Sticker printing

[weroh]

Hello,
I've been searching forums about this but need some more answers.
I make vinyl decals but have been wanting to get into sticker printing. Not my own designs, just custom for other people. From my research here I found out about outsourcing, which I didn't know was a thing for stickers.
Should I start with sourcing first? Is that even possible, cost wise, since my customer would have to pay more and the processing time would be quite long waiting for my order+shipping?

Thanks for your help!

 

[StarSign]

Are we talking print, print/lam, look at the quantities, 1,100,10,000? There are plenty of places out there that in reality, unless you are printing all day every day, it's cheaper to outsource.

 

[damonCA21]

The problems with outsourcing are :
No control over quality
Increased turnaround time
Increased cost
All of these will put people off using you. When you say printing other peoples designs do you mean making them for companies etc... of their logo? Look on Ebay for your country and see how cheap people are bulk printing decals now. Most of them are making next to nothing on an order and that is with printing them on their own equipment.
Unless you can design for people as well and do custom work on your own printer, then it really isn't worth it. Most people doing this sort of work have shops and do it for local customers which is how they get the work.

 

[damonCA21]

Are we talking print, print/lam, look at the quantities, 1,100,10,000? There are plenty of places out there that in reality, unless you are printing all day every day, it's cheaper to outsource.

Problem there is the customer can just go direct to those places and cut out the middleman....

 

[weroh]

I'm in US. I was thinking custom stickers like logos, someone's artwork etc. I CAN help with the design as well. I see a few small shops online that do that. First I was thinking to buy small machine to print (they released a new Roland and Mutoh that are small) and graphtec to cut, I would also laminate. Basically produce a good quality waterproof die cut stickers. I can either outsource first or start small once I have some budget to do so... ? I appreciate your input!