Brendan Vos
09-16-2013, 4:30 PM
Hello, this is my first post to the forum! I was hoping some of you might be able to augment my research with your knowledge of acrylic purchasing. I am a member of a non-profit hackerspace in Tucson, Arizona named Xerocraft. In the past two weeks we acquired a brand new 60 watt Trotec Speedy 300 laser cutter! We're looking to do a small bulk purchase of acrylic sheeting so that we may have pieces available to sell at a profit to those that come in looking to use the laser cutter. We haven't yet decided on a budget, but my assumption is that we'll have a few hundred to work with. If anyone knows of any local retailers that sell for a similar price, the money saved on shipping would be able to be put towards more acrylic. I've yet to find any good online retailers of extruded clear acrylic for cutting, as most seem to require quotes or are higher priced than other retailers selling the same dimensions of cast acrylic (which makes no sense.) Below is my research into the purchasing of cast acrylic. Hopefully this will be helpful to someone else, or someone can provide us with a better source!
Thanks!
Research:
Looking at 1/8"x24"x48" sheets of translucent cast acrylic as a standard for pricing, the cheapest site I see that sells acrylic sheets in the amounts we're looking for seems to be http://www.estreetplastics.com (http://www.estreetplastics.com/Blue_Plexiglass_Sheet_1_8_Thick_2051_s/261.htm).
Their site is somewhat not user friendly, however this size sheet they sell for $25.99 before a bulk discount, where as http://www.delviesplastics.com (http://www.delviesplastics.com/) sells the same sheets at $31.25 before bulk discount. At delvie's plastics we'll be likely to get to the additional maximum of 15% discount for purchasing 10 or more sheets, but we're likely only to get around 10% discount at http://www.estreetplastics.com (http://www.estreetplastics.com/Blue_Plexiglass_Sheet_1_8_Thick_2051_s/261.htm) as the discount tiers go:2 to 5 items - 3% off
6 to 10 items - 5% off
11 to 20 items - 10% off
21 to 30 items - 12% off
31 to 40 items - 13% off
41 to 50 items - 14% off
41 to 50 items - 14% off
Even with the full 15% discount from delvie's we'd still be paying more than the full price before discount at Estreet. Shipping for the 2 appears to be about equal, hovering around $70 for a purchase of 1 of each of their sheets of 1/8" translucent acrylic.
http://www.eplastics.com/ sells for $31.40 before bulk for that size but offers a 20% discount on purchases of 10-24 sheets and approximately 28% discount for 25+ units.
eplastics does however sell units of 1/8" acrylic in sizes up to 48"x96", however from what I can tell any discounts from larger sizes are quite minimal and seem to be far negated by huge increases in shipping costs.
Looking at purchasing 1 of each sheet of 1/8"x24"x48" of each of their colors of acrylic the prices come out as follows (INCLUDING SHIPPING):
estreetplastics.com (http://estreetplastics.com/): 12 sheets $352.92 ($29.41 per sheet)
delviesplastics.com (http://delviesplastics.com/): 14 sheets $442.27 ($31.59 per sheet)
eplastics.com (http://eplastics.com/) 15 sheets $493.16 ($32.88 per sheet) OR 15 sheets $461.28 ($30.75 per sheet)
For some reason the bulk discounts for eplastics appear to only apply to additional units when purchasing one of each color. For example, the 10% starts at the purchase of 3 sheets. When purchasing multiple colors, the first 2 sheets will be at full price, while the third will be discounted. When purchasing 3 units of the same color this does not happen and all 3 units get the discount. This may be a mistake with their website and we may be able to get better prices by calling a representative. However, even with the full discount on each sheet I calculate we'd still be paying a total of $461.28 for the 15 sheets or $30.75 per sheet, just slightly less than delvie's, and slightly more than estreet. If we're ordering more than 25 sheets and a representative applies the full discount to each sheet eplastics might actually be the cheapest source, however their shipping calculator makes it hard to tell.
From this data it seems that the pricing from each source is fairly similar, however depending on how many sheets we're looking to buy these numbers could change a fair bit.
Thanks!
Research:
Looking at 1/8"x24"x48" sheets of translucent cast acrylic as a standard for pricing, the cheapest site I see that sells acrylic sheets in the amounts we're looking for seems to be http://www.estreetplastics.com (http://www.estreetplastics.com/Blue_Plexiglass_Sheet_1_8_Thick_2051_s/261.htm).
Their site is somewhat not user friendly, however this size sheet they sell for $25.99 before a bulk discount, where as http://www.delviesplastics.com (http://www.delviesplastics.com/) sells the same sheets at $31.25 before bulk discount. At delvie's plastics we'll be likely to get to the additional maximum of 15% discount for purchasing 10 or more sheets, but we're likely only to get around 10% discount at http://www.estreetplastics.com (http://www.estreetplastics.com/Blue_Plexiglass_Sheet_1_8_Thick_2051_s/261.htm) as the discount tiers go:2 to 5 items - 3% off
6 to 10 items - 5% off
11 to 20 items - 10% off
21 to 30 items - 12% off
31 to 40 items - 13% off
41 to 50 items - 14% off
41 to 50 items - 14% off
Even with the full 15% discount from delvie's we'd still be paying more than the full price before discount at Estreet. Shipping for the 2 appears to be about equal, hovering around $70 for a purchase of 1 of each of their sheets of 1/8" translucent acrylic.
http://www.eplastics.com/ sells for $31.40 before bulk for that size but offers a 20% discount on purchases of 10-24 sheets and approximately 28% discount for 25+ units.
eplastics does however sell units of 1/8" acrylic in sizes up to 48"x96", however from what I can tell any discounts from larger sizes are quite minimal and seem to be far negated by huge increases in shipping costs.
Looking at purchasing 1 of each sheet of 1/8"x24"x48" of each of their colors of acrylic the prices come out as follows (INCLUDING SHIPPING):
estreetplastics.com (http://estreetplastics.com/): 12 sheets $352.92 ($29.41 per sheet)
delviesplastics.com (http://delviesplastics.com/): 14 sheets $442.27 ($31.59 per sheet)
eplastics.com (http://eplastics.com/) 15 sheets $493.16 ($32.88 per sheet) OR 15 sheets $461.28 ($30.75 per sheet)
For some reason the bulk discounts for eplastics appear to only apply to additional units when purchasing one of each color. For example, the 10% starts at the purchase of 3 sheets. When purchasing multiple colors, the first 2 sheets will be at full price, while the third will be discounted. When purchasing 3 units of the same color this does not happen and all 3 units get the discount. This may be a mistake with their website and we may be able to get better prices by calling a representative. However, even with the full discount on each sheet I calculate we'd still be paying a total of $461.28 for the 15 sheets or $30.75 per sheet, just slightly less than delvie's, and slightly more than estreet. If we're ordering more than 25 sheets and a representative applies the full discount to each sheet eplastics might actually be the cheapest source, however their shipping calculator makes it hard to tell.
From this data it seems that the pricing from each source is fairly similar, however depending on how many sheets we're looking to buy these numbers could change a fair bit.