thinking its cheap because they see crap film sold on the web.
And for our regular customers who are used to having their vehicle graphics last 5-10 years they don't want to hear about cost being 2 or 3 or 4 times what they are used to and the life expectancy half.
But if you are the sole source in a good area and your customers are willing to pay, and you don't mind the hassles involved in doing it right it could be a good market.

 

[greysquirrel]

Looks like you don't print in-house. Are you more of a broker? Im not sure Id want to take on learning how to print and do wraps at the same time. I would want to learn how to crawl first, use a certified installer while learning the nuances of printing. Just my opinion.

 

[gnubler]

Thanks for all the input. I should have mentioned my interest would be strictly in commercial wraps, not personal vehicles (color change, etc). So this means printed wraps and I don't print in house at this time...that might be the big deterrent.

 

[Johnny Best]

I have a Mutoh 1204 solvent printer 48" $3000, with RIP included for $3500, rebuilt with new head.

 

[gnubler]

I need to build out an enclosed office in my shop before I even start looking at printers. Dust is an issue.

 

[johnnysigns]

I'd agree with a lot of things said above. It's all possible with a one man shop, I did it early on before we transitioned into other work in the retail display market of our business. If it were me I'd take an installation training class first. Even if you chose not to go into vehicle wrapping, the skills you can pickup will still help if you're doing regular vehicle graphic installations or even say interior wall murals/graphics already. I always found the training puts you hands on with material and techniques that show you that there's solutions to nearly every problem with the installation of wrapping a complex object. If that's a bear to deal with or it doesn't click with your skillset, you've made a smaller investment than say buying a printer and selling some wraps that you're not going to be able to handle. Key points when it comes to wraps are: Sale/Estimating, Templates/Design, Prepress, Print/Lam, Installation & After care follow up.

If you added full wraps to your shop services, what led up to that? Market demand? Hiring someone experienced in wraps? - Market demand and lack of quality installation where I was located.

For one person shops, do you hire an installer to handle it, or to work with you? Both, but you've got to decide that yourself. I've installed both work for shops on their payroll and as a hired installer. Hired installers will cost vastly more, but my experience was they were generally better trained. At least in my region.

Any tips on training for beginners? Is it worth it to attend one of the national training workshops and become certified? - I'd start here if it were me. These skills will still help with a variety of non-wrap portions of sign work.

For design/layout, is it better to use purchased template files, or take actual photos/measurements of the vehicle in person, or both? - We generally priced from templates, but built our own for actual production.

If you don't print in-house, would it be foolish to get into printed wraps? (eg: Screw up a piece and have to wait 2-3 days for a reprint to arrive, meanwhile the vehicle is already halfway wrapped. Also limited choice in materials/brands.) - It's a common practice to outsource the printing and also the design. Whether or not that puts you out of the client's price range is another story - specifically the design portion. Outsourcing the printing is an excellent way to keep your overhead down. Buying a digital printer and diving in with no experience is not an easy task.

What's the strangest or most challenging thing you've wrapped? I've been asked about wrapping outdoor utility boxes, boats, truck toppers, and a tow truck. (turned them all down) - With proper training, nearly everything can be wrapped.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Learn how to do installs Gnubler... The $ is better and people can't critique a sign as much when it's 40' in the air. Do subcontract work so all you have to do is take a crappy cell phone pic of your crooked sign install to get paid.

 

[Boudica]

Learn how to do installs Gnubler... The $ is better and people can't critique a sign as much when it's 40' in the air. Do subcontract work so all you have to do is take a crappy cell phone pic of your crooked sign install to get paid.

Speaking from experience?

 

[DL Signs]

It's a lot to take on, but if you have no one else in your area it could be worth diving into. I'd highly recommend getting certified, the knowledge is worth the price tag.

I'm 3M certified, we do a lot of partial wraps, spot graphics, but not many full wraps. Too many others undercutting everyone else here, and I wear so many hats here that everything else falls behind when we get full wraps because they're so time consuming, especially when you do them by yourself. We partnered with a very talented wrapper down the road from us to do full wrap installations when it's not feasible for us. He doesn't print, and we do, we can get semi's and busses in our building, he can't, so we sub stuff to each other as needed, and it works out good. He's a one man shop, but he's also well trained and experienced. If we didn't have so much competition here, we'd probably be a little more into full wraps, but it is what it is, we do enough other stuff that's more profitable.

Doing your own printing has many benefits, from providing samples, color matching before you run the whole thing, test printing images that may be incorporated for quality, to being able to reprint anything that doesn't fit or gets messed up, and it happens. Another advantage of printing is you can do all the stuff that shops who just do color change wraps can't do, so you do get more of the commercial market which pays the bills better than just color changes. If you're seeing a demand, meet it.

Spot graphics and partial wraps ars a big thing, every company wants their brand on their vehicle, and printing takes things to a much higher level than cut vinyl because you can match corporate colors, don't need to be constantly buying/ stocking different colors of vinyl, you can add the multi colors, shading and effects that logos often have... A lot less limitations, so even if you don't get into the full wraps it pays to have that print capability in my opinion, and you can always work yourself into more over time as you learn. That's a big part of what we do, we make way more in that market than full wraps on vehicles, and with a higher overall profit margin. There are thousands of spot graphic'd and partial wrapped cars & trucks for every one that's full wrapped. Get a printer!

For sizing, use everything at your disposal, templates, pics, and physical measuring, none on their own will always be 100% accurate, doing as much as you can gets you closer than relying on one. Just stay away from wrapping motorcycles, biggest PITA and most time consuming stuff ever. At one point I was going to corner that market, one Harley bagger, and I never even wanted to ride again

 

[gnubler]

Thanks for the warning. The person that walked in yesterday to ask about wraps while I was typing my OP, then asked about doing partial wraps on dirt bikes, said he had tried to wrap one of his bikes once and it was a major PITA that he never wanted to try again.

I'm really interested in doing training and becoming certified, even if I don't get into full wraps.

 

[Gino]

If you had the kinda questions you had in your jeep stripes thread, I highly doubt you're ready to go to wrap school. Sure, go get some knowledge, but don't expect to come home being capable of doing it all. Ya need a lotta other basic fundamentals in your arsenal of design, and application..... or at least you should. What you'd benefit the greatest from, would be hiring a really good person and getting hands on experience with him/her working shoulder to shoulder and the both of you in a year or two going to classes. Otherwise, it appears in your case, it would be like a third grader going to 12th grade and not knowing all the in between stuff. You simply have nothing from which to pull.

 

[JBurton]

Next walk in, tell them an estimated cost for a brand new transit, including design work, $4,500. See how interested they are after that. You may find that, while the interest is there, nobody will pay.
I personally wouldn't wrap anything without a printer in my back pocket. I could care less if it takes 3 extra days, I care that I allotted 1k in materials, and this one panel is adding 300 bones, plus shipping.

 

[Zendavor Signs]

Wrap work is super time consuming - especially design and installation. Be careful as a 1-person shop, wraps can have you working bookoo hours. We, too, get lots of calls/requests for wraps, but very few want to pay. Most people have no idea what they cost. It really comes down to if you will enjoy selling / installing wraps. We all pursue what we enjoy (or at least we should be).

 

[caribmike]

It sounds like you need two people for full wraps which is something I don't have so I just do what I can handle as one person and an occasional helper. If you could get into wraps and get enough of them, you could eliminate a lot of the smaller orders - something that would make ME happy around here LOL

But smaller orders are the most profitable!