Hola,
So one big reason why I'm writing this post is that when I type out my thought, it helps me better understand what I'm trying to do. Also, r/shopify mods removed my post without reason so I'm posting this here. I want to start a POD store focusing on aluminium dibond printing (often called metal printing). I am an avid photographer and graphic artist, and I've been printing portraits up to 13x19in on my prosumer photo printer for friends and family as a hobby. I discovered aluminium dibond printing while browsing in a wall art store in the local mall. While I browse there often, I never buy because of the exorbitant prices. Their most expensive piece was a 40x100in (101.6x254cm) panorama of our city printed on a sheet of glossy aluminium. It went for $5000. That's $1.25/sq.in or ~$0.19/sqcm. A single 12x18in piece went for $270. BTW I will be using ~12x18in sizes as my reference size when making comparisons.
These prices are why the walls in my home are only filled with self-printed art. I decided to do research on launching my own store focused on metal prints for cheaper prices. The artwork and photographs I would be selling are mines, my various other photographer friend's, and some CC0 licensed photographs found online. I discovered a few online competitors, most notably Displate, which is a marketplace for creators. A 17.7x12.6in (45x32cm) piece goes for $44, which is ~$0.2/in or ~$0.03/sqcm. That's ~6.35x cheaper than my local chain of wall art stores. However, the margins for the creators are very small.
With some idea of who are in this particular niche, I went around doing research on various POD providers. I looked at following: Printful, Printify, Printy6, Pixels, Gooten, Pwinty, Printhouse, Kite, Custom Cat, Viralstyle, and probably a few others that whose names I forgot.
-
Out of these, Gooten, Pixels, and Pwinty offer aluminium dibond printing. Gooten's base price for a size similar to Displate's 17.7x12.6in (45x32cm) piece goes for $48 or $0.215/sqin. That's not including my cut and shipping. While I would still be cheaper than my local offerings and probably other mall shops in other cities, I'm still more expensive than a few of my online competition. Pwinty currently does not have a Shopify app and they do not list their prices on their site, making them difficult to compare. Pixels has a 16x20in size for $83.47, or $0.261/sqin, which is similar to Gooten.
-
So far my search for an aluminium dibond print provider cheaper than my competitors have been unsuccessful.
-
However, I could still go through with one of these POD providers and simply offer much higher prices. Perhaps offer a 12x18in print for $60 or $80? Not entirely ideal, but I assume I need a large margin to invest back into marketing. If this store is successful, my long-term plan is to buy my own printer (really expensive), hire some people, get a warehouse, and do it myself for higher margins and lower prices, which is what I assume some of my online competition are doing.
-
While I want to focus on metal prints, I will still be selling regular photo paper prints, canvas prints, and wallpaper stick ons.
-
Haven't decided what POD provider I would use for regular canvas and paper prints, but I'll probably go for whoever offers the best margins with the sizes I'm aiming for. Here are some canvas print prices for various POD providers: Pixels and Printful seems uber expensive and I probably won't go with them. Pixels offer 12x18in for $47.84 which is $0.221/sqin. Printiful offers 12x16in for $31.97 which is $0.167/sqin. Printify has really nice accessories if I'm going that direction later, but that's not my focus right now. They have 12x16in for $18.67 or $0.097/sqin. Gooten offers 12x18in for $14.40 which is $0.067.sqin. Printy6 offers canvas panel sets which would be nice to sell, but their regular 16x12in canvas piece is $34 or $0.177/sqin.
-
I have not compared the prices other POD providers, but I will edit this post when I do. Also, I have not compared shipping cost, shipping times, nor the convenience these POD providers provide me. These factors shouldn't entirely change my decisions, but would help in deciding which POD providers to go with once I narrow it down to a few.
A few questions I have: * I was hoping to seek help here on finding a metal print POD provider in case I missed any because I was only able to find 3. * Any thoughts on the POD providers I listed? Pros and cons? I wanted to get some user opinions on these various POD providers. * How much profit margin should I set? While I want to set it low, the business may not survive and if it does growth would be slow. If I set it too high I'm potentially turning away customers. * Any thoughts and critiques in general? I know the POD field is saturated to begin with and it'll be an uphill battle, but I'm gunna do this because failure is better than not trying at all.
[link] [comments]
from Entrepreneur https://ift.tt/2P2Eu04
Business News Live devoted itself to sharing articles about Business, Entrepreneurs and Business Matters. It is fond of sharing knowledge and experience on the blog, our main goal is to deliver interesting articles that is worth a reader's time.