I was wanting to know how many of you have a one man or women shop and own an edge and also live in a small town (2000 pop.) Do you find most of your work being done on the edge and dust collecting on your plotter? How much of your work is now edge produced as opposed to the work you were doing without it. Also different types of work you now do. Did you go out and get the Edge work first and then buy or did you just get one and get after it?
Thanks for the comments,
[ May 01, 2002, 08:04 AM: Message edited by: Chuck Gallagher ]
Posted by Bob Rochon (Member # 30) on :
Chuck,
I fit into your target area, and I have an Edge2. I never intended to purchase one ever, I never seemed to have the work I thought I needed to suport an Edge.
After a 30 day trial period I found I already had more than enough work for the edge. My Edge does not work everyday but it does take a lot away from my plotter and airbrush. Although we still airbrush and hand letter certain jobs, most are done on the Edge now. All our magnetics are done exclusively on the egde and 90% of 2 layer or more jobs are also done on the edge.
I hope this helps
Posted by Elwood Kinder (Member # 2558) on :
Hi Chuck- Well I own a very small sign shop (2 person) in Sikeston, MO. Sikeston has a population of around 18,000 and is surrounded by several smaller communities with populations of up to 12-15,000 with one additional city 30 miles to the north that has a population of around 75,000. Well enough about the census! My point is that when I started my business 6 years ago I only had two major pieces of equipment-A computer and a 15" plotter. This situation worked perfectly for me for about two years, then I started to notice a change in requests. Customers started to bring in projects that I could not complete without a thermal printer. That's when I made the purchase of a Gerber Edge printer. Well let me be the first to tell you, it WILL NOT take the place of your plotter or even lessen the need for it, but instead will make you depend on it even more so! Sure it is so nice to print small text instead of trying to cut and weed but you will still need that plotter for edge cuts! Don't get me wrong I love my Edge but before I started my business I worked extensively with an Edge at another shop. No learning curve or down time trying to figure things out! To put things in perspective figure exactly how much revenue you will have to make ONLY on your printed items daily and compare that to your payment devided by days of month and you just might be surprised! My point is that if you don't have an immediate demand (not once a day-but several calls a day) for Edge printed items then I would pass for now and look for a reliable source to do this for you. We do alot of wholesale work for surrounding communities signshops and this tells me that it is not right for everyone. We even have an account with a nationwide sign manufacturer to exclusively produce all of their Edge printed items as they cannot at this time justify a purchase of thermal printer. This is not a major account for us as most of their work is primarily large work but we produce banners and graphics for signs for them regularly and they have over 350 employees! So I guess what I am saying is if you can market it, or justify it with current demands then go for it! Otherwise outsource for a while until the demand hits hard then do it! By the way if you do jump into it and find it is getting dusty, I'm always looking for a good deal! Just kidding-Good Luck!
Posted by Rich P (Member # 1789) on :
God I wish I could afford one............ !
Posted by Glenn Taylor (Member # 162) on :
Rich,
Can you handle $100 a week?
Posted by Monte Jumper (Member # 1106) on :
Affording one isn't the problem...creating a market for it is.
We silkscreen and find little use for the edge.
On the few ocassions it has been required, we found we could farm it out to someone with an edge and still make a mint off it.
The sad truth is there are guys out there so worried about making their payment(on their edge) they give the work away.
They should be charging 4 or 5 times what they are,sooo...until they raise their prices there is no reason for purchasing the equipment myself.
Geez... I hope the guy I buy my edge stuff doesn't frequent the B.B. But if he does...raise yer prices...secretly I want my own edge.
On the same note...the Edge would be much more attractive if they could solve the waste involved in the foils.
[ May 01, 2002, 06:00 PM: Message edited by: Monte Jumper ]
Posted by Todd Gill (Member # 2569) on :
Glenn,
Just curious...how do you figure $100 a week? My buddy bought one and his payment is $850 a month on a lease to own for 4 years.
He has the Edge 2, the nice high speed plotter and the Odyssey (which he got for only $3k more in his deal!) Anyway, he can't sleep at nights because he can barely make the payment.....he's not a real sign guy, however, and isn't puttin' in the time he needs to at least do the stuff he needs...so I guess it's his own fault.
And dumb me...I help him out so he doesn't go belly up.....but it's nice for me to have free access to the Edge.
