Ready to sell

[Scott Shepherd]

so he must be doing something right at $4.50 a pop...........

Vistaprint prints business cards for free. I'm not sure you'll find too many printers that can compete with that, or too many printers that are happy competing against people that give things away for free.

There is no way he's making ANY money at $4.50 each. He might be engraving them with a galvo laser, which would mean the lasering takes about 5 seconds or less, but there's no way to handle a photo, or scan a photo and make it usable for that price.

If he's using a normal laser, like an Epilog or Universal or GCC, he's not making a penny on them, unless he's selling quantity of the same photo.

Maybe he'll post on here and prove many of us wrong, but I know that if I had a photo handed to me right now, by the time I opened my scanner software and told it to scan, it scanned it, and I opened the scanned photo up, we've passed the $4 mark on the "billable time" clock.

[Norberto Coutinho]

Maybe he is using a laser like this... very fast... few seconds and bingo.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNkwQNAepf4

[Dave Johnson29]

Maybe he is using a laser like this... very fast... few seconds and bingo.

Yup, that's a galvo laser. It moves the focused beam with mirrors. It's also Nd so it can mark metals directly.

Prices start around $50K

[Larry Bratton]

Maybe he is using a laser like this... very fast... few seconds and bingo.
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNkwQNAepf4

Wow! Bet that bad boy costs some bucks!

[Norberto Coutinho]

Yup, that's a galvo laser. It moves the focused beam with mirrors. It's also Nd so it can mark metals directly.

Prices start around $50K

no... price in this link is 20k... I am thinking to buy one... but the custom fee tax here in Brazil is heavy.... around 70% .... I need to think a lot
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ebay item58867c1e74

[Norberto Coutinho]

Wow! Bet that bad boy costs some bucks!

another video .... I am not the seller . I am thinking to buy one... but I am afraid about custom fee tax here in Brazil.... 70% ...
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[Dan Hintz]

Don't forget, guys, since sales are through email, almost every pic is going to already be in digital format (i.e., no scanning necessary). What's our worst problem with pics? Small images... it's a dog tag, so that worry is essentially gone, too. Small item means a somewhat crappy result isn't a big deal. About the only thing he has to worry about is receiving pics with extremely low contrast.

I bet setup on each tag takes less than 5 minutes/piece, and he probably lasers 10+ in a batch. An hour of work, $60,not a great rate, but not bad for extra spending money.

[Mark Ross]

Maybe he employs an army of ZOMBIES! RUN!

With what we do, we do all of the graphic design and other support services for free, but we end up running a ton of production so it isn't that big of an issue.

Engraved pet tags at 85 cents with $1.60 shipping...$2.45...again, just not seeing it. People giving it away at or below cost...nice business model if you can sustain it.

That is why like people have posted...you ain't gonna become Bill Gates doing craft shows and one offs...

[Julie Nickerson]

I've been in this business for 12 years. The reason why I bought the laser is because the New Hermes system that I had, died. It was a dinosaur. I seen what lasers could do so I ended up getting that instead of a rotary engraving system.
My sister is a landscape photographer (hobby of hers). She sells her work at the waterfront in Halifax. Last year she wanted to add something more to her booth. She wanted to get into laser engraving and engrave her photos onto little trinkets and sell them for next to nothing. I sent her links for very expensive lasers and told her how the set up was with the air pumps and such. It would have to be vented and she lives in a tiny military apartment and that I'm sure they have a rule about operating a business out of their places. I offered to do this for her at my costs (she's my sister and I love her). But when she told me her prices for selling these, I refused to do them for her. For one she was not going to make any money and I told her that she would be cheapening the market. There are already too many people out there doing that already. I also told her that she was cheapening the photography market as well. Peed her off, oh well, tough love.

ETA: The local jewellery store sells the photo engraved tags for $50. Says it costs him $30 to have them done. Of course he won't go through me to get them done. Doesn't matter anyways, he hasn't sold one yet.

[Jim Beachler]

I make personalized items that all a one of. I am successful because I am doing a lot of them and by doing it over and over and over, I have got a rhythm down that I can do it much faster than others would think.

In fact when I talk to people about what I do, I fudge my time and tell them it takes 1.5 times longer that it really does. Almost always people ask me how I can get it done that quickly and still maintain my quality.

Also, the way I do some of my processes is backwards of what the norm is. Have also created special tools and programs to make the work flow easier and quicker.

My interest would be in the steps and procedures that he uses to make money at that level. I sure that I could learn a few tricks.

[James Stokes]

I will not touch a photo for less than $75

[Bill Cunningham]

Two years ago my export sales to U.S. customers was about 15-20k and money was at par. Last year my U.S. export sales were about 1-2k, this year absolutely nothing to the U.S. yet, and CDN$'s are a few points less.. However, over the same time line my Canadian sales have taken up all the slack from my lost U.S. sales and then some. So I can only assume the U.S. economy is far worse than ours.. Right now my turn around time is about 8 business days, and may get to 10 on some jobs. Quite frankly, I have lots of work.. It's amazing what a difference a border makes..