And the cost to operate your shop is way higher than mine. You need a bigger space for that big ol' flatbed. You need more employees to run it. AND you're not going to wholesale those signs to me at your cost.
My point is that it costs me the same with materials and labor as it does to outsource the signs at smaller quantities. Your markup / and or shipping costs = my labor costs.
And I'd rather pay my employee to work than yours.
EDIT TO ADD: I charge a lot for full color corex, even at higher quantities. If they want cheap, they can get one or two color silk screened signs from FireSprint.
The way I see it, the cost of running our shop is covered by all the jobs we have going through at any given time. Generally, we have multiple jobs happening at one time. So, if the flatbed is running, the inkjets are printing and/or cutting and the gerber plotters are cutting..... all while someone is painting a sign or doing something out back or lettering a truck, we're doing at least $500 an hour. So, I think my overhead and other things are covered. We have 8,800 sq ft, so that's no biggie, either. Therefore, if something comes through and I hafta sharpen my pencil, I can easily do it without it hurting me at all. If I wanna be nice guy and sub something to you or someone else, I can do it and again, without hurting me. I don't do it here, because I am no longer a Merchant Member for several reasons. However, anyone working on volume, rather than onesies and twosies has a nice advantage over someone like you who needs to account for every minute and dollar being used.
The other part is, the more automated one becomes, the less employees one needs. To do 10 of these signs in a 1/2 hour, I need one person to start it and then they can go on to whatever, while the printer takes over. When it's done..... anyone can cut a piece of Cor-X in half a few times in about 2 minutes with fletchers and keen cutters. If we chug a little, I could average 25pcs 2-sided an hour.... almost 30 an hour.
When we're all finished, if we get $5. a pop we are making over 3-1/2 times all of our costs with profit and overhead included.
Just your materials alone, using the cheapest vinyl, ink and someone to mount it both sides and cut everything has got to be close to $8 to $10 at cost. Mine's under $1.50. Granted, I could be off by a few cents, but like I said, it's being made up on some other job, hence why some things here or there can go out dirt cheap and we still make a good buck.
