printer/copier for business cards

[sardocs]

I get a lot of clients who, when picking up their signs, ask if I make business cards. When I tell 'em no I end up sending art to someone else to make. Can anyone here suggest a printer/photocopier machine that I can purchase that will do a decent job of making business cards? Do they have machines that cut them to size? Will I have to spent more than $2500 for something that prints a saleable product? Just seems like I get folks asking me for cards 3 or 4 times a week. I charge 'em for design, but I'd like to print them in-house.

 

[Pat Whatley]

Find a good company to sub them out to. When you can order them and have the perfect, finished product delivered to you in three days for $20 (per 1000 cards) it's hard to justify doing them in-house. Unless you're a major printer you'll never make enough profit to cover the cost of the machine. There's a local copy center that invested a small fortune in printing equipment....and has since discovered that they can sub out their printing for less than they could buy raw materials for.

 

[weaselboogie]

You'd get a better quality... (and a LOT less headache ) if you subbed it out.

I understand the control of wanting to have hands on for everything that leaves your shop, but get some for yourself and you can see WHY you should send them out, especially after you get the bill. $20-$50 for OFFSET UV coated business cards.. can't beat that...

gotprint, 4over, vistaprint, zooprinting... most of their turn arounds are under a week.

 

[HaroldDesign]

I know of a couple "digital presses" that do a good job, but unless you're able to spend a good chunk of cash the cheapest one I can think of that print well on heavy stock is the Xante Illumina (goes for around $10K I think). The long and short of it is that you can sub to someone like post card press or 4 over and make more money than you ever will off a machine that will do half as good of a job (unless you can keep it running jobs day and night).

 

[signmeup]

I sub mine to a local print shop. They do great work, the price is great and I can go pick the cards up myself. You can probably find someone near you that would be happy to do your cards..... times all tough all over.

 

[sardocs]

Thanks for the quick replies, y'all. I kinda thought I might need to keep outsourcing cards and posters etc. I live in an area where, thanks to BC Ferries and Canada Post, "overnight" and "next day" are not in our vocabulary.

 

[royster13]

But you do get to live in "God's Country".....

I hear you about shipping....I am on the border with WA and cross a couple times a week to pick stuff up.....It gives me a great competitive edge versus folks that ship across the border....

 

[Sticky Signs]

Hey Sardocs,
I was going to compliment you on the Firebird (I play one too) than I noticed your from Gibsons. Cool. Never been there myself but I'm planning on it one of these days. As for your business cards, I'd take orders from all the clients and place an order once a week with a supplier and have them all shipped at once. Save yourself a few bucks on shipping and make a few bucks on the cards.
Stupid BC Ferries...

 

[Ken]

Yeah, I sub out to Vistaprint.com, you have your choice of shipping priority. Not the cheapest...but it works.
Cheers!
Ken
Signs That Work !

 

[Biker Scout]

I understand where you are coming from. A lot of times, a client just needs like 50 cards for that day or the coming up weekend. Using 4over isn't exactly the right choice.

What I do in these circumstances is print them a small bundle in-house and send off the rest.

I would highly suggest picking up a Xanté Ilumina or it's OEM counterpart Okidata 9600. (Okidata actually makes the printer and it's about $2500 less)

And there's a small desktop machine called a Business Card Trimmer that allows you to run the full sheets through and it cuts them all to size in one pass. Either 10-Up or 12-Up.

Keep in mind when doing it this way, 60 cards is only 5 sheets of card stock. And 250 is 21 pieces. Not a big deal cost wise, and you can still charge a small amount for the quickies to cover toner and paper. Plus you get a happy customer.

 

[sardocs]

Thanks to all - Biker Scout, I'm going to research the Ilumina, the 9600 and Card Trimmers tomorrow. I think that having that type of a set up here will be worth it in the long run. Currently I sub out or refer cards to a few of our local offset guys. And when I do "master copies" of event posters on my sp300 for our drag race club, service clubs, etc, I end up running around to copy shops for colour copies at about a buck a piece. - Sticky, grab your guitar, hop the Horseshoe Bay ferry to the Sunshine Coast and come jam in my shop! The amps are on standby....

 

[jiarby]

I quit doing el cheapo business cards... now $xxx sets only or adios. Re-orders or Name swaps a bit less, but I try to hit hard for initial orders. Also easy to upsell 5k & 10k sets. Custy gets "Half Price Cards", we get double the money!
I get them at 4over, SilkCards, AWT, GP, Graphicom.

 

[Biker Scout]

I should mention that the best reason to have one of those in-house is if you happen to be a full service design shop... printing restaurant menus. They never need more than 50, and you gotta laminate them anyway. This printer will print up to 13x19 which gives you full bleed 12x18's! I hate taking that kind of crap to copy shops or Kinko's.

 

[OldPaint]

i have an HP K850. 13X19. CISS makes a kit for it so you can use it like a BIG PRINTER and just fill outside ink tanks with ink.
was in office depot the other day, EPSON has a a WORKFORCE 1100, FOR $199.00 13X19 PRINTER CHROMA INKS!!!

 

[sardocs]

Biker - That's exactly the niche I wanna scratch. I have enough stuff on the go already that sending out jobs takes more time than I have. I just wanna "push the print button" on something that will pay it's own way here in my shop. I'm home based in my 1500 sqft basement with my brushes, my vinyl cutter, and my versacamm. I'm happiest when they're all runnin' at the same time.

 

[grafixemporium]

I understand that you want to "scratch that niche"... but you'd better have a pretty big niche to justify the expense. We outsource like most everyone else does. However, we have a local printer in Houston specifically for business cards with free next day delivery if the art is submitted before 3pm. Everything else goes to one of the biggies... GP, 4over, etc.

 

[sardocs]

I don't know how much niche I need, or how much it's going to cost. I do have a very loyal clientele who don't seem to mind paying me a fair bit more than what others in my area charge for signs. I'm 40 km out of town and they drive past 4 or 5 other shops on their way here. Lately, for myself I made a couple hundred 'waterproof' business cards on 13oz banner, cut 'em up with a 'zakto. When I give them out, people have wanted theirs done that way, and when I explain I don't have a quick (read profitable) way to cut them up and that their cards will cost $100 for 50 and I'll do 'em at my leisure they've all said great! call me when they're ready.

 

[anotherdog]

outsource unless you are in a really cut off community (Monopoly), the quality is never satisfying unless the overhead makes you sweat.

A footnote about small markets, you going into business cards may prompt the local printer to go into signs just to survive.

 

[grafixemporium]

I don't know how much niche I need, or how much it's going to cost. I do have a very loyal clientele who don't seem to mind paying me a fair bit more than what others in my area charge for signs. I'm 40 km out of town and they drive past 4 or 5 other shops on their way here. Lately, for myself I made a couple hundred 'waterproof' business cards on 13oz banner, cut 'em up with a 'zakto. When I give them out, people have wanted theirs done that way, and when I explain I don't have a quick (read profitable) way to cut them up and that their cards will cost $100 for 50 and I'll do 'em at my leisure they've all said great! call me when they're ready.

If you want a weatherproof card, order yourself 1,000 14pt card stock business cards with UV coating on both sides from GP or any other wholesale printer. They will set you back about 15 bucks plus shipping from GP. Take one card and leave it outside for a month. It will survive sun, rain, sleet, snow and whatever you can throw at it.

 

[GraceGraphics]

Use Alliant Printing. www.AlliantPS.com or NextDayFlyers.com - Since your a sign shop you get Trade Pricing.