New to printing!

[bignige]

Hi all,

For the past 3 years I have been re-selling printed products - primarily A5 leaflets, folded leaflets and A5 booklets (up to 48 pages in size).

As I have been reselling and buying in from third parties I know nothing about how the products are printed.

Thinking now about what the savings might be if I had my own printing equipment - but no idea where to start - what machine(s) would I need - what is the cost of an entry level machine and what would be its capacity etc etc etc.

Also, what does it cost using one's own printer to produce, say, 5,000 x A5 leaflets double-sided and 1,000 business cards etc etc.

Can anyone help please?

Rgds

BN

 

[Keith]

Any answer will be wrong or at least just a guess so really, there is no answer. Anyone can say "You need a $150,000 Awesome Printer and it will cost you five cents per click". But if you don't have that kind of money (or credit, as that is usually leased) then the answer is pointless. There are so many other variables that need to be addressed. It's something you really need to figure out first on your own and then find out what everyone else is charging to see if you are in the ball park. Meaning, you have to do a study and research. How much you spend on equipment will influence what you need to charge. Your location will make a difference, brand of paper, how much you pay for rent, etc. The real question is, why do you want to get into manufacturing? What need are you filling or what problem are you solving? Is the quality of the work from your vendors shoddy? Are they too slow? Do you have time to spare to run the machines? It will take away from other activities, like selling.

Search through this forum as your questions have been answered hundreds of times.

 

[Lorenzo lab guy]

Well, BN you probably need to research many different costs involved in a printing business, especially a break-even analysis on a spreadsheet. You could look at this way, your first print each month will cost £3,000 and each additional will cost 7 p.

 

[MailGuru]

Hi all,

I know nothing about how the products are printed.

Thinking now about what the savings might be if I had my own printing equipment

Ok, just think about what you're saying................

I've been having a lot of car trouble lately. I've spent probably $2,000 this last year alone. I know nothing about automobile service & repair, but, thinking now about what the savings might be if I had my own diagnostic & repair tools and equipment, but, have no idea where to start - what equipment I would need......................

 

[msaeger]

Ok, just think about what you're saying................

I've been having a lot of car trouble lately. I've spent probably $2,000 this last year alone. I know nothing about automobile service & repair, but, thinking now about what the savings might be if I had my own diagnostic & repair tools and equipment, but, have no idea where to start - what equipment I would need......................

I knew just about nothing about auto repair but in order to save money I have learned how to do some things and have purchased some tools and equipment to do the repairs and I saved money.

For things like auto, appliance, and other home repair type stuff there is a ton of info out on the internet how to do stuff and novices learning to do things for the first time so I don't think this guy is crazy for asking this.

 

[MailGuru]

Ok, let's look at this from a business logic standpoint. The typical print-shop business works off of a profit margin of somewhere between 7% to 15% (depending on which industry figures you believe, and, how good you are at running a business). Let's use a middle-of-the-road figure of 10%. That means you would have to book and produce $100,000 worth of revenue per year to yeild $10,000 in profit. Are you selling $100,000 worth of print per year now?


My point is, the real money in the print business is in sales, or, print brokering (what you are doing now). Not in production. In sales or brokering, your profit margin is, whatever you want it to be (usually 20% or higher). Why would you want to take on all the headaches and risks that come from production? You are in an enviable position. My recommendation would be to continue doing what you are doing now, and pocket the money. Once you approach about $500,000 per year in sales or brokering, then I would start looking at a business plan to own my own shop.

 

[gazfocus]

We actually do a mixture of both. For the cost conscious (and not time sensitive customers) we resell printing with a profit margin of between 20-40%. For anything 'unusual' or specifically short runs (we do a lot of calendars, laminated menus, etc), we do in-house but as we do the design as well, we can maximise our profit margin.

I would seriously advise against switching from reselling quantities like 5,000 X double sided a5 flyers to producing them in-house, because the print cost alone will cost you around £125 (1250 sheets x SRA3 sheets x 2 sides = 2,500 clicks at approx 5p per click), and that's without taking into account the cost of paper, lease on the printer, time taken to cut and pack the printed sheets. I bet this is far more than you'd pay the third party supplier you currently use.

 

[Puch]

Ok, so you're actually doing production in-house. In this case you have some printing equipment already, and you have some experience getting proper output from them all the time. Now multiply this burden with 2 or 3. Add the cost of the new equipment and (optionally) the cost of staffing and space requirements. Add the cost of new software and expertise needed. Then consider how much more can you charge if you fulfil your orders 2 days quicker.

I think MailGuru had the best advice here. You're at the right end of the stick currently, why would you want to get to the other side? Increase sales, that's where the profit is. Print is a risky and investment-heavy business. You want to get into this only if you're very fond of paper, machinery, tinkering with color etc.

 

[gazfocus]

Ok, so you're actually doing production in-house. In this case you have some printing equipment already, and you have some experience getting proper output from them all the time. Now multiply this burden with 2 or 3. Add the cost of the new equipment and (optionally) the cost of staffing and space requirements. Add the cost of new software and expertise needed. Then consider how much more can you charge if you fulfil your orders 2 days quicker.

I think MailGuru had the best advice here. You're at the right end of the stick currently, why would you want to get to the other side? Increase sales, that's where the profit is. Print is a risky and investment-heavy business. You want to get into this only if you're very fond of paper, machinery, tinkering with color etc.

I think you're mistaking me for the OP