Viable Alternatives to SIGNS365?

[Snappy]

Hey all, long time lurker, seldom poster, but I have a question. I order a ton of stuff from Signs365, and have for years, but have had a issue with them that has me wanting to find an alternative. Basically, long story short, I ordered a little 2x2 piece of vinyl with some various sized decals for a customer. They were to be contour cut and the whole thing was less than $11 worth of vinyl. When it came, the contour cutting wasn't deep enough and they would not weed. Chunks of vinyl stuck to the sides of a bunch of the decals... contacted them and let them know. They said to go ahead and weed the rest and count the different sized decals that were messed up and let them know and they'd reprint those. I do, and over half of the decals are unusable. Email back the numbers with pictures, etc. She calls me back and says to set up a new file with the just the ones I need replaced, make a new cut file, and they'll print them and send them. I tell her I don't have the time to do all that just to save them $5 in vinyl, I should have just reordered it and paid for it myself, would have been cheaper than all the time I've spent on it already. She says okay, she'll reprint them, but I need to send back the first print, and she'll send me a label. I'm like never mind, I'll just reorder the whole dang thing, pay for it and move on, and did that in about 2 minutes.

Ok, maybe I'm not being patient enough with them, but that said, as cheap as they are being and much of a hassle as it was to try to get a $11 reprint that was messed up, I'd hate to know what trouble I'd have if it was something big. I order tons of banners, coro signs, wrap prints, printed vinyl, etc. Is there another trade-only printer that compares to their offering, prices and speed?

I do use Sinalite and 4over for other types of printing, but I'm looking for a vinyl/coro printer...

 

[signheremd]

Hey all, long time lurker, seldom poster, but I have a question. I order a ton of stuff from Signs365, and have for years, but have had a issue with them that has me wanting to find an alternative. Basically, long story short, I ordered a little 2x2 piece of vinyl with some various sized decals for a customer. They were to be contour cut and the whole thing was less than $11 worth of vinyl. When it came, the contour cutting wasn't deep enough and they would not weed. Chunks of vinyl stuck to the sides of a bunch of the decals... contacted them and let them know. They said to go ahead and weed the rest and count the different sized decals that were messed up and let them know and they'd reprint those. I do, and over half of the decals are unusable. Email back the numbers with pictures, etc. She calls me back and says to set up a new file with the just the ones I need replaced, make a new cut file, and they'll print them and send them. I tell her I don't have the time to do all that just to save them $5 in vinyl, I should have just reordered it and paid for it myself, would have been cheaper than all the time I've spent on it already. She says okay, she'll reprint them, but I need to send back the first print, and she'll send me a label. I'm like never mind, I'll just reorder the whole dang thing, pay for it and move on, and did that in about 2 minutes.

Ok, maybe I'm not being patient enough with them, but that said, as cheap as they are being and much of a hassle as it was to try to get a $11 reprint that was messed up, I'd hate to know what trouble I'd have if it was something big. I order tons of banners, coro signs, wrap prints, printed vinyl, etc. Is there another trade-only printer that compares to their offering, prices and speed?

I do use Sinalite and 4over for other types of printing, but I'm looking for a vinyl/coro printer...

Firesprint is on here and does this.

 

[Gino]

Ya need to think about this for a minute. They have rules and policies. They must follow those rules. If they don't where do they draw the line ?? At $12 order, $15 order..... where ?? They're not really looking at each and every job going through and wondering, if they're making a buck. At $11, I highly doubt they're making much of anything. What are you charging for it ?? I'll bet a lot more. I'm not sticking up for 365, but they're all gonna be like this.

 

[Snappy]

Ya need to think about this for a minute. They have rules and policies. They must follow those rules. If they don't where do they draw the line ?? At $12 order, $15 order..... where ?? They're not really looking at each and every job going through and wondering, if they're making a buck. At $11, I highly doubt they're making much of anything. What are you charging for it ?? I'll bet a lot more. I'm not sticking up for 365, but they're all gonna be like this.

Hi Gino, I realize that they have procedures and said maybe I'm not having enough patience on this. Just seemed like a lot of time, hassle and back and forth over trying to save them 1 or 2 (at most) sq. ft. of vinyl on a reprint. They would have been covering the rest of the print and the shipping, so the whole order with shipping was $21. I was already in the hole with the 30 minutes I was in to trying to get a reprint... then at $2 a sq ft. for vinyl, I eliminate 1 sq. ft. by spending more time redoing the file, how much did I save them at their cost? A dollar? However, a different customer rep has reached out and they are crediting me for my reorder, and I appreciate that a lot. I do have to say it makes me feel a lot better about their customer service, even more if you are right and I was in the wrong to get frustrated...

