starting small print shop. need advice

[OkiTech]

Guys, I believe that everyone is entitled for his opinion / life experience, if guy wants to go ahead - let him. I have grown from simple copy center based in 400 sq. feet office to a print shop that takes 2 story building, 2000 sq. feet each floor, in 7 years we went from 2 b/w+1 color+manual cutter to Ricoh Aficio MP-9000 High speed B/W system, Xerox Phaser 7760 color laser printer, 2x Xerox Phaser 8400 Color Solid ink printers, OKI CX3641 MFP, 3 B/W Canon ImageRunner 2870/3570 for self service, new Ricoh 240W BluePrint Copier with external Server so It can Scan and Print , Epson Stylus Pro 11880 a 60 inch wide professional wide format printer and NovaJet-750 Wide format printers, 'Standard' 10 bin Collator, Plockmatic Bookletmaker with Trim and Squareback option, AB Dick 360 CD Press with Kompac +Thead in line with Sunraise HP12 thermography machine, Sunraise 12up super slitter, metal CTP, Poly CTP, Polar-66 26 inch programmable cutter, AB Dick Century 3500S 2 tower press with stream feeder IR dryer SuperBlue Chiller/Recirculator, Count EZ Creaser, Riso RZ-390 Digital Duplicator, Duplo folder, Duplo DB-250 perfect binder, 26" wide laminator and 44 inch wide mounter. We do outsource what and when it makes sense, 4over in NJ makes a good place to do it with but on other hand - once I have an ability to afford equipment to run full color, I will. Yes, it most likely will cost me the same to produce VS outsource but having a control is priceless, outsourcing is a bit%$#ch. Lets say, when equipment fails - I get it fixed and run the jobs as late as it takes, 3-4 am - is fine, if that what it takes, 4 oVer on other hand will re-route your order to Ohio plant, that is +2-3 day just for delivery and say, we're sorry, you lost a customer? Well, we said we're sorry....

 

[OkiTech]

Mr. OutsourceD, are you NYC Based? What happen to your business? I am in Brooklyn, every printshop around here is ok, Us and most of our competitors are doing ok and growing. I know the guy, he owns a Sign Shop, knows nothing about printing, willing to learn nothing at all, he rented a store next door, hanged a "printing shop" sign on it and doing OK. They are incapable of placing order with 4over so they have me checking their artwork and place their orders..... I've seen your posts, you are not a rookie, how did you go to 1 employee after 20 years? We had 2 printshop closures here in brooklyn - 1 some hotshots came out of nowhere and were gone in a year or two and other was a really old printshop but it looked like a museum of printing not a functioning shop, owners were older, they sold the building to Chinese, sold equipment, stock, customer database and guess retired...

 

[ondemandbindery]

Plenty of shops are making it and doing well right now. I personally always say if you want to take a whack at owning a business go for it. But considering the Tablets are really taking off in the USA now the fact is reflective material will continue to spiral downward. Printing will never go away but it will only have a downward trend. If someone likes moving a piles of rocks from Point A to Point B a Print shop is a great way to have the experience. All the negatives in this thread doesn't mean he won't have success, but rather has opinions from different people in the Industry. We are all entitled to an opinion and life goes on. But good news that you are forging ahead and congrats....

JW

 

[buckeyewta]

We went ahead and bought equipment last fall. We did a booth at a trade show in the area a few weeks ago and are still trying to catch up from that. Maybe just my area that has needs for printing but we are crazy busy.

 

[mbeach]

Treat every customer like they are your only customer. Network. Do your homework. Get advice from fiends in the industry that are trusted professionals.

 

[jl1783]

Im selling a canon ipf 6350 only been use min of 10 times $2,700 or best offer. [email protected]

 

[buckeyewta]

We have 2 Xerox machines that we got in the past 6 months so hopefully we are done buying foe a while. Lol