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How Do I Choose the Right Business Card Slitter for My Print Shop?
In this series of posts, “How do I choose?”, we will help you take a little of the guesswork out of selecting the best print finish product for your shop or office. It’s sometimes difficult to find the right machine to fit your needs when there are so many models.
Ah, the business card. Still a valuable business tool after all these years. If you’re a full-service shop, you’re likely printing business cards for clients that use your other services. If you’re not, you may be missing out. It’s a nice little revenue stream that requires very little work, and even less up-front investment. That is… if you’ve chosen the right business card slitter.
But how do you do that?
When it comes to business cards, you must consider volume and automation. The more volume you expect, the more automated you probably want to be. Automated business card slitters like the HS-3000 will cut and stack 1,000 cards in five minutes ready to box and deliver. When you’re doing cards for an entire company that’s just gotten a new logo or street address, the speed and accuracy of a machine like this comes in handy.
Manual models are still efficient and are certainly not slow, and they have the advantage of being extremely economical. Lloyd’s has a great selection of both manual and automatic card slitters.
The thing to consider when buying either model is the format in which you’ll print the cards in the first place. 8-up, 10-up, 12-up, gutter, or no gutter are all options. Just remember, the flexibility and speed your print shop has in cutting business cards may just keep your customers from exploring purchasing one of these machines on their own. These machines are so easy to operate, they’re also sold as “ideal for the office.”
How Do I Choose the Right Paper Cutter for My Office?
In this series of posts, “How do I choose?”, we will help you take a little of the guesswork out of selecting the best print finish product for your shop or office. It’s sometimes difficult to find the right machine to fit your needs when there are so many models.
What are you cutting at the office? Yes, I know someone has to cut the cake for the secretary’s birthday, but that’s not what I mean. It seems we all end up doing some sort of paper crafts once and a while. Trimming down those photos for the traveling exhibit, cutting out stacks of pamphlets to fill the marketing rack in the reception area, slicing up that spreadsheet that mistakenly printed on the ginormous paper in the bottom drawer.
Every office needs a paper cutter, the only question is, which one?
Paper cutters basically come in two flavors these days – Guillotine and Rotary. Like many other items in this series of posts, you need to consider volume and speed. But, you also need to take into consideration the safety of your staff and how accurate cuts need to be.
Guillotine paper cutters are commonly found in offices. They’re sharp, can cut through multiple sheets with ease, and there are some great measurement guides on the working surface. Multiple sheets at a time speaks to the volume necessity, but often works against accuracy. The clamps and lockable gauges of the Kutrimmer tabletop trimmer assist with accuracy, but its most impressive additions are safety features. Different models of guillotine cutters basically allow for larger sheets and more working space.
The most accurate cuts will always be made with Rotary cutters. My personal fav is sold at Lloyd’s. The Roll-Blade rotary trimmer not only has great measurement guides and a self-sharpening tungsten blade, but it also cuts through cardboard and some plastic with just as much accuracy a it does with paper. And, unless you’re really trying, it’s virtually impossible to cut yourself with this rotary.
MBM BC-12 Tabletop Card Cutter
There are a lot of business card cutters on the market, but if you’re going to get a machine that cuts cards, why limit yourself to a business card sized cut? MBM designed the BC-12 Tabletop Card Cutter to give your office some versatility for in-house jobs. It’s perfect for business cards, post cards, digital photos, checks, and more.
How is it Used?
If you’re mainly interested in the business card function, the BC-12 Tabletop Card Cutter will cut 12 standard size business cards per page (up to 60 cards per minute) – which is pretty fast. However, you’ll also find 10 other pre-set cutting modes and quick-change cartridges to switch out easily (without tools) for different cutting formats. Like other MBM models, this one is quiet and compact. It will soon become your favorite machine in the office.
And How Much Does it Cost
The BC-12 Tabletop Card Cutter is $5,350 at Lloyd’s. We’ll throw in free shipping and a gift with your purchase.
MBM BC-10 Tabletop Business Card Cutter
Stop outsourcing your business cards! Save some cash and the hassle of placing orders every time somebody runs out or a new employee joins the ranks. The MBM BC-10 Tabletop Business Card Cutter is such a great asset, you’ll want to name yours and give it a business card of its own.
How is it Used?
Print out your business cards on your in-house printer on the stock of your choice and load them into the BC-10 Tabletop Card Cutter for trimming and cut 10-up. This little powerhouse will give you an accurate cut every time. It’s got quick and easy set-up and adjustment, and the control panel features a LED 4 digit counter with addition and preset subtraction functions. It’s compact and quiet enough to run in your office’s common work area. I would put it next to the copy machine.
And How Much Does it Cost
MBM BC-10 Tabletop Business Card Cutter is $4,229 at Lloyd’s. We’ll throw in free shipping and a gift with your purchase.
Five Tools Print Shops Can Use to Improve Profitability
You can run a print shop with an off-set press or a digital printer, but you can’t run a profitable shop unless you bring in-house the tools that will help you take projects to completion. It’s one thing to print pages, but what if your customer wants you to bind them? You printed 5,000 sales letters, but now the customer wants to take them somewhere else for mailing? You’re losing out on some valuable revenue by not having a couple extra machines around your office. Add extra profitability to your shop by offering each of these services.
- UV Coaters. Adding a UV Coater will give you the capability to apply hi-gloss, satin or matte coating almost on any printed sheet. There are many configurations to the available coaters on the market. Sizes range from 18” to 30” with a modular design to allow for added components like automatic feeders. This is also an environmentally friendly way to apply a finish to your printing. There’s even one line of UV coating that is 99.9% VOC free – exceeding all environmental air quality regulations. Add that to your marketing and get some new green-minded customers.
- Binding Machinery. Whether it’s low volume presentation binding or high volume commercial applications, binding machinery is a low-cost, yet crucial component to a successful shop. Prepare a presentations or proposals, books or newsletters with the look and feel your customers desire by having available comb, coil, wire or perfect binding. If you bind it, they will come.
- Letter Folders. Add fulfillment services to your shop. Every office needs to send mailed statements, invoices and other marketing material. If it’s going out in a traditional envelope style, there’s a folder to automate the process. These machines fold thousands of sheets per hour. There are tabletop models for low volume or floor models for high volume, but they’re all easy to setup and operate.
- Document Mailing Equipment. While you’re folding some projects, you might as well run an inserter for others. Save time and money by speeding up your mail processing. Inserters and pressure sealers keep your jobs in a neat sequential order so they’re ready for outgoing mail bins. Some inserters can fold and stuff up to five different sheets and BRE’s at 4,000 sheets per hour. Plus, a pressure sealer adds a whole new product type to your offerings.
- Laminators. Laminating adds durability and professionalism to any printing project. Toner, ink jet and UV inks alone are not very durable, but by adding even a thin laminate coating you can prevent ink cracking and insures a long handling life to a piece. Lamination also adds to the look and feel of your work You can impress customers and upsell projects like printing for photos, charts, posters and signage.
Improve your profits by adding to your catalog of finishing services. Lloyds of Indiana has competitive prices and a variety of models in each of these categories.