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Phone/laptop decals - win or fail?

newbie

New Member
Howdy everyone! :peace!:

As my name suggests, i am fairly new here :notworthy: and, obviously :smile:, i have a brilliant idea.


Introduction:
I've spent last 15 years of my life working in a corporate environment and i think it's time to move on. OTOH, i am fairly familiar with terms such as gamut, CMYK, RGB, vector, raster etc... but also with numbers, Excel sheets and charts. :smile:

So... the plan is, in theory, pretty simple: make decals for phones / laptops / gaming consoles and sell them on-line. Add also the possibility to make custom decals (there are a variety of on-line apps for that also). Offer also a variety of predefined designs to choose from.

The questions that come to my mind are many and i would be very grateful if you could help me just a little bit with your experience?

Do you think this is feasible? Is this realistic and, could it be profitable to make business only through on-line sales? Eventually, i could offer our predefined products to mobile phone and computer shops but, to be honest, i do not plan to make any local business (schools, companies etc...). Being a complete newbie, there isn't a thing a could do better than the competition and cutting the prices down is, well, stupid. This is not the way i would go.

Regarding printing, well, AFAIR, there are two options:

a) The Gerber system - sounds good AFAIR;
b) outsource to a local shop - i don't know the pricing here;
c) invest in equipment - being a newbie, i am afraid of this option.

The option a) sounds good (i don't know if the support/spares/consumables are ok and available), the option b) could be a problem and option c) is, IMHO, not realistic due to the small quantities and my none existing experience at all.

Well, there you go. A post with no question about the best printer/cutter. :smile:

Thank you very much for any feedback. :notworthy:
 

wildside

New Member
i say don't quit your day job, wal-mart sells stickers in the little machines out front for a quarter.....
 

briankb

Premium Subscriber
you are about 3 years behind a lot of companies that already do this VERY well and offer both pre-designed and custom templates for every phone, laptop, or mobile device available.

Do a search on Google or Bing.

I suggest you think of something else unless you are going to bring something unique to this particular niche.
 

Christian @ 2CT Media

Active Member
I have a large client that wraps all of their salesman's laptops with their company logo and brand information... We sold 100's of over the last few years, its popular but surely its only a trend.
 

WrapperX

New Member
It's not a big enough or specialized enough market for you to bank your entire operation around. Good for "side money" or steady minor income to have if you have other avenues of revenue like large signs or vehicle graphics but this would then require you to market to the local business which you already stated you don't want to do.

I agree with wsgraphix - don't quit your day job.
 

CanuckSigns

Active Member
I think the problem is the perceived value of these items, the average person looking for decals for their phone is not going to pay you what it's worth to custom design these, and the market is completely flooded with generic designs at Wal-Mart etc.

I think you would get a lot of people saying "wow, that's a sweet design, i would buy a bunch of those!" but not following through once they see the price.

I like the idea though, but try to apply your skills to a market that isn't over saturated.
 

newbie

New Member
you are about 3 years behind a lot of companies that already do this VERY well and offer both pre-designed and custom templates for every phone, laptop, or mobile device available.

Do a search on Google or Bing.

I suggest you think of something else unless you are going to bring something unique to this particular niche.


Thanks for the honest reply.

The thing is... i am looking at a market of cca. 4 milion inhabitants (in total). According to statistics, every inhabitant has almost 2 mobile phones. And... as far as i can see, during last few months of research, no company is offering this kind of service in our country (we are not a part of the European Union).

So, i am now taking my options into consideration should we go this way...
 

wildside

New Member
out of those 4 million people, how many are between 12 and 22 years old?

that is your demographic for "phone stickers" - most adults are not into it, at least in this area, and i know i'm not for sure....

out of those demographics, how many have phones? how many are going to order from your website as opposed to the 1000 other sites selling the exact same product for pennies?

a 4 million customer base will be narrowed to hundreds of thousands at the most by age, then cut that number in half for people actually looking for your product, then divide that number by 1000 to possibly see how many might be interested.... i would see it as maybe a couple thousand people that would be the target market

granted i could be way off, as who would ever have been interested in posting crap about themselves on the internet for anyone to read a few years ago, but he is a multi catrillionare now with facebook
 

WrapperX

New Member
1st - If its ON-LINE only then you aren't only hitting your country its a worldwide thing unless you have a different internet then the rest of us.