Still....$400 a month?? Must be the original edge and one of the entry level plotters??
Please expound...
Posted by Doug Allan (Member # 2247) on :
I put 10K down on an Edge 2, Envision Plotter & Omega software. My monthly payments are $368. I am a 1 person shop in the largest town on the Island of Maui. The population here in Kahului is 20,000. Just today I paid of an old business loan with a lump sum of about 6K because I got my second payment on a $22,000 job that was all edge print plus on-site installation.
I subbed out work to an Edge owner across town for 3 years & limited my sub work to that which could only be done digitally. I still overlaid multi-color jobs as well as weeded small copy.
Once I had spent about $5,000 on edge prints over 3 yrs, & half that in the 3rd year, I signed up for my lease. The decal work coming my way seemed to find me with radar. I have never feared making a payment & never regretted the decision for a second.
My old 24" Graphtec plotter stays busy too. But I sometimes look at the 2 walls of over 100 rolls of vinyl & think that many odd colors are gathering more dust then they used to.
Posted by Bob Gilliland (Member # 28) on :
??????
I have seen ads in various publications about this offer, received direct mailers about this offer, and have talked about the offer with distribution channel partners. Here we have a faithful Letterville participent (Todd ) that doesn’t know about the offer. Makes me wonder all the more why Gerber is not a merchant? “Readership” that can interact with a merchant? Try that with traditional print campaigns!? (And I believe my involvement on this and other sites have proven that I’m a Gerber supporter, so I’m not “bashing”, just trying to understand?? )
Todd, go to Gerber’s web site (gspinc.com) and look for the “EDGE PCS Package” promotion (still on their home page) as more details can be had there. If you ever take the plung, be sure to inform them that Letterville worked again.
[ May 01, 2002, 08:10 PM: Message edited by: Bob Gilliland ]
Posted by Glenn Taylor (Member # 162) on :
Gerber really needs to start advertising here again.
Todd,
Rich said he wished he could afford one. An entry level system, the Edge PCS system would be a good place to start.
I think that once a person gets started, $16,000 for the Edge PCS is gonna seem like chump change.
Those who have never had an Edge have a hard time seeing past the sticker price. I was the same way. I really didn't understand how profitable it is. Once I got my first system and making money, the Edge was really inexpensive.
Anyone should be able to afford $100 a week. It only has to run one hour per week to pay for itself.
I think your friend made a mistake. Not for buying an Edge, but not buying what he needed for the market he has (assuming he has a market). I strongly suggest he begin contacting local manufacturers and offering his services for inexpensive short-run decals. It is a highly profitable market. If he needs help in getting pointed in the right direction, he's more than welcome to contact me.
[ May 01, 2002, 08:24 PM: Message edited by: Glenn Taylor ]
Posted by Doug Allan (Member # 2247) on :
There are so many potential customers that might have a need for short run decals or RUSH decals that may almost never need another sign. These people could very easily become repeat customers too, so without any sales time or artwork/set-up time, decal work can be vary profitable.
It is about as close as I'll ever get to showing up at the office & loading a few materials in the edge, pushing a button & printing MONEY.
Posted by Chuck Gallagher (Member # 69) on :
Thanks to all of you again for the comments. I may be making a mistake, but I don't have a market established for printing only. I do have a base of customers I've had for about 5 years now. When I started this business there was not much in the area offering design and layout and I was able to create that market. Most of what I do now is multi color layer jobs or I'm airbrushing vinyl for effects to be different than the rest. If I just switched that business over to the edge I'd save a ton of time in production alone and could output more work in the same time. So, that's what I'm hinging the purchase on as of now. When I get it and get familiar with it then I'll go for the rest. I'm kind of aggressive when it comes to stepping over on to the other side of the line. Once I've put myself in a position that it has to work, I do my best effort then. I'm a little strange!
Anyway, thanks for everything, but first I have to see if I can make my shop clean enough to operate it. That may be the final staw!
Take Care,
Posted by Todd Gill (Member # 2569) on :
Hi Glenn,
I think you're right....my buddy bought this thing, and his cousin who was mildly talented was going to be the "creative" force in this new sign business. Well, turns out his cousin never even [literally] touched a computer before and like I said, was "mildly" talented to put it nicely.
So they decide to go into business, and I [stupidly] agree to teach his cousin how to use the