Vinyl stickers

[Aden Priest]

Hi I would like to introduce myself, I’m Aden

Mainly I’m a photographer but also in my part time currently I make and sell vinyl stickers on ebay. While I make a living from my photography, I don’t see it as scaleable or something I would be interested in making bigger. I am looking at running something a little different and larger eventually.

I’m running a little sticker making business or attempting to with currently I have around 15 different stickers for sale on ebay, a mix of custom designs by me and also designs I have sourced elsewhere. I sell on average 4-5 a week, this is with no advertising or effort - which i do completely understand is an extremely small amount.

A little into my background, this time last year I had a partnership doing wedding photography which was making give or take £50k per year, with very little overheads. Due to disagreements I split with my business partner right at our prime and I took a hit going back to square one.

With the knowledge I learnt (I did majority of the website/business side) I set myself back up under my own name and currently I’m making a living to support the bills within 3 months of launching.

Like everyone I have bigger aims.

This is what brings me here, I was wondering if you guys could give me some pointers on what I’m looking to do and see if it’s worth perusing as I understand a lot of people already do this.

I currently have my own cutting machine (Roland) to cut very large vinyl stickers / large batches of smaller stickers. I’m looking to build a website through wordpress and use something like woo commerce to manage my sales – hopefully using CPC if I can learn it properly.

I would say im better than average with HTML(5) / CSS3 and have no problem at all designing and coding the website.

Currently I can cut / weed and have ready for shipping around 40-50 stickers a day, so stockpiling in the intial days are no problem – plus if it came to it I can easily source a workforce to help with my current connections through family.

Is it really worth it though, I have researched and found a lot of people doing it, but speaking to people they always say “there is definitely room for more people to do it”. Are there any ways to find this out without taking the plunge?

 

[Bill1954]

If you can cut very large stickers, is there any chance that you could get into the vehicle detailing market ?
I see tons of vans and cars all signed up so there has to be a good market there.

 

[Aden Priest]

Alot of people have mentioned this - currently Im just looking to cut items I can keep in stock myself... but in the ultimate aim this wouldnt be ruled out as doing custom orders is the way forward.

 

[Aden Priest]

Plus I have to learn how to properly measure and cut for them.

 

[chelmerprint.co.uk]

Have you thought of outsourcing some of the production? We used to do stickers / self-adhesive labels in-house, but found it time consuming and for larger volumes could not do it cost-effectively. We now outsource the work to specialist label printers and found it works very well (although it took a while to find reliable suppliers).

Maybe better to focus on building the websites and getting the customers in.

 

[DavidWH]

To be quite blunt... No it's not.

As you say there are 100's of people doing what you are doing, buying cheap plotters, cheap vinyl, and churning out stickers from their bedroom of an evening.

We run large format digital machines, and plotters. We don't entertain the £99 vehicle graphics, and our clients aren't paying for just some sticky letters, but a creative design, quality materials, and decent service.

We don't entertain full wraps, there are much better companies out there, who can do it quicker, an thus cheaper than us. Neither do we get involved in car detailing, despite explaining 'it's a sticker' people expect a paint like finish and durability.

As I am sure you know, it's very time consuming, and taking on staff means paying wages, that need to incorporate that into the costings... then you'll need a new machine, or a printer, and you'll need the capital to do that.

Great as a little hobby, but in my own opinion, find a niche, and run the more profitable work through your plotter, or stick to taking photo's as I would imagine the margin's are much higher there.

 

[Aden Priest]

Lets be clear though, I'm not particularly looking at the car detailing. Looking more towards the wall art with custom designs that I will be doing myself - not ones bought from template sites I've seen. Cars don't really interest me. If anything the wall art is only just inventory, I will also be making custom orders of various other kinds.

Not saying I'm the next Picasso

I don't feel like it is very time consuming for the return once you have a nice setup / vector with decent weeding lines - I can weed a design in 10 seconds flat (or less!) with some of them (especially ones that I design my own weeding net). If im turning over enough for it to be time-consuming I will be bringing in enough money to source a worker.

My ideal scenario would be couple of hundred designs with lots of product to sell - I've only spent 3-4 days currently and I have 15 unique designs. They will build up over time no problem at all.

In the event the workload gets alot on cutter workload - I have a local friend with 2 other plotters on call for when I need - which I have already discussed with him. He doesnt mind putting in a few days for in demand stickers.

our clients aren't paying for just some sticky letters, but a creative design, quality materials, and decent service.

I find this quite insulting, am I not going to offer a decent, quality service?

My aim is to supply my stickers on from what I gather the exact same quality you are using in terms of vinyl grade, as I have chosen to use the more expensive for long lasting purposes. In terms of printing designs - the initial outlay for tools is very expensive and this is a long term aim but we all have to start somewhere, cutting single colours is my stepping stone.

or stick to taking photo's as I would imagine the margin's are much higher there.

I agree the margins are extremely higher, but as mentioned above this is limited only to how much workload you can take on. I don't want to damage my brand and employ other photographers - thus my brand is only limited to my own style.

My long term aim is to invest and expand into a business that eventually can run itself and I can manage.