2nd - 4 million inhabitants doesn't mean that all 4 million are gonna want to get decals for their phones/laptops or whatever even if they have 2/pc it doesn't gaurentee anything.

Now lets consider the cost of your layouts. How much do you plan on charging for one of these decals? $5? $10? Dare I say you go as high as $20? Not $50?? Who's gonna pay that much just to put crap on their phones and computers? Especially when you can already get basic decals for a couple $$.

3rdly - You don't have any way to produce them at whole sale pricing since you don't own any equipment. You want to make the money with out the product? How does that make sense?
 
its an idea many have had and few have succeded at.
you have to much compatition online from well established companies. you don't have any equipment, so you would either have to outsource the stuff to someone else or buy the equipment yourself which costs many thousands of euros/pounds/dollars wherever your at! plus you need exprience running said machines and software!
 

Christian @ 2CT Media

Active Member
You should consider out sourcing your print work to start, but you will be hard pressed to make a profit on these if they are one-offs. You have find designs that are popular so you can mass produce them to get costs down.
 

Tim Aucoin

New Member
What everyone else has said! I have the Gerber equipment, and I have been approached to print stickers for phones and computers... yeah, one of this and two of that. Well, needless to say, the people who ask me whine about my price and say they can get them in the big box stores for a lot less. I give them directions to the nearest Walmart and bid them a good day! I refuse to stop my jobs that sell for hundreds or even thousands to do a $5 decal. :noway:

If you have an existing business doing OTHER things, then by all means, offer these little things as a value-add product, but don't expect to make a living doing only those.
 

Dshiki

New Member
I'm looking to do something similar. I want to find templates to wrap phones and laptops. I can not find vectorized templates that are ready to cut. Does anyone have them or know where I can get them?
 

MikePro

New Member
my sister even went online to buy a laptop wrap, after I had already done one for her as a freebie! She wanted a new one a few months later, with different graphics/etc. and I told her i'd do it for $30 ,just enough to buy myself dinner and drinks for my time to design/print/install. She said it was too much and bought one for $20 instead and "installed" it herself.
looks like crap, imho... and i'm not just being salty about it. Honestly tho', I actually felt relieved when she decided to do it herself.

Best of luck to you if you think you can make money off it... you're designs better be amazing, because that's the only thing that will set you apart from the rest of the ebay sticker guys out there. Well, that and PRICE. Which I think you'll never be able to compete with and still live off of.
 
my sister even went online to buy a laptop wrap, after I had already done one for her as a freebie! She wanted a new one a few months later, with different graphics/etc. and I told her i'd do it for $30 ,just enough to buy myself dinner and drinks for my time to design/print/install. She said it was too much and bought one for $20 instead and "installed" it herself.
looks like crap, imho... and i'm not just being salty about it. Honestly tho', I actually felt relieved when she decided to do it herself.

Best of luck to you if you think you can make money off it... you're designs better be amazing, because that's the only thing that will set you apart from the rest of the ebay sticker guys out there. Well, that and PRICE. Which I think you'll never be able to compete with and still live off of.


dude, you wanted to charge your sister! lol......if i did that to my sister i would get a slap around the head for sure! lol
 

8DC

New Member
I've done custom laptop wraps for a few clients before... not something that you would want to base a business around, but I wouldn't say no if they were willing to pay for custom work. Definately does not hurt to have your own done as advertisement either (usually how I've gotten those jobs; "oh, you can do those too?").
 

MikePro

New Member
dude, you wanted to charge your sister! lol......if i did that to my sister i would get a slap around the head for sure! lol
haha yeah, xept my sister is a pageant-queen and I'm always doing freebies for her fundraisers and parade floats. She's also a nanny, and makes twice as much as I do... CASH! I don't feel bad at all trying to charge her these days.

if anything, its the most polite way I can say "I really don't want to spend my freetime dealing with this", she is my sister so I can't really "fire" her as a client :)
anyhow, $30 for design/print/install... that's a STEAL!
 

signswi

New Member
Charging family is the only way to get them to go away ;P.

OP do you think you can compete with http://www.gelaskins.com/ who are an established brand and have successfully scaled? What do you bring that's new? You need to disrupt an established market to have any chance at success but there's nothing disruptive about your product pitch (and it sounds like you haven't done even a basic business plan).

I mean gelaskins just landed licensing for Norman Rockwell prints, good luck competing with that kind of brand power!
 
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