Thanks, Gino, I do appreciate your response.

 

[Snappy]

Firesprint is on here and does this.

Thank you! A Signs365 rep did reach out to me and made it right and it did make me feel a lot better about their customer service! I'll continue to use them because of that, but thanks for letting me know about Firesprint.

 

[Scotchbrite]

Is it scary that shortly after viewing this thread I received a marketing email from FireSprint? I'd never heard of them before today.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

That would irritate me too. Why wouldn't they just replace it?

 

[Evan Gillette]

I thought the same thing, why wouldn't they just hit reprint and call it a day, but then I thought about it and came to the realization I would do the same thing. As someone else mentioned they probably make next to nothing on an $11 order. Now put yourself in their shoes and replay this scenario and tell me what you would do.

A middle-aged gentleman whom you are acquainted with through some common friends stops by your shop some afternoon and talk your ear off about his new snowmobile/jetski/whatever and how its the coolest thing ever and how awesome everyone thinks he is for having one blah blah blah. He gets to the point that he needs some registration numbers, gold chrome of course, and "I'm sure you know what size to make em!" and leaves without discussing a price. He comes by two days later and unfortunately you aren't out on an install and he catches you in the middle of a rush job. To avoid another hour wasted listening to stories that aren't true you tell him that they are "on the house, but I'll bill you double next time" (to avoid future favors) and pray that he will just go away happy. He comes in a week later unhappy and says "man these must have been a bad batch of that sticker stuff" with obvious water stains on the backing paper of the one he didn't try to install yet. He spouts out "can ya whip me up another batch quick while I wait, I'll get ya a cold one at the bar later!"

Hope some of you enjoyed the sign shop satire, in all honesty without reviewing your account I would imagine this is how the customer service person felt because (as you mentioned) you should have just started with a quick reorder. As you also mentioned they seem to have reviewed and followed up showing at least some appreciation for your business.

There are plenty of good competitive option out there for wholesalers and I like to mix it up occasionally just to have a backup plan, as others mentioned firesprint is a forum supporter and great all-around company.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I thought the same thing, why wouldn't they just hit reprint and call it a day, but then I thought about it and came to the realization I would do the same thing. As someone else mentioned they probably make next to nothing on an $11 order. Now put yourself in their shoes and replay this scenario and tell me what you would do.

A middle-aged gentleman whom you are acquainted with through some common friends stops by your shop some afternoon and talk your ear off about his new snowmobile/jetski/whatever and how its the coolest thing ever and how awesome everyone thinks he is for having one blah blah blah. He gets to the point that he needs some registration numbers, gold chrome of course, and "I'm sure you know what size to make em!" and leaves without discussing a price. He comes by two days later and unfortunately you aren't out on an install and he catches you in the middle of a rush job. To avoid another hour wasted listening to stories that aren't true you tell him that they are "on the house, but I'll bill you double next time" (to avoid future favors) and pray that he will just go away happy. He comes in a week later unhappy and says "man these must have been a bad batch of that sticker stuff" with obvious water stains on the backing paper of the one he didn't try to install yet. He spouts out "can ya whip me up another batch quick while I wait, I'll get ya a cold one at the bar later!"

Hope some of you enjoyed the sign shop satire, in all honesty without reviewing your account I would imagine this is how the customer service person felt because (as you mentioned) you should have just started with a quick reorder. As you also mentioned they seem to have reviewed and followed up showing at least some appreciation for your business.

There are plenty of good competitive option out there for wholesalers and I like to mix it up occasionally just to have a backup plan, as others mentioned firesprint is a forum supporter and great all-around company.

If I make a mistake it gets fixed without regard for how much was made on the job or the price of it and would expect the same out of anyone else. If there's no margin for error then don't screw up.

 

[visual800]

signs 365 is good for some stuff. long term vinyl not so much. I use http://www.georgiaprintco.com

Great products and prices they will send you a proof of all cut lines before they start production, give them a try. They take a little longer than 365 BUT quality is better

 

[Evan Gillette]

If I make a mistake it gets fixed without regard for how much was made on the job or the price of it and would expect the same out of anyone else. If there's no margin for error then don't screw up.