 

[Aden Priest]

Have you thought of outsourcing some of the production? We used to do stickers / self-adhesive labels in-house, but found it time consuming and for larger volumes could not do it cost-effectively. We now outsource the work to specialist label printers and found it works very well (although it took a while to find reliable suppliers).

Maybe better to focus on building the websites and getting the customers in.

I have indeed, this is one thing I already have setup in the event I need it. Although currently i have a very very cheap source on the materials almost 40% lower than standard retail per 5m or 50m rolls - keeping it in house is more cost effective just comsuming, which isnt/wont be that excessive.

 

[DavidWH]

I find this quite insulting, am I not going to offer a decent, quality service?

I meant no offence and it wasn't directed at you, more towards the ebay sellers who do as I explained, cheapest machines, cheapest vinyl etc.

A few other thoughts...

What happens when someone creates a similar (or identical) design to yours, and sells it cheaper?

Would making bespoke designs (one off's, customised designs) attract a higher price?

 

[Aden Priest]

I meant no offence and it wasn't directed at you, more towards the ebay sellers who do as I explained, cheapest machines, cheapest vinyl etc.

A few other thoughts...

What happens when someone creates a similar (or identical) design to yours, and sells it cheaper?

Would making bespoke designs (one off's, customised designs) attract a higher price?

No worries, I guess this is the internet, anything can be misconstrued, apologies also.

This is something I have thought about, and that is entirely possible. I guess the simple answer is - thats buisness. Eventually I hope one day to turn over enough units for it to not be an issue. The actual effort in the initial outlay and the sheer amount of designs I plan to have that are unique, I HOPE will give the upper hand.

Although, this is something I have to put more thought into.

My custom designs don't plan to be one offs, I plan to do multiple runs - as the intial vector isnt massively time consuming and can easily be replicated.

One thing I have noticed, the ebay sellers offering cheap stickers are supplying them printed on cheap transparent vinyl. I recently re-cut some for a friend that got an order from a cheap supplier, I was appalled on the quality - the printing wasnt even sharp!

 

[Chris Ashdown]

First maybe a versacamm cutter/plotter would save time weeding so more time for other things or using WOW paper for weed less printing onto garments if you do them

Sublimation printing is cheap to set up and offers a very wide range of goods to sell, a lot of competition but not so much for local sales non web

Have a look at www.xpres.co.uk for information on all items

 

[IanG]

You make the mistake to say that your designs are unique and your volumes will be high enough for competition not to matter.

My three issues with that - firstly they're as unique as they are able to be copied and with cut vinyl that is very easy. Vector art, same amount of time as you've spent on it and bang goes any differentiation on your product. Nothing you will make will be difficult to copy - even if you took a week to draw it and it would take a week to draw again it can be bought from you and scanned/traced and boom.

Secondly being that you have a homogeneous product you are only competing on price or you are trying to differentiate your product from others in the marketplace. And as the customer really doesn't care about quality (and isn't well informed - no single seller will be saying theirs isn't going to last) then you only have the race to the bottom.

Thirdly being that you are competing on price you will know that a change in price above the market (even if the market recedes and you stay at your price point) will result in a change in demand to zero. This is called Perfect Competition and is the case in low-entry, homogeneous marketplaces. Like this one.

 

[antropy]

While I make a living from my photography, I don’t see it as scaleable or something I would be interested in making bigger.

I think it's good that you recognize that.

I’m looking to build a website through wordpress and use something like woo commerce to manage my sales

Also look at OpenCart.

– hopefully using CPC if I can learn it properly.

I can recommend this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultimate-Guide-Google-AdWords-Series/dp/1599185423

Is it really worth it though, I have researched and found a lot of people doing it, but speaking to people they always say “there is definitely room for more people to do it”. Are there any ways to find this out without taking the plunge?

This isn't free but it should give you enough info to do the maths.
http://www.terapeak.co.uk/

 

[stender]

Hi Aiden,
I'm not too sure what your concerns are tbh. Your currently selling on ebay so your not going to get more volume traffic than that. If they aren't selling great now it will be even worse on your own site. I would suggest setting up a basic site to run along side your ebay and steer repeat business to your site offering a discount purchasing via that. As you say you can code so there should be very little costs involved.
Not sure what your designs are so can't comment on that but I would suggest as others that you test some niche areas before deciding where to concentrate your efforts. Have a look at badge sales on ebay as well to see which sell. Would margins not be better selling Tees assuming your designs translate?

 

[Niamh Peck]

Did you try outsourcing it? UKStickerMarket can do vinyl stickers. Just present your artwork and they will print it perfectly. They're the cheapest sticker printing I've encounter.

 

[jjscruff]

Does anyone know where i can find a very cheap supplier of stickers in the UK who can turn a JPG into a small sticker, for putting in ecommerce orders?

 

[billmccallum1957]

Did you try outsourcing it? UKStickerMarket can do vinyl stickers. Just present your artwork and they will print it perfectly. They're the cheapest sticker printing I've encounter.

You must mean http://www.stickermarket.co.uk/... isn't that who you have in your profile?

 

[Niamh Peck]

Yes.

 

[Niamh Peck]

Does anyone know where i can find a very cheap supplier of stickers in the UK who can turn a JPG into a small sticker, for putting in ecommerce orders?

We do bulk order of stickers, how small is your sticker or what is the size of your sticker?