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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 Binding Machine 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 print shop or office. It’s sometimes difficult to find the right machine to fit your needs when there are so many models.
It all has to come together sometime. All those pages in the presentation, the employee manual, the book, the instructional guide, the schematics… They’ve all got to have some sort of binding to meet the customers budget, the readers needs and a style that looks good. But, what kind of binding machine do you need?
Well, the answer to this one is a little trickier. You may even want more than one machine. First you need to determine the type of binding that you think you’ll use most often.
- Comb binders – cheap, effective. Plus, combs can be opened to add/subtract sheets.
- Coil/Wire binders – Comes in a variety of colors and materials. Allows the reader to lay the book open flat and turn pages a full 360-degrees.
- Unibind binding machine – Quick, slick and permanent. A steel spine at the back of the cover allows the paper edges to sink into a heated resin.
- Perfect bound machines – Most paperback books at your local retailer are bound with this method. It’s glue-based and leaves a nice sturdy spine.
Once you’ve chosen a couple binding methods that you’d like to offer at your shop, consider flexibility, speed and cost.
You’ll certainly find flexibility with a combo system. A single purchase will allow you to do both comb, wire or coil (depending on the machine). However, keep size in mind. With comb or coil systems, you may not want to limit yourself to standard 8 1/2″ x 11″, so investigate the machines that can accommodate 14″ or 17″ sheets. Speed is affected by manual or automatic operation and the number of sheets that can be punched at one time.
The most crucial consideration however, is the question of cost. What you can sell and what your customers are willing to pay for may limit your choices. A perfect binding system is expensive initially, but costs little in upkeep. The Unibind thermal system itself is inexpensive considering the nice end product, but supplies are comparitatvily high, per piece. So, remember not to merely look at the machinery that makes the binding happen. Look at the plastics and metals that make up the binding.
How Do I Choose the Right Corner Rounder 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.
For example, Lloyd’s has nine different round corner machines. There are options and add-ons for some, and others are simply manual. In each purchase you make, you should consider the following as it relates to your business’s operation.
Corner rounders are pretty simple machines. They basically make measured cuts on the corner of your printed sheets. This finishing method has always been popular, but more-so in recent years as print products mimic the style of online communications. It’s not often that you see an icon or a photo online with squared-off corners.
So, let’s look at application first. Are you printing posters or business cards? Are you printing on heavy or standard stock? The size alone may rule out a manual table-top rounder, so be sure to look at the table dimensions. And, heavy stock may require the power an automatic can provide – which also puts you over $1,000. If you’d like the option to cut through metal for signage production, you’ll need a specific machine.
For rounders I think quantity and speed necessary can be measured by the capacity of sheets you can feed the machine at one time (in inches). A rounder in the hobby category may only accept a few sheets at a time with a .04″ clearance, but commercial medium and heavy-duty rounders will allow an inch or more to be cut. Thicker cut, means you’ll be moving through projects faster. Do you think your capacity will grow or remain the same? Choose a model for 2 years down the road, rather than one you need today, because your needs will hopefully grow once you add this machine.
The frequency of your use will require replacement cutting dies, so the availability and cost of these parts should also be a consideration. You’ll also want to investigate the variety of blade sizes and designs available for a particular model as well. A wide variety of cutting options will also add to your flexibility and options for the customer.
Finally, consider maintenance. All Lloyd’s corner rounders come with a year warranty, but looking beyond this time frame consider your potential frequency of use and the availability of replacement parts.
To check out Lloyd’s selection of corner rounders and compare models, visit our website.
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.
How Print Shops Can Add Direct Mail to Their Service Offerings
Like your stock portfolio, your print shop needs to be diversified. Not too long ago, customers had to have a large Rolodex of options. If you wanted a book printed you went to one printer; signage, you’d go to somebody else; a specialty die-cut job, you’d shop around; and mailing, well that’s labor intensive — better find a reputable mail house.
Then came along the Wal-Mart way of thinking. More and more customers want their print media the same way they get their groceries and sporting equipment: one stop shopping. Well, we can’t put all the blame on Wally. One reason that the market is forcing this change is the expansion of media in general. If my business is juggling web design companies, social media consultants, videographers, mobile software coders, AND I need something printed — well, I’d like to know that the shop that did such a good job on the company magazine can also handle my direct mail campaign. I don’t want to add another specialty shop to my ‘to do’ list.
Your Shop Could Print AND Mail
Adding direct mail capabilities is as easy as adding the right equipment. Add a letter folder, an inserter and a pressure sealer and you’ll turn a nice little profit while making your customers happy.
Take the Formax 6402 Inserter for example. You can configure your machine to have up to six feeders including BRE’s. It’s fast – 4,000 pieces an hour. It’s easy to run – touchscreen control panel. And, it keeps your job in a neat sequential order so it’s ready for sealing and your outgoing mail bins.
When it comes to sealing, you may want to look into the variety of applications a pressure sensitive project may yield. It’s not just for checks and invoices anymore. Pressure sealed mailers offer an inexpensive direct mail option for your client and diversity for your shops catalog of services. Even mid-volume pressure sealers like the Formax 2030 model can crank out 9,000 pieces an hour. Operation is as simple as loading a stack into the feeder and pressing a button.
So, consider diversifying you portfolio. For a modest investment you’ll see a return that’s a little more reliable than Wall Street.