I agree 100%, I guess my point was that there are some customers that are unscrupulous enough to want an extra "freebie" out of an $11 job just to see what they can get away with. I personally avoid that type of customer as I'm sure most of you do, but I would bet S365 and other wholesalers deal with it regularly.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I agree 100%, I guess my point was that there are some customers that are unscrupulous enough to want an extra "freebie" out of an $11 job just to see what they can get away with. I personally avoid that type of customer as I'm sure most of you do, but I would bet S365 and other wholesalers deal with it regularly.

I was thinking about that, like a pattern of complaints. In college we used to order a pizza, call and say the cheese was stuck to the top of the box and they'd rush out a second. After running that trick into the ground, they said they want the old pizza back, which was half eaten. They took the replacement back and our address got blocked for delivery.

 

[Scotchbrite]

If I make a mistake it gets fixed without regard for how much was made on the job or the price of it and would expect the same out of anyone else. If there's no margin for error then don't screw up.

That's how I feel about things which is why I've always thought I might have a hard time working for someone. A lot of business owners don't feel that way about fixing mistakes.

 

[Stacey K]

Once I sent something back because it was a larger order because of the contour cut. Once I sent photos and they reprinted. Twice I ate it and just reordered.

Evan Gillette - don't send the snowmobile guy to me...I hate those kind of customers, I had 1 call me Monday and one stop in Tuesday...ughhhh

 

[Sharper Printing]

We would love to help you out and give you an alternative and maybe a complete replacement trade only large format printer. Give us a call. 844-474-2773

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

They are weird about wanting stuff back. That's seems short sighted wanting all that fooling around for an $11 print. I am almost at 1000 orders with them and I rarely ever call with a problem, but when I do I really don't want the run around with sending stuff back. Most of the time they are OK with getting things fixed.. but I don't like the upfront hesitation in doing so... especially with my history.. and I don't order $10 items.

 

[GAC05]

I have had only a couple of offline interactions with people here. A recent one was with signs365. They stepped up with some material and did not charge me for it. It was my first contact with them so I have nothing be good things to say about them. Another member here who also stepped up in getting a roll of material headed this way was Notarealsignguy. I will say good things about him too - except for that chicken fetish thing......

With us being far away from everything, except the beach, I stick to trading with companies who take care of issues with a reasonable response. We do vehicle repair and if the parts can't be had locally we order from RockAuto.
There have been a few issues, and they sent replacement parts with no fuss and without asking us to return anything.
CardID on the other hand is one of the bad ones, they shipped us the wrong part and wanted us to pay to send it back. The part was over 200lbs and it would cost us more to return ship it than what they were going to refund us. It wasn't a close-but-wrong-year kind of mistake it was a totally different part for a different vehicle. Got no help from PayPal or our bank on reversing the charges so we ate the $1,200.00.

When list members go above and beyond helping out it makes a big impact over here in the Pacific.

 

[Stacey K]

They are weird about wanting stuff back. That's seems short sighted wanting all that fooling around for an $11 print. I am almost at 1000 orders with them and I rarely ever call with a problem, but when I do I really don't want the run around with sending stuff back. Most of the time they are OK with getting things fixed.. but I don't like the upfront hesitation in doing so... especially with my history.. and I don't order $10 items.

I often wonder if the workers get to recognizing certain larger customers like yourself or if you're just another number...

 

[Scotchbrite]

With us being far away from everything, except the beach, I stick to trading with companies who take care of issues with a reasonable response. We do vehicle repair and if the parts can't be had locally we order from RockAuto.
There have been a few issues, and they sent replacement parts with no fuss and without asking us to return anything.
CardID on the other hand is one of the bad ones, they shipped us the wrong part and wanted us to pay to send it back. The part was over 200lbs and it would cost us more to return ship it than what they were going to refund us. It wasn't a close-but-wrong-year kind of mistake it was a totally different part for a different vehicle. Got no help from PayPal or our bank on reversing the charges so we ate the $1,200.00.

That's why I buy from Summit Racing. They've always taken care of me, no questions asked.

 

[gnubler]

My last few contour cut jobs have been really hard to weed. Interrupted cuts where I have to help it along with an Exacto. Cut registration has been way off also, even extending beyond my .125" bleeds leaving a tiny bit of white peeking out. I'm weeding text with serifs and it sucks.

Wonder how many blades they go through on a weekly basis?