Wholesale guys, Is it less of a pain to run wholesale instead of retail?

[john1]

Hey guys, Looking for some advice here on the guys who do wholesale here.

Now mind you, I know i have a small printer at a 30" versacamm but i have the abilities to print banners, window perf, adhesive vinyl, poster prints etc with it none the less.

Is doing wholesale less of a pain in the neck vs dealing with retail customers who waste your time, want quotes and never follow through? I would think wholesalers get the typical tire kickers here and there but i would imagine it would be minimal since it's other shops who have the work and need it done.

Thanks for your time!

 

[Locals Find!]

Your 30" printer isn't going to be able to produce at a decent enough turn around or price point to be competitive on a wholesale level.

So, why bother even worrying about whether its easier?? Sounds like you should spend more time learning how to close sales and marketing yourself better to attract better clients.

 

[AnotherSignManiac]

I have to agree with Adtechia, I havent met a wholesaler with a 30" printer, I am not sure it would be able to handle the work load. Try working on your sales to close the deal maybe?

 

[ProWraps]

Your 30" printer isn't going to be able to produce at a decent enough turn around or price point to be competitive on a wholesale level.

So, why bother even worrying about whether its easier?? Sounds like you should spend more time learning how to close sales and marketing yourself better to attract better clients.

well there you go buddy. straight from the horses mouth. you better pay clooooooooose attention.

:ROFLMAO:

 

[FrankenSigns.biz]

Wholesale is easier but start up is much more expensive. They are right, you're not going to get enough (if any) business with a 30" printer. To do it right, you'll need a flatbed / roll to roll, bare minimum 6' width.

Wholesale is easier because you know who your customers are. This makes it easier to market to them. Most often a wholesale customer will send you print-ready files, and generally, they are much easier to deal with as you both speak the same language.

 

[HulkSmash]

well there you go buddy. straight from the horses mouth. you better pay clooooooooose attention.

:ROFLMAO:

LOL oh god. Addy the pro

 

[Gino]

There's goes that irritating gnat again.............. ​

Anyway, you might not be capable of wholesaling on a large scale, but try touching base with other shops in your local vicinity and give them some really good pricing, but explain the rules to them. You don't do anything but print their files. Something wrong, it's their fault. If they want you to do extra work besides printing or cutting, they pay... and of course at a wholesale price.

Is it easier than retail ??

Perhaps. It all depends on how bad your retail is, because there are quite a few people in this business that don't know a whole lot more than some of your retail customers... so it could be the same thing.

For instance, how many threads and posts do you see here in a week's time of how to do this and how to do that ?? There is your answer in a nutshell.

We have been wholesaling to our local area for almost 16 years. Granted, most of them now have their own printers, but we still get an average of about 10 a month. They're generally not very large jobs, but they're easy money.


A Spanish dude was just in here Wednesday. Wanted me to print out his picture of bottles of beer in a wooden bucket for a local Spanish bar. I asked him if he had a file or a CD with this stuff on it. He said... no, you can print right from this paper. I informed him... NO, I CAN'T... I need a file on a CD or whatever. If you want me to put this together, I can't because you broke the law by putting all those different labeled bottles of beer on there. I can't do that. He said Okay... Okay.... I'll be back. He came in yesterday with a bunch of blank beer bottles on a disc and we'll print the whole thing out for him and contourcut it for him probably Monday. Cost to him is 2 prints 15" x 17" full color... $185.00 cash. no credit card-no checkie. Just cash.

You could do that, too. That will take us about 15 minutes all total to do.

That's a totally different price scale than what we give here to s101-ers.

I look at it this way.... I can price a job out and if all these guys come to me for printing and stuff, I have more chances of landing the job. Can't tell you how many times that happens. It will never happen here on s101, because we're all too far apart, but it could happen.

So, don't let some annoying gnat bother you and tell you something he knows nothing about.

 

[Locals Find!]

There's goes that irritating gnat again.............. ​

Anyway, you might not be capable of wholesaling on a large scale, but try touching base with other shops in your local vicinity and give them some really good pricing, but explain the rules to them. You don't do anything but print their files. Something wrong, it's their fault. If they want you to do extra work besides printing or cutting, they pay... and of course at a wholesale price.

Is it easier than retail ??

Perhaps. It all depends on how bad your retail is, because there are quite a few people in this business that don't know a whole lot more than some of your retail customers... so it could be the same thing.

For instance, how many threads and posts do you see here in a week's time of how to do this and how to do that ?? There is your answer in a nutshell.

We have been wholesaling to our local area for almost 16 years. Granted, most of them now have their own printers, but we still get an average of about 10 a month. They're generally not very large jobs, but they're easy money.


A Spanish dude was just in here Wednesday. Wanted me to print out his picture of bottles of beer in a wooden bucket for a local Spanish bar. I asked him if he had a file or a CD with this stuff on it. He said... no, you can print right from this paper. I informed him... NO, I CAN'T... I need a file on a CD or whatever. If you want me to put this together, I can't because you broke the law by putting all those different labeled bottles of beer on there. I can't do that. He said Okay... Okay.... I'll be back. He came in yesterday with a bunch of blank beer bottles on a disc and we'll print the whole thing out for him and contourcut it for him probably Monday. Cost to him is 2 prints 15" x 17" full color... $185.00 cash. no credit card-no checkie. Just cash.

