Thinking of buying the SignWarehouse Vehicle Wrap Kit

[tomld]

So, my company is considering buying the WRAPEXPRESS vehicle wrap kit, which is around $17k. It comes with the following...

Mutoh PrismJet VJ 48"
54" Q54 Vinyl Express Q-Series Cutter w/ARMS Registration Mark Sensor
54" EnduraLAM Laminator

We are not a vinyl company, but we want to use this equipment to provide promotional wraps. We will be wrapping ATV's, snowmobiles, motorcycles, not large vehicles. However we still would like to wrap our own vehicles, do interior & exterior vinyl work, banners, misc stickers, etc. So my questions are...

1) Are these 3 all quality machines?
2) Will they be suitable for our needs, specifically the 48" print width? Or will we be wanting more after we buy it?
3) Signwarehouse swears by the separate printer/cutter for efficiency. True?

Now as far as cost goes. Signwarehouse tells me it's going to cost about $2.00 a square foot to print these high quality, full color, laminated, durable outdoor wraps. Is that a true cost estimate?

Because these are promotional wraps (discounted or free), it's important we have an accurate materials cost prior to investing in this equipment. If our $2.00 sqft turns into $4.00, we'll be hurting. I believe she quoted me this for oracal orijet 3951 cast vinyl. Good stuff?

She also quoted me for....

Banners/Decals - $0.50 sqft
Indoor wall vinyl - $0.38 sqft
See through window vinyl - $1.09-$2.50 sqft

I just want to go into this fully informed, so any advice or info is appreciated.

 

[cajun312]

Do a search here for Sign Warehouse, lots of info available.

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

Lots.

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

lots of info. Your raw materials may be close to what you expect. Your getting up to speed time and labor will put you much higher than what you fear. You'll need to be giving away an awful lot of promotional materials for this to pay off. Best of luck.

 

[tomld]

Yes I'm aware of the opinion on Signwarehouse. I've been a customer of theirs for other 6 years. Bought a vinyl cutter and probably a thousand yards of vinyl from them. Never had an issue.

More interested in learning if the equipment is ideal for what I want to do. I do have vinyl experience on the cutting aspect of things for the past six years. Done many thousands of small vinyl projects. Also have a decade of graphic, design and vector experience. Just none with the print/laminate/cut workflow.

I should add we won't be installing these, just shipping them. I've installed these on my own equipment (snowmobile) before and it's stupid easy. 30 minutes max. The panels are small and contours minimal.

The biggest headache I see is building the contour files for each machine (snowmobile, atv, MX, etc). There are no template CDs for these that I'm aware of. Once those are in place we'll be good.

The beauty of this, is we don't need our business to profit from wraps. The promotional return will far outweigh the equipment and supply cost.

To put this concept into perspective. Think along the lines of FOX Racing and them having thousands of motorcycles wrapped in FOX wraps. I can see this idea not working on vehicles or items of larger scale. But if we can provide these at sub $50 our cost with no install, the skys the limit. And we won't be doing custom projects or designs. Strictly a line of wraps incorporate our brand name.

Plus we will be alot of our inhouse printing that we current outsource (banners, tradeshow material, decals, wrap our fleet/offices, etc).

 

[Gino]

Welcome from PA..............................

It's very odd that your profile doesn't match anything you've said so far about yourself or your company................. just seems a little.......​

 

[heyskull]

In my opinion you are going to need the 64" machine for wraps.
You will definitley kick yourself for not buying the bigger machine.
We have VJ 1604 64" and although we don't do wraps at the moment we have applied some large prints to vehicles and would have ended up with a lot more panels on vehicles.
Also the 48" machine doesn't have a sub tank which means the machine always has at least 100ml of each ink still in the system even when changing cartridges.
I realise you are only doing smallish stuff but the bigger VJ is better in every way.

I have no information on either the cutter or laminator.

I am concerned about your comment "The beauty of this, is we don't need our business to profit from wraps"
I most certainly would not be investing in such an expensive piece of equipment if it wasn't going to make me money. Especially if you have to learn it from scratch.

Also do not take the material and ink costs as Gospel as it will vary so much always go higher. Maybe $4.00 a Sq ft is closer especially whilst learning.

