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.

 

[FireSprint.com]

Here's a quick overview of how we produce stickers here at FireSprint:

This year, we're at about 7 million stickers shipped. Every one of them were sold through our nationwide network of resellers at a markup above our wholesale prices.

There is opportunity out there to outsource the production, but it depends on your business model. If you sell stickers in volume as a commodity, price and consistent quality are everything. If you sell added value such as branding and execution, pricing becomes far less important.

We've updated our production lines since this video, but it's still essentially the same, just more of it.

 

[Johnny Best]

There are a lot of people in Signs101 boot hill who had the same ideas as you have. They came in with high hopes but got outdrawn by professionl gun slingers who put the work in on their determination and business sense to take care of any young upstarts looking to make a name for themselves in this trade.

 

[tulsagraphics]

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.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with all of those points.

Well known trade suppliers have very nice equipment and use high quality materials. A supplier's ability to produce consistent quality and turn jobs out fast is 100% critical to their business model. Understanding color management, calibrating equipment / software, optimizing production workflows, logistical operations, not to mention raw buying power for materials and lower shipping rates. There are so many things going on behind the scenes.

If someone hopes to buy a cheap printer, plotter and laminator (e.g. $20-25k for very basic entry level gear) and source generic materials to save a few bucks -- quality control is going to be an everyday problem. Not to mention how much more expensive the consumables are (like eco-solvent inks and buying films 1 roll at a time)

Most suppliers will have an order at your doorstep within 2 business days, which is nearly as fast as in-house production (considering things like outgassing time and such). I've been in the biz for 26 years. I have a lot of nice equipment -- and I still outsource jobs when I'm slammed with work. If you know the capabilities of your supplier -- provided you know how to set up your artwork correctly -- you'll know exactly what kind of quality to expect.

Increased cost? Not unless you acquired a sign shop and all their equipment / consumables for free. Let's say a company is providing you a nice quality vinyl, printed on an HP Scitex, gloss laminated, and contour cut for $3.50-4/sq.ft. You might be thinking, okay. Hypothetically, let's say the material cost is 1/3 of that. I want to put that other 2/3 in my pocket -- but it doesn't work like that. Equipment cost, maintenance, software, utilities, labor and other overhead will wipe that out in a heartbeat. You need a lot of steady volume to justify in-house production, especially if you're just focused on "stickers". With outsourcing, there's very little risk and you can spend a lot more time on marketing.

A potential customer that already buys online -- they're already familiar with "bottom dollar" pricing. Unless they're willing to pay extra for "keeping business local", it's going to be very difficult to make money off them. You really need to do something different to stand out because this industry is super saturated with low ballers.

If you can't mark up the products you buy from a trade supplier to make it worthwhile, you're doing something very wrong.

 

[kcollinsdesign]

The competition for sticker printing is fierce! Large automated production facilities make them cheaper than you can buy the material for them to make them yourself. Add in labor and overhead and you are priced out of the market.

Outsourcing will generally be more profitable, especially when you take advantage of the discounted shipping rates available from large producers. I drop ship when I can for even more savings (the last mile is often the most expensive shipping expense). The quality and consistency of the printing will generally be better, and the converting and packaging options (split backs, for example) will be more numerous. Depending on your needs, turn-around is generally within 1 – 5 days plus shipping, with most suppliers offering expedited shipping for rush jobs.

The customer can, of course, order their stickers directly from dozens (if not hundreds) of online source. I can usually snag a few of those by offering design and file set-up services (for a fee, of course).