Cost effective method to print 500 posters

[Drum]

We are shopping for a new printer (we currently have a colorspan 72uvr) and I am evaluating work we are sending out to see if we can find a way to bring it in house.
We are currently providing 550 posters per month (36 x 48 inches), printed offset on 100# gloss text, to a customer. They are costing us approx $ 2.50 + each (depending on colors). Can anyone recommend the most cost effective process to print these?
Thanks for your help.

 

[Locals Find!]

That to me seems like pretty decent pricing. You might want to shop around a few trade printers like zoo printing, GR Print, are two that come to mind. They might be able to get that price a bit lower. I wouldn't expect a huge drop though if you can knock $0.50 off your doing pretty damn good for those specs.

 

[Circleville Signs]

Good lord - how much cheaper do youthink you are gonna get than that? Bringin it in house, on a fill fed printer, your costs are gonna go UP, not down.

Let me guess - you're selling them to your customer for $4/ea...

 

[BigfishDM]

If you get a latex I can get you poster gloss for $0.08 sq.ft

 

[john1]

Seems like decent pricing, Just checked with my wholesaler and prints a tad smaller than that are like $1.70 so i say keep outsourcing.

Remember you will have to cut them down and trim each one which will take up time you could be doing other jobs.

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

Sounds cheap enough to me. Are you giving these away?

 

[Drum]

Thanks for the input. I still have a lot to learn about the economics of wide format so just wanted to make sure I'm not overlooking anything.
It appears that, in these quantities, inkjet is still not competitive with offset.
I am understanding that, for higher end printers, we can expect ink cost in the $ .12 - $ .14 per sq ft range. Are these reasonable numbers?

 

[Drum]

By the way, the questions about my sales prices, by their tone, seem to be suggesting something. Either I don't understand the point, or the questions are very naive.
Thanks again for a great forum!

 

[JKADesigns]

By the way, the questions about my sales prices, by their tone, seem to be suggesting something. Either I don't understand the point, or the questions are very naive.
Thanks again for a great forum!

The point is that it takes more time and money to print in-house than it does to send that order to a wholesaler and make 50 cents per poster.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

I would check with 4over.com I have seen them there cheaper then 2.50@ poster.

 

[Drum]

If I am figuring correctly, 4 over price is $19.42.

 

[Drum]

The point is that it takes more time and money to print in-house than it does to send that order to a wholesaler and make 50 cents per poster.

Gotcha. Fortunately, we are making considerably more than 50 cents a poster, but I get your point.

 

[Circleville Signs]

What type of printer are you taping about getting? A roll to roll like an older Arizona, or something like a Mutoh or Roland? If the latter, you should plan on your ink costs being double what you are thinking.

 

[Drum]

What type of printer are you taping about getting? A roll to roll like an older Arizona, or something like a Mutoh or Roland? If the latter, you should plan on your ink costs being double what you are thinking.

I have been looking at something like the FB500, FB700 or FB950 if I could find a good used one.

 

[mnapuran]

Seems like you'd have to do a ton more then just 500 posters a month to justify a machine that could do that much cheaper.

We get 27"x39" 100lb gloss posters, 500 for ~$1.75/ea

 

[rjssigns]

Outsource to a good offset printer. There are many factors to consider and something that people do not talk about is Opportunity Cost. That is the value of the best forgone alternative that was not chosen. In plain terms if you have to run the printer, load media and trim posters etc... could you have used that time to pursue higher margin jobs that take less effort? Many times people focus on the "carrot", not the effort it took to put the carrot in place.

 

[artbot]

you could call xante and ask them who in country has one of their new 4200's installed. they are perfectly designed to take this kind of order.

the machine is around $80k. could be a really money maker if you could keep it busy. but would be the type of machine to outsource to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16IXQ9CSIJk

 

[dypinc]

Since it uses dye-based aqueous inks, it would seem to guarantee reprints of these poster every 6 months.

 

[artbot]

so i guess they aren't promotional images. right now the fastest paper based printer is an s series canon right? they are dirt cheap, maybe you could get about four 44" models and knock out the order in a day?

canon sell the printer for free adds about $3k in ink with the package. when you run out of ink, use aftermarket refillables from china.

 

[Custom_Grafx]

Open a shop in China and ship them to the US. There's plenty of vacant space. If your customer can wait, why the hell not? I'm guessing you could negotiate a 6 month free tenancy, with around $50/week rent thereon... and you'd have local access and tech support for all the printers artbot talks about.

http://www.smh.com.au/tv/show/dateline/chinas-ghost-cities-20111109-1n6r9.html

Come to think of it artbot, you'd probably do really well working out of China... except for shipping large fragile freight all the time, could be expensive.