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!

 

[MrDav3C]

...but sometimes the art of being a good business is being a good middleman (Loosely quoted from Layer Cake I think!).

There is often nothing wrong with outsourcing & we would much rather do this & keep a customer than loose them to a competitor who is able to offer them the "full package" who also may be only outsourcing certain elements.

We are a sign making shop mainly focussing on corporate signage, vehicle graphics / wraps etc. & we used to turn down a number of enquires for paper products such as business cards / flyers etc. because we don't do them in house until I decided this was a mistake.

Pre Ai / Canva type BS a lot of our customers wouldn't know where to start designing these types of things and even now I'm certain we can do it quicker and make it look more professional than what the majority of the general public can especially if they are an existing customer & we already have a decent amount of assets on file.

In general pretty much all stickers / decals we produce in house but there are a few exceptions such as when the volume is very high & it's something considerably time consuming for us, say for example 5000 die cut stickers, it just makes more economical sense to outsource.

Yes we don't make as much profit as if we were to do it ourselves but these are often repeat orders & can be quoted, outsourced and forgotten about in as less than ten minutes compared to X amount of hours labour - sometimes it's just a no brainer.

I think the important things with outsourcing anything are finding a reliable supplier (possibly trade only) that also has an emphasis on quality and not just volume & having knowledge of their products, the lifespans, durabilities & practicalities as well as the lead times and costs so you can convey this to your customers in a transparent manner. If a product is outsourced, we don't hide this & explain that these are typically outsourced via our suppliers as this is the most cost effective solution currently available.

Deciding to outsource certain products that you wouldn't normally produce in house can also be a great way to test a market for something you may wish to diversify more into in the future.