Mug printing business...

[Jay Jones]

After my daughter becoming ill a few months ago my partner has had to take some time out of work. This has caused a financial burden, so I've been looking at the idea of starting a mug printing business from home to help top up the income. Does anyone have any previous experience or hints / tips on this?

I've seen that for around £450 I can buy a printer, a 5-in-1 heat press and some stock to start printing on. I reckon I'd need to sell 90 mugs to get my money back however wondering if the equipment will make 90 mugs without any problems or me needing to buy more ink etc...

Hopefully someone can help or advice. Or even recommend something else?

 

[Ally Maxwell]

Dye Sublimation is not quite as simple as it first appears.

1. Don't buy a printer/ink bundle. The ink is generally poor quality and unsupported. Decent ink costs an can make the difference between saleable items and throw aways.
2. Are you any good with graphics software and do you have any ?
3. Do you know about ICC profiling ?
4. 5 in 1 heat presses are generally crap. Some last and some don't. I'm going to take a guess that you're looking at someone like Signzworld for some of this. Think carefully before parting with your money.
5. Buy the wrong stuff an you may as well have spent your cash on paperweights.
6. Things like mug quality/sub paper quality also make a difference to your finished product.

The concept of spending £450 and making that back in 90 mugs is fantasy land stuff.

Having said that, there is money to be made doing that kind of stuff (with the right equipment) but it has more to do with creativity and sales/marketing than the mechanics of printing.

 

[Mr D]

Make sure of the rights to what you are printing.

Yes can make money printing mugs. If you can sell them.
Besides printing mugs, look at where you are going to get rid of them. Market stall / stand at a local event etc.
Get the product in front of people.

 

[mattk]

Don't forget your other costs:

Blank mugs
Packaging
Postage
Ebay, Amazon, PayPal fees

I wouldn't be surprised if the above came to £3-4 per item. Therefore, if your sale price is £7 (typical novelty mug price on eBay), you're looking at selling 225-300 mugs to cover your initial investment.

This is before you cover returns, breakages etc.

Not saying that it isn't doable, but you need to go into it with a realistic view.

 

[Bob Morgan]

I have Mugs, Mouse Mats, Tee Shirts, General Stationery, Magazines, Brochures, etc., Prepared and Shipped from our Branch Office in SE Asia (Not China). Mugs cost just under £1 (Mug, Printed and Boxed). No Minimum Order. There are Shipping Charges, but a Mug will cost us around £1.25 (Delivered to UK) Quality is EXCELLENT - No Cheap Ink or Processes - Been there and done that one! Therefore, you will need to sell 365 Mugs to Break Even, or find 90 'Mugs' willing to pay over a Fiver for each Mug!

 

[Ally Maxwell]

Don't forget your other costs:

Blank mugs
Packaging
Postage
Ebay, Amazon, PayPal fees

I wouldn't be surprised if the above came to £3-4 per item. Therefore, if your sale price is £7 (typical novelty mug price on eBay), you're looking at selling 225-300 mugs to cover your initial investment.

This is before you cover returns, breakages etc.

Not saying that it isn't doable, but you need to go into it with a realistic view.

Blank mugs (UK Stock) are circa £1, RM Small Parcel, which a mug is, is £3.00.

You can save a few pennies on your mugs by buying cheaper mugs, but that equates to a poorer end result.

 

[Mr D]

I have Mugs, Mouse Mats, Tee Shirts, General Stationery, Magazines, Brochures, etc., Prepared and Shipped from our Branch Office in SE Asia (Not China). Mugs cost just under £1 (Mug, Printed and Boxed). No Minimum Order. There are Shipping Charges, but a Mug will cost us around £1.25 (Delivered to UK) Quality is EXCELLENT - No Cheap Ink or Processes - Been there and done that one! Therefore, you will need to sell 365 Mugs to Break Even, or find 90 'Mugs' willing to pay over a Fiver for each Mug!

I sell mugs, have sold dozens at £6.99 to £8.99, online.
Depends what is on them.

Wholesale for printed mugs between £1 and £1.80.


