Considering Further Diversification

[Tim Bateson]

I’m trying to decide to take the plunge on a Roland Printer/Cutter. Studying that market, it looks busy, but I don’t think it’ll be hard to find a small niche there.

Lasering is still my primary business, however last year I added Sublimation & it’s already maybe 35% of my business (75% last few weeks). So that diversification has easily paid for itself.

I still have slow weeks that I think I can fill with the Printer/Cutter. Payoff would take a bit longer than the Sublimation, but my biggest concern is if I’m stretching myself too thin?

Any comments or suggestions from those here who have highly diversified businesses?

[Scott Shepherd]

Hi Tim, as someone new to the print side of things, I can say we are thrilled with the print side of the business so far. It's just opening up so many things we never had access to all these years. It was 100% the right decision for us. Having said that, it's a lot to printing. I've been around it (subbing it out) for years now so I had some knowledge of what was required and how it all worked. One thing you left out is you need a laminator. You can't print much of anything and use it without it being laminated. So you'll print it on the Roland, take it off, let it outgas for 12-24 hours, then you'll laminate it and cut it.

We have the new HP latex machines, so you can print, laminate and cut all immediately. If you don't let the solvent inks outgas, then when you laminate it, it forces the evaporation process to go inwards, through the adhesive side of things, rather than out into the air. That attacks the adhesive and can ruin things under it or make the print fail. However, HP doesn't make a print/cut machine, so you'd need a printer, laminator, and a plotter with an eye on it to pick up the registration marks. So the Roland might work better for you if space is an issue.

Just know that show pricing on those machines is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY below normal pricing.

I love my printer :) We printed some posters for a customer today. I went on FedEx.com to see what the market price for posters was and for the posters we printed, they wanted $43 each. Material was $2.50 for the paper and ink. At those rates, I'll print posters 24/7 :)

[Joe Pelonio]

Are you still on your own? I had as many as 4 employees and still had to work long hours and weekends to keep up when I got more than one big job at a time. The large format printer must be watched and takes a long time to run, for example a 2'x8' banner about an hour. Do you offer installation? That is a big part of the digital printing work, and takes you away from the shop.

[Tim Bateson]

Some very good points to consider. Yes I am a 1 man shop.

[Scott Shepherd]

Tim, printing is a trade on it's own. Color and color matching isn't an easy thing and there's a lot to it. We subbed it out for years and years. What that did was expose us to it, got us around it, around the issues, and around setting the files up correctly for print. Every time there was a trade show, we'd attend every color and printer seminar we could just to try to understand more about it all. Now that it's sitting here, it reminds me weekly that I'm still a newbie to the industry.

Maybe that's a way for you to go, find a good wholesale printer in the business (there are many of them, especially in your part of the world), and just start taking the work on. It makes no sense to print banners any more. People wholesale them for as low as $1 per sq. foot. I can't hardly buy the material for that. If you need some wholesale places, PM me and I'll put together a couple names for you that would work well.