SC

 

[ProWraps]

just out of curiosity... why would i want to put your small wraps on my bike/snowmobile/4x4/etc.


seems to me that is the biggest question to answer. fox is fox. you are not.

and please dont take that personal. its a real question you should ask yourself if it makes sense to buy and learn all that equipment and/or software rather than get your artwork together and sub it out.

if you do chose to purchase the equipment in your selection, you will be more than pleased. its basically the same setup we run, just a bit smaller on the printer, laminator and cutter.

 

[tomld]

Welcome from PA..............................

It's very odd that your profile doesn't match anything you've said so far about yourself or your company................. just seems a little.......​

Really? What do you want to know? Seems a little odd anything in my profile would affect your addressing whether the equipment will match my needs. I understand you, being in the wrap business, may be concerned when someone describes a marketing plan to 'give away' vinyl wraps. But again, I assure you we aren't and never will be in the vehicle wrap business. Merely small recreational machines. To be specific ones, i'm sure you've never even tried, nor 90% of the country care about. But for us, it's our niche market and will be a very affordable branding campaign.

 

[tomld]

In my opinion you are going to need the 64" machine for wraps.
You will definitley kick yourself for not buying the bigger machine.
We have VJ 1604 64" and although we don't do wraps at the moment we have applied some large prints to vehicles and would have ended up with a lot more panels on vehicles.
Also the 48" machine doesn't have a sub tank which means the machine always has at least 100ml of each ink still in the system even when changing cartridges.
I realise you are only doing smallish stuff but the bigger VJ is better in every way.

I have no information on either the cutter or laminator.

I am concerned about your comment "The beauty of this, is we don't need our business to profit from wraps"
I most certainly would not be investing in such an expensive piece of equipment if it wasn't going to make me money. Especially if you have to learn it from scratch.

Also do not take the material and ink costs as Gospel as it will vary so much always go higher. Maybe $4.00 a Sq ft is closer especially whilst learning.

SC

Thanks for the great info! I asked SW about the next size up and the price doubles. Plus I would think our largest panel will be around 3ft, so in theory a 48" would be plenty. Again, no interest in doing vehicle wraps (aside from our company vehicles).

My comment on not making money isn't true. Let me rephrase. This will be a marketing and branding option for us. So yes, in a round about way this does need to make us money. Not directly but from heightened brand awareness which will lead to increased sales. For example we could spend $17k on a few magazine ads and some banners in 30 days. Once they've run their course, they're no longer being seen. Wraps on the other hand will be visible much longer, essentially mobile advertising by our customers and fans.

 

[tomld]

just out of curiosity... why would i want to put your small wraps on my bike/snowmobile/4x4/etc.

seems to me that is the biggest question to answer. fox is fox. you are not.

and please dont take that personal. its a real question you should ask yourself if it makes sense to buy and learn all that equipment and/or software rather than get your artwork together and sub it out.

My point in this thread, really wasn't to defend or justify our business and idea. Rather gather applicable information for or against our intended purchase.

But against my better judgement, i'll answer your question. YOU probably wouldn't be interested in repping our brand. But the many tens of thousands that already do, will absolutely LOVE to with wraps. Especially at free or low cost. Are we FOX, no. Not even close. Are we the FOX of our small niche industry, sure.

We are very confident this will be a highly successful branding campaign for us. This isn't just a guess, but the same reason we sell thousands of tshirts annually with our logo, or the 100k stickers (which we do sub out) we distribute each year, or the hats, riding gear, accessories, films, etc. Our products are represented by more medal winning xgames athletes than any other brand in our industry. We have a fantastic loyal following and i'm all about giving them great value, especially when it provides us a brand boost.

So I do hope this addresses the doubts in regards to the viability of our idea and will allow this thread to get back on track about whether the equipment in question is a good fit and good quality.

Thanks anyone for the positive feedback!

 

[advsign22]

Just sub out the work and not get involved on the production level. You can purchase prints laminated close to the price that you are wanting to pay printing them yourself. Why invest the money in the equipment and have the head aches that come with owning and maintaining the equipment?

Ken

 

[andy]

Just sub out the work and not get involved on the production level. You can purchase prints laminated close to the price that you are wanting to pay printing them yourself. Why invest the money in the equipment and have the head aches that come with owning and maintaining the equipment?

