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Why I hate outsourcing

toomeycustoms

toomeycustoms

New Member
I tend to stay away from outsourcing for this specific reason, lack of quality control. Ordered some 24x36" coroplast from signs365 @ 5pm pst and was impressed when I got a notice the order was completed at 7pm. Shipped out the next day and received it the following. Unfortunately, when I opened up the box all of the prints have horrible banding. Customer needs them for a deadline, so there is no choice for them but to take them. I've ordered from them in the past for this same client and had no problem, but how can a company send these out and think it is acceptable? Where is the quality control?
 

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Asuma01

New Member
Wow That is bad. Whatever printer that guy uses is total crap. I would shop around. There are way better printhouses out there that care about quality.
 
visual800

visual800

Active Member
Gypsy hit it dead on the head!

RUSH JOBS are jobs with no room for error and thats when everything will screw up! Time and time again. I use 365 and when I have ordered those 18x24 they looked a little pixelated but I knew what I was getting and I was fine with that. What you have there looks normal to me on their printing on coro. not the best quality like their digital prints.

NO MORE RUSH JOBS until you can do all of it yourself and you have materials on hand. I do not do rush because I know womn will screw up and there I am looking like a dumba$$ when the whole time the stupid idiots that ordered it are the ones to blame!
 
particleman

particleman

New Member
Sorry to go against the grain here, but that doesn't look bad for a corrugated plastic job on a UV printer. I've worked with several UV machines and all of them have very minor banding on corrugated. The type of corrugated would matter also, some of it is more flat than others. If someone called us and said they needed corrugated but it had to look perfect from 1ft away I would immediately throw up a red flag and suggest another print method(print+laminate) or media.
 
Graphic Destruction

Graphic Destruction

New Member
I agree w/ the above. That's pretty typical for direct to coro print. It's a yard sign, from a distance (it's intended viewing) it's fine. If it needs to be crispy, I'm doing it in house and charging a LOT more than outsourcing the cheap direct to coro job.
 
WYLDGFI

WYLDGFI

Merchant Member
Outsourcing

I hate to say it...but when you deal with a large, low price, volume provider like them, they have the tendency to care less about the end result and print and simply deal with any results after the fact. I hear this all the time.."but their price is cheaper"...well there ya go. They're care-LESS. Thats why the price is LESS.

:banghead:

We take great pride and pay close attention to quality from start to finish...me, typestries...any other smaller shop that wholesales.
 
particleman

particleman

New Member
signdesigner1 said:
Something wrong with the couple of guys who say an alternating purple and green banded print is "ok".
Click to expand...

Didn't even see it to be honest until you mentioned it, I was looking at the tiny lighter colored bands between passes. If that isn't in the artwork then yeah they should own up to it, looks like a channel is out on one of the print heads.
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
While greys are hard to hit, I agree, that is not good enough quality... even for Cor-X.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but it gets a little tiresome to hear/read about people having problems and passing the buck when .... were the files any good, was all low quality acceptable at time of placing order, did anyone complain about the low price, did anyone give two hoots for the fast turnaround, how is this one bad time, now trumping all the good times ??

It just amazes me at how much we all point the finger at someone else today.... with little to no thought at all, put into the actual components of the complaint.
 
Pat Whatley

Pat Whatley

New Member
signdesigner1 said:
Something wrong with the couple of guys who say an alternating purple and green banded print is "ok".
Click to expand...

Why's that? I send a whole lot of work to them, I order from them almost daily. While most of the time their work is better than that you kind of have to accept it for what it is. You want it cheap and you want it printed the same day you can't expect perfection. They're damn good at what they do....mass producing photo quality coro is not what they do.

They're the perfect example of "FAST - CHEAP - PERFECT.....PICK TWO"
 
P

player

New Member
There are things that are required to satisfy a contract. Even if it is same day service they can't give you defective product. Fast food may not be fine dining, but raw chicken is not acceptable. The striped background is not acceptable.

What do they say about your complaints?
 
F

fresh

New Member
I've had many problems with Signs365, and I have since stopped using them (last order was over 2 years ago). There is a reason they are so inexpensive, and its not worth the headache. On the flip side, I've ordered from both Typestries and WYLD GFI, and have had nothing but excellent service and turn around. Yeah, banners cost about double Signs365 (other substrates are slightly higher), but they don't miss deadlines and they don't send out garbage. I'm lucky that we're smack dab in the middle of two great wholesalers. You should try to find a smaller wholesaler who is either driving distance or a 1-day ship from your shop.

Good luck!
 
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petepaz

petepaz

New Member
i had the same issue with a gray job i did recently. it had a flood gray background and the machine kept producing that type of banding. the people we bought the printer from told me it might be a static issue if not it's because it's hard to hit the gray color. we are using a roland LEJ so i said to him, roland and you sold us a $70k printer that can't print gray. his response, not just that one all printers (bunch of crap.) fortunately the customer changed the artwork before i had to tell them i had an issue. i was printing on sintra and it was just that color grapy. other artwork no problem and when i printed the same file on vinyl no issue. so i am chalking it up to a static issue. i just bought one of those static string kits and have to try printing the file again and see if that helps.
 
Kentucky Wraps

Kentucky Wraps

Kentucky Wraps
Had the same issue with the same supplier in the past. Was not a rush. Usually the customer is ok with anomalies on just "yard signs". But they were larger political signs with his face on them. The greenish banding that was on a couple of them wouldn't have been too bad if they didn't run right through his face which was a third of the image. Looked soo lame.
I don't expect high quality printing from direct UV printed coro jobs. I use them for yard signs and for now...price and speed matches the quality.
 
Typestries

Typestries

New Member
First off, thanks for the props guys...

I just bounced a job of 50 to the trash. My evening press op was running a job, and a mechanical issue came up preventing proper ink delivery to the heads, resulting in the banding. He did catch it, but not until the fourth sheet. We addressed the mechanical issue and reran the full job. They looked a bit better than these, but still, not leaving that way.

As for price, I'm fairly certain both Wyld and us are about $1 more per sign. I do know we both print in a higher pass mode.

There seems to be two types of trade shops evolving. Those super volume/super cheap, and those priced at a point that everyone makes money, and offers good quality and support via all avenues. I know our place in the market, and I'm happy to be a part of your production team. My 20+ years of knowledge is your knowledge and I'm happy to share that so that we both profit.
 
F

fresh

New Member
UV direct to coro almost always looks worse than I'd like. Lately we've been printing them using Concept 222 semi-rigid film (no lamination.) The material cost is about $1 less than direct to substrate, including ink for a double sided sign. Using the thicker material makes mounting with a Big Squeegee a breeze.

I've found that even though the total cost of the sign is slightly higher due to labor, its worth the piece of mind knowing I ultimately control quality. Also, I know my employee would love to stick around for the few more hours it takes to get a job like this done. Quick and easy jobs are okay by me!
 
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