Adding Print services to my Sign Shop.....What do I need :)

Currently I outsource all my printing, at a great cost to myself. My wholesale discount is 20%...so it covers my gas basically to run pick up the job.

I want to be able to do in house printing an to control the output. From brochures to business cards. I am a small shop and do not anticipate ( yet ) to be doing high volume, that said I want to spend my money wisely....buy what I need not only for now, but for future growth. I am not looking to spend more than $5000. Have been considering the Xerox 7800, but with all the bad reviews....well lets say I am hesitant.

What should I be looking at, and staying away from.

Thanks in advance
Laurie

 

Hi Laurie. Besides printer, things that you order are cut, folded etc so printer may not be the only thing you need and your budget is no good, think about it, if start up would cost 5-10 grand, there would be a lot more printshops than there are. Also there is a major difference in cost of running a printer VS production machine. The Xerox Phaser 7800 you had mentioned, the toner yield, the drums, the fuser will add up especially toner. If you read specs carefully they say XXXXX amount of pages with 5% covareage and nothing is 5% coveage, try 50%+
Basically if they say toner lasts 25,000 it would be a good day to get 10-15K out of it and remember there are 4 - CMYK. On other hand buying a serious machine will cut the costs big time but getting a machine is expensive as they go about $25000 and far far up Xerox Docucolor 242, Konica Minolta C6501 and similar, even nice used machine will run 10,000+ (I said nice, as overused exhausted once cost a lot less but why would you buy machine with few million clicks - not thing but a headache) Cutter will set you down for $8000-14000 used, also as it is heavy it will cost a lot to transport to your place, it will cost some to install and may be light tune-up will add up to be significant so if you do it, do it right - get something nice like polar 66 so it can serve you years ahead and still have some value should you decide to sell it. Folder is no big deal, for about $1500-2000 you can get nice one on Ebay, much better if it air fed or you won't be able to produce glossy folded flyers/menus/brochures.
Generally, how much do you print? Would you care to disclose some prices like for 1000 full color BC 4/4 and 5000 4x6 4/4, may be your printer is too expensive, may be I could suggest a better alternative, just send it somewhere else.
I can offer you a OKI C9800 GA, it is a nice machine and we sold hundreds of these over few years but (once again depends on what you're paying now) VS an offset, all you win is a control, may not be as much of a cost cutting as you think. The only strong side of having a production capacity at site is short runs and when customers need things yesterday and obviously pay extra, then yeah, you don't have to ask any favors to run your order priority, you just do it in house... That OKI has about 10,000 pages on the counter comes with all drums, fuser, Image Belt lifes at 50%+ and all toners 100% full. $1800 packed and strapped to the pallet. We have sold at least 6 to Canadian buyers this year, shipping was in a range of $300-600. I have also sent you a name of the trade-printer in CA, they may not be local to you but have some really nice prices.
Let me know if you're interested in printer.
If you're in busy area something else for you, as this service is hard to come by, we have a Ricoh 2404 wide format machine for Architect Drawings aka Blueprints. Some years ago I bought one for myself just for the heck of it, today it is a at least $100 a day and all construction companies, architects also ordering Business cards, flyers, stationary, Site signs and banners, chances are - most of them would not make it to my place if it would not be for this service. That machine is fully packaged - it can copy, print and scan drawings 36"x whatever.
Let me know if this is something that sparked your interest.

 

Laurie, for some reason I can't send you a PM, anyway, check out 4over.com, they have recently opened a branch in Canada, I understand that Canada is really big but it would not hurt to open up the account, see the pricing, than you may decide for yourself what is the best way to go.
I have just ordered a 12x40 and 12x24 feet vinyl banners that cost me under $900, Localy it was $2900 and the guy said that he is taking it easy on me.
Best regards,
Roman.

 

Thank you for your insight!

I am wanting to do small orders of business cards, post cards, brochures, flyers etc...currently most of my customer base are contractors and when they need business cards they come thinking I can have them ready in a couple hours...not a couple days or a week or two. I don't have a huge request for this at the moment, but I also do not advertise the service.

Thank you for the information and link. Truly helpful and appreciated !

 

i dont think you will find a descent small top laser for doing biz cards, they cannot handle thick card, and the ones you can get are very expensive to run, get a laser copier, mine apparently goes upto 260gsm but i regulary run 330 though the bypass, shhhh its on contract so it doent really matter. mine is a konica minolta 360 i think and does a lovely print on card ad 130 gloss for flyers.. get one on contract as drums toner parts ect are all included dont just buy one and hope it will keep going.. it wont trust me at some point it will go down and without a contract will cost more than its worth to fix

 

A used DC 252 with a stand alone fiery will do nicely. And they are around 5-10K.

 

Thanks

 

I agree a Xerox DC242 with Fiery would be a nice start-up option, you want one with less than 500,000 or less.

 

Still not sure what I am going to buy, but I am meeting with a Xerox rep...just to get set inn the correct direction and talk shop about what and where I want to go with this.