"No More Walk-ins" - Good Idea, or Terrible Mistake?

[DL Signs]

If you want, need, or are set up to do the little one off stuff from walk-in's, more power to ya'.
We're all business to business, located in an off the beaten path industrial area, so walk-in's are pretty rare, and it's great for us.

 

[CanuckSigns]

I'm toying with this myself currently, we started off as an engraving shop, and as such we get walk-ins looking to get their fishing trophy engraved, or a charcuterie board engraved etc. these are all usually 1 off customers who I will never see again, we have a $25 engraving minimum order, which is higher than most other shops in the area, but at best i break even at this price by the time the client comes in and chats my ear off about all the fish he caught blah blah blah.

I'm going to start telling these people that the lead time for small one off orders is 3 weeks, that way they will either go somewhere else, or it will allow me to either run these jobs during down time, or batch them together for better efficiency. I think it will scare most of these people away, usually they come in end of day thursday, and "need" it for saturday, then they pick it up the following Wednesday.

 

[Stacey K]

I'm toying with this myself currently, we started off as an engraving shop, and as such we get walk-ins looking to get their fishing trophy engraved, or a charcuterie board engraved etc. these are all usually 1 off customers who I will never see again, we have a $25 engraving minimum order, which is higher than most other shops in the area, but at best i break even at this price by the time the client comes in and chats my ear off about all the fish he caught blah blah blah.

I'm going to start telling these people that the lead time for small one off orders is 3 weeks, that way they will either go somewhere else, or it will allow me to either run these jobs during down time, or batch them together for better efficiency. I think it will scare most of these people away, usually they come in end of day thursday, and "need" it for saturday, then they pick it up the following Wednesday.

This is exactly why I steer away from walk-ins. The $25 job just cost you 20 minutes of fishing stories and will be another 20 when they pick-up. For this reason, I like my pick-up area.

 

[caribmike]

After 50 years of having a shop in the same location, we semi-retired and went home-based with website last year.

I've never been happier... no more having to deal with the walk-ins!

The smallest customers are always the most time consuming.

 

[Gino]

Many years ago, a friend of mine had a really nice screen printing business going, but only textiles, no flat stock. We'd do business back & forth cause I didn't do textiles and he needed signs from time to time and we'd talk about these little orders that were always dribbling in and taking up valuable time. His approach was..... he started a second company, but in name only. Had it's own name, phone and 2 people. Now, these people could work in either business cause it was still all in the same building. His second business started to take off and he hadda hire more people. Both were highly successful. He recently retired, but said he did the right thing starting the second business, cause his rates were different, although it was all handled the same.

 

[JBurton]

Many years ago, a friend of mine had a really nice screen printing business going, but only textiles, no flat stock. We'd do business back & forth cause I didn't do textiles and he needed signs from time to time and we'd talk about these little orders that were always dribbling in and taking up valuable time. His approach was..... he started a second company, but in name only. Had it's own name, phone and 2 people. Now, these people could work in either business cause it was still all in the same building. His second business started to take off and he hadda hire more people. Both were highly successful. He recently retired, but said he did the right thing starting the second business, cause his rates were different, although it was all handled the same.

Wild. I've tossed around the idea of 'opening' a banner shop, called City Banners, then setting up one employee to handle the calls and art, then just producing them like normal, or hell, even just start ordering through s365 or firesprint and having hands off the 'hard' work. Glad to hear it's been viable for someone else.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

rick williams did that in our town with his sign company. his second company, based out of the same building was "oil field signs of east texas". don't know how well that did for them

 

[Stacey K]

Gino that is super interesting! I've been wanting to do an online store for some time now. I could definitely put that under a different name. Heck, I could have multiple stores...

 

[Gino]

Do/did you realize..... all the big companies do that, like gemini, print companies and other industries, too ?? They advertise in magazines, on the web and today all kindsa other places as a particular name and the same people answer the phone. According to which line you call in on..... is how they answer and give prices. Gemini will sell to the end user as well as regular customer like us. They just don't give the same discount. However, if someone calls in enough, they'll offer them wholesale prices and then they cut our throats.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Do/did you realize..... all the big companies do that, like gemini, print companies and other industries, too ?? They advertise in magazines, on the web and today all kindsa other places as a particular name and the same people answer the phone. According to which line you call in on..... is how they answer and give prices. Gemini will sell to the end user as well as regular customer like us. They just don't give the same discount. However, if someone calls in enough, they'll offer them wholesale prices and then they cut our throats.

I often wonder if these "wholesalers" solicit direct business if they see enough volume coming through from one of their sign shop customers. Similar to what Amazon did to sellers years back. Under a different name of course so nobody knows the difference

 

[CanuckSigns]

I often wonder if these "wholesalers" solicit direct business if they see enough volume coming through from one of their sign shop customers. Similar to what Amazon did to sellers years back. Under a different name of course so nobody knows the difference

Some definitely do, I know 4over has a retail site that sells at pretty much the same "wholesale" pricing as we get.

 

[tulsagraphics]

Some definitely do, I know 4over has a retail site that sells at pretty much the same "wholesale" pricing as we get.

A little different with this one... retail supply first, then wholesale. Sign Warehouse (started in the late 90s) formed their wholesale company, thebannerstore.net around 2011. No doubt they're using their import buying power to keep costs down at their wholesale biz.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Wild. I've tossed around the idea of 'opening' a banner shop, called City Banners, then setting up one employee to handle the calls and art, then just producing them like normal, or hell, even just start ordering through s365 or firesprint and having hands off the 'hard' work. Glad to hear it's been viable for someone else.

If you do, can you get this guy to answer the phone?

 

[Manning]

We started our sign business in 1999. About 10 years ago we quit trying to do everything and went to primarily commercial work unless I thought it was profitable.(Great Decision) Then during covid we kept working with everything locked up and never slowed down so after covid we changed our hours to closed for productions M/W/F, open to customers Tues & Thurs. Its been great and has made me understand why so many companies are located in an industrial area. Certain customers get special treatment of course

 

[JBurton]

If you do, can you get this guy to answer the phone?

This is only nominally funny any more, as my hometown has since become home to The Rong Chinese Restaurant... their general zho's is to die for!