Ken

+1

 

[Mason]

Really? What do you want to know? Seems a little odd anything in my profile would affect your addressing whether the equipment will match my needs. I understand you, being in the wrap business, may be concerned when someone describes a marketing plan to 'give away' vinyl wraps. But again, I assure you we aren't and never will be in the vehicle wrap business. Merely small recreational machines. To be specific ones, i'm sure you've never even tried, nor 90% of the country care about. But for us, it's our niche market and will be a very affordable branding campaign.

 

[mark galoob]

i think the issue here for many people on this forum is that this is a forum for people who are in the business. it does not sound like you are in the business. it sounds like you are in another business and want to circumvent the normal chanels to get your product. hey correct me if im wrong...

mark galoob

 

[Sign_Boy]

I may be off on this info but here goes:

1) I would go larger on the printer - 54"
Reason being, you may find not all vendors carry media for the 48" or not all the media you want to use is available in 48"

2) If you are going to be wrapping ATV's snowmobiles, motorcycles and so on you are probably going to need to use convex.
I'm not sure how much this runs but I'd bet it's more than 3951. You might want to find that out.

3) Have you tried subbing out? If not you may want to give it a try. Here are a few reasons:
a) The learning curve is going to cost you
b) You may find whatever vendor you pick to be very helpful with what materials to use and so on
c) Do you have a clean room for this setup? If not you're going to need one.
d) Did the wrap kit include the software to run the equipment? If not add a few grand to your total
e) Do you or the person that will be running these machines have any design experience? Or knowledge of these machines?
f) Do you have the templates for these vehicles?
g) In the end it's not just about print & cut - there's way more to it.

4) Promotional wraps (discounted or free) I would assume you are making money on the backend somewhere - not that it's any of my business. We sign people don't like hearing stuff is going to be free - just saying

Anyway, I would do as much research as possible before you buy anything.
If you use the search feature on this site you will probably find answers to all your questions and more.
Best of luck

 

[MikePro]

+1 to seperate printer/cutter
idk bout you, but I like taking my prints off the roll and laminating them before I cut.

 

[SignManiac]

i think the issue here for many people on this forum is that this is a forum for people who are in the business. it does not sound like you are in the business. it sounds like you are in another business and want to circumvent the normal chanels to get your product. hey correct me if im wrong...

mark galoob

Yep, pretty much the way I see it too. No sign company can stop you from buying the gun to shoot them with, but I sure am not about to give you the bullets to do it with.

 

[MikePro]

+1 to outsourcing before you go buying... see if you can even market/install your product

 

[Mosh]

+1 for not thinking you are in the sign biz and looking for cheap do-it-yourself Paul Jr. type of person.

Sorry, but this is the type of crap that I hate. Leave the printing to the printers.

 

[Gino]

I don’t want to know anything. You do.


Your first post seemed legit, until you spoke later on in other posts about the cutter you already have and the 1000 yards of vinyl you have [which equates to about 6 rolls or so] is nothing…. and no mention of these things or that you even work anywhere, let alone have software or experience and then you want to waltz in here and get all kinds of information for free. You talk the talk, but you hardly understand it and you my friend sound a bit peculiar and a little too defensive to be on the up & up.

You made mention that you aren’t in the wrap business and never will be, but your profile says 100% the opposite… so what gives with all the false information ?? Do we believe what you said to get in here or believe what you’re telling us now ??

I have no worry about competition with you or anybody else, so I have no idea why you would think I care about you or your business plan… especially since you’re 3,000 miles away.

You want us all to open up and pour our hearts and sole into your answers, but you are remaining so elusive, I have no idea why anyone would want to help you. Can you tell me why you are being so cryptic ?? Are you telling us everything ??

Then again, you tell us you’re not interested in making money…. and then you come back and tell us you are, but indirectly…. Whadafug is that chit ?? You sell 1,000’s of T-shirts, make no mention of that equipment in your profile, but make no indication if you sub them out or not. So, you either are lying through your teeth to get in here and pick our brains…. or you’re lying about your plans. I for one could care less what you buy or what your reasons are for needing this stuff, but to falsely represent yourself on so many levels is why I questioned your profile……

If this isn’t positive enough for you….. sorry ‘bout that.