You could do that, too. That will take us about 15 minutes all total to do.

That's a totally different price scale than what we give here to s101-ers.

I look at it this way.... I can price a job out and if all these guys come to me for printing and stuff, I have more chances of landing the job. Can't tell you how many times that happens. It will never happen here on s101, because we're all too far apart, but it could happen.

So, don't let some annoying gnat bother you and tell you something he knows nothing about.

Yeah, Gino. I know nothing about dealing with wholesalers. Good one! My whole business hasn't been built around dealing with wholesalers. So, what would the Broker know about wholesale. I guess the last 12 years of being a Broker and doing next to nothing in house was all just some kinda drug induced dream. Yeah! thats the ticket!! I better wake up and go fire up that equipment I didn't know I owned.

Go drown a chipmunk or something will ya??

 

[Gino]

:ROFLMAO: :Big Laugh

I knew you'd come back........................ you're so frickin' easy

So, you finally admit, you're not a sign-maker.... just a broker.


Anyway, I guess you're right, since you just wrote all that. You're the one always complaining about chit costing too much, you wanna do it in-house and you can't make money dealing with these expensive wholesalers and you're always whining about putting food on the table for your kids and you have nothing but problems and I'll bet you anything [and I'm not really a betting person] you still haven't paid a single soul here YET for the things you promised you'd pay for.

So, you're right....... YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

 

[Locals Find!]

John, I apologize for pirating your thread. What I said to you wasn't meant to be confrontational in the least. I meant it as straight forward honest advice.

Your on here a lot complaining about business being hard. I really believe if you invested some time and money in learning some sales techniques you would find things to be a lot easier for yourself. I know that because, I am a sales person not a sign maker.

If thats not a viable option for you find a salesperson to work for you. Let, them do all the leg work and you produce the products. There are tons of highly skilled salespeople out of work right now. You just gotta go out and find one. Good Luck!

 

[Barry Jenicek]

Hi John1

Our Wholesale business (to the trade only) is in the field of CNC Routing, we do not wholesale prints, but your real question is “is it LESS of a pain to run wholesale Vs. Retail”.

We find that Wholesaling to other sign shops falls into two categories. Those shops that know about Routing and those who do not have a clue (usually new businesses).

Our established sign shop clients usually have some knowledge about the substrates we are able to route and the complexity of producing them. They see us as a way to make a profit without lifting a finger…that is, if they want us to route and completely finish (paint) the sign for them. Some of our clients have us route the sign and ship it raw, to be finished in their shop.

These clients are the easiest for us to deal with because they are knowledgeable sign people. They appreciate the fact that they do not need to invest a great deal of money in a machine that might only be “busy” in their shop part of the time. After all, if they can have a wholesaler (me) route and finish a sign for them and still make a few hundred dollars without doing a thing (other than selling the job) then that is all gravy for them.

Our clueless sign clients are those who are just starting out and are looking for ways to be productive and get projects out the door so they can pay their electric bill. They may have knowledge about digital printing but CNC routing is foreign to them…not to mention how to design/layout a design that will “work” using a router.

We don’t mind these clients and are very willing to educate them because an educated sign designer is more apt to make the sale than one who is not…which of course means more business for them and most importantly, for us.

As with both of these wholesale client “types”, they ALWAYS shop around for the best wholesale pricing…that is only natural. I must say our clueless clients are more apt to order from us because we invest a lot of time in educating them. The key to running a wholesale/retail shop (or any type of shop) is SERVICE!!!

When we do work for our retail clients (non-sign shop people) that is another story. They live in the area we do business, and, can sometimes be a real pain. We did a sign for one client and she swore that the background color we used was not the color she chose. We had to physically take the can of paint from the shelf, paint a swatch and compare it to the sample she provided us. Both her sample and our can of paint had the same mixing formula. Don’t get me wrong; we have more great clients than not so great. These clients are easy to work with and are open for suggestions.

When it comes to pricing, retail clients can be a pain because after all, the router does all the work for us, thus the price should be lower.

Sooooo, to answer your question, we find that we are able to get the project done faster with our wholesale clients because they are in tune with making signs. We spend less time with them because we are both on the same page. We still make a profit (but not as much as with our retail clients) and it helps keep the router running. Wholesaling has been less headaches with less profits. The trade off is worth it to us for us.

As far as digital printing, color matching would be your largest hurdle. If you’ve got that down, I’d say to start locally at design firms. They are usually in need of a few production specialists.

Barry J
St. Louis, MO
Barry@SignsByUnique.com

 

[artbot]

i wholesale only. particularly to one single client. i could go out and get more but he's got me slammed all year long. i wouldn't even think about going wholesale until you have a pretty capable shop. also if you can't close a retail client for a few hundred bucks, you definitely will have trouble closing with a client that is doing jobs that are several hundred thousand dollars and your $10k is just a tiny aspect of his project. they make a practice of smelling out unseasoned shops and will not order.

 

[ForgeInc]

Go drown a chipmunk or something will ya??

 

[TheSnowman]

I'll do ya one better, the "retail" guy up the street that does stuff in this town, is generally selling AT or BELOW my cost from most wholesalers here. When people call and tell me they can get it there for 1/2 the cost of my price, I say, yep, you can, you'd better go there.