My brother in law had a stall in an indoor market during holiday season in a seaside town, he ordered mugs by the crate and had a relative drive to Stoke to collect them.
Printed a few to order, most he just sold on the stall with whatever design he decided to print.

 

[Mister B]

We used to sell and print our own designs on mugs but packed it in. We found that after factoring postage in, the margins were prohibitive. And don't underestimate how many mugs you will get through whilst you get the knack of it.

Mister B

 

[anon327046]

IMO it's a mugs game. There are hundreds already doing what you want to do.

 

[Mr D]

IMO it's a mugs game. There are hundreds already doing what you want to do.

And they are making money at it.

 

[alan1302]

And they are making money at it.

And some won't be making money

 

[simon field]

And some won't be making money

So why would they be doing it?

 

[MBE2017]

So why would they be doing it?

Very often busy fools, many selling on eBay unaware of the eBay fees, PayPal charges etc. Usually the truth comes out when submitting their tax returns.

 

[Mr D]

Very often busy fools, many selling on eBay unaware of the eBay fees, PayPal charges etc. Usually the truth comes out when submitting their tax returns.

And some will still make money.

There are ebay sellers who are very much aware of the ebay fees. People are not always as stupid as you seem to think.

 

[alan1302]

And some will still make money.

There are ebay sellers who are very much aware of the ebay fees. People are not always as stupid as you seem to think.

some may be more stupid than you think

 

[DavidWH]

We have all the gear to print mugs, hate it with a passion. Probably fine if you're working from home and just looking for a few quid.

In a press, you're looking at 3minutes a mug, using a single press, thats around 40mins to press 10 mugs, with positioning the print, taping, inserting and removing.

Blank mugs, about £1 each + vat, then paper, ink, the machines, then your time & wage.

 

[Socio South West]

Hopefully someone can help or advice. Or even recommend something else?

Plenty of advice above on the pitfalls and naievety of OP's costings....

An alternative....

Dependent on your partner's skillset, there are plenty of small businesses hiring freelance home workers for assorted roles - get on to People Per Hour, Fiverrr and other similar sites and trawl through the dross to find the decent ones.
Minimal set up costs.... most are flexible on working hours within reason. No stock... and probably using the PC or laptop you already have.
It can take a while, but get a properly presented cv together, and avoid copy/paste when you contact advertisers. A couple of my associates have built up to over £40k pa with a range of work in hand.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Working yourself at the minimum wage then how many will you need to sell to earn £8.21 per hour after all costs including selling costs (you do need to actually sell them that takes time and money)

 

[Mr D]

Realistically including the right to whatever you are adding to the mug, if cannot produce them for less than say 2 pounds 50 per mug total cost then cheaper to buy in mugs already printed.

There is a gift supplier, Joe Davies, offering lots of mugs from 1.80 for some designs, 2.08 for others. Cheapest they do is from 1.65.
And that's often buying in from Lesser & Pavey who will do the mugs even cheaper in bulk.

 

[MBE2017]

And some will still make money.

There are ebay sellers who are very much aware of the ebay fees. People are not always as stupid as you seem to think.

Never said there were not people making money, but there are still plenty who are not. Chill.

 

[Ally Maxwell]

Printing mugs is not really a business in it's own right. It's a useful add on if you make and sell personalised stuff.

 

[GiggiAt]

I would suggest to look at something niche and help your business stand out of the crowd! A mug printing business is pretty generic, but if you have your heart set on it, I would say to do something with it, that currently no one else offers. I hope your daughter feels better.

 

[Brian Adgey]

I have Mugs, Mouse Mats, Tee Shirts, General Stationery, Magazines, Brochures, etc., Prepared and Shipped from our Branch Office in SE Asia (Not China). Mugs cost just under £1 (Mug, Printed and Boxed). No Minimum Order. There are Shipping Charges, but a Mug will cost us around £1.25 (Delivered to UK) Quality is EXCELLENT - No Cheap Ink or Processes - Been there and done that one! Therefore, you will need to sell 365 Mugs to Break Even, or find 90 'Mugs' willing to pay over a Fiver for each Mug!

What's the company?

I've recently made designs to print on mugs. Started with a UK printing company to get the ball rolling and now looking to reduce costs.
I also found out that the UK printing company is only the supplier and they get them printed in Europe I think.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

I heard that one of the biggish UK mug printers has just liquidated

 

[anon327046]

After my daughter becoming ill a few months ago my partner has had to take some time out of work. This has caused a financial burden, so I've been looking at the idea of starting a mug printing business from home to help top up the income. Does anyone have any previous experience or hints / tips on this?

I've seen that for around £450 I can buy a printer, a 5-in-1 heat press and some stock to start printing on. I reckon I'd need to sell 90 mugs to get my money back however wondering if the equipment will make 90 mugs without any problems or me needing to buy more ink etc...

Hopefully someone can help or advice. Or even recommend something else?

Believe me it's a mugs game. It's a very crowded and competitive market.

 

[ExoPaul]

One of the biggest challenges you will face is coming up with fresh designs and then marketing and selling them. If you believe that you can do that with success then why bother doing all the hard work?
There are dropshipping companies that will print your design onto a mug for £3.98 (inc VAT) and ship it using your own brand label straight to the customer. I don't know without looking at what their P&P is, but the cost of the mug/design is cheap enough that if your design is a good one and sellable for £6/mug, then it could make you a £2 profit easily. Sell 50 a week and you have a little extra money coming in without having to do all the mug buying, packaging, printing and so on. Add to that the fact they also do water bottles, enamel cups, mobile phone covers and so much more that you can print and sell your designs on, all taken care off by them, and you can cross-sell a design multiple ways.

Looking at the quality of cheap mugs and the equipment and time to print your own mugs in-house, I think you are going to use up a lot of valuable time and initial investment that can be better spent on selling the mugs, for little more profit than my suggested way.

And like I said at the start, do you really want to spend £500+ investing in equipment and then multiple "practice runs" to get the hang of it that will cost you money, before you find out how hard it can be to sell enough units? If you make £2/mug profit, and only sell 40 a year, it is going to take you 5 years (not including ecommerce store costs or other expenses) just to get your money back.

 

[Ally Maxwell]

If your auntie had testicles she'd be your uncle.

I sell mugs on Etsy for just under tenner a go, and do roughly 100 units a month, just on that platform. No design issues, three lines (max) of plain black text. takes about 2 mins to type and print and 3 mins to transfer (and that can be done two at a time). My 15 year old son can do it with his eyes closed. That's before you look at more complex designs or other sales platforms. Essentially the same equipment is also used to make literally dozens, if not hundreds of other things. The designs don't need to be complicated to sell.

 

[Mr D]

One of the biggest challenges you will face is coming up with fresh designs and then marketing and selling them. If you believe that you can do that with success then why bother doing all the hard work?
There are dropshipping companies that will print your design onto a mug for £3.98 (inc VAT) and ship it using your own brand label straight to the customer. I don't know without looking at what their P&P is, but the cost of the mug/design is cheap enough that if your design is a good one and sellable for £6/mug, then it could make you a £2 profit easily. Sell 50 a week and you have a little extra money coming in without having to do all the mug buying, packaging, printing and so on. Add to that the fact they also do water bottles, enamel cups, mobile phone covers and so much more that you can print and sell your designs on, all taken care off by them, and you can cross-sell a design multiple ways.

Looking at the quality of cheap mugs and the equipment and time to print your own mugs in-house, I think you are going to use up a lot of valuable time and initial investment that can be better spent on selling the mugs, for little more profit than my suggested way.

And like I said at the start, do you really want to spend £500+ investing in equipment and then multiple "practice runs" to get the hang of it that will cost you money, before you find out how hard it can be to sell enough units? If you make £2/mug profit, and only sell 40 a year, it is going to take you 5 years (not including ecommerce store costs or other expenses) just to get your money back.

£3.98 isn't that much more than wholesale cost of some mugs sold by suppliers to retailers.
Was looking at some last week that were £2.90 a mug with someone else's design already on it.

 

[ADW]

I heard that one of the biggish UK mug printers has just liquidated

Do you know the name of the company by any chance?
A couple of mid-sized went through.within the last couple of years but haven't heard of a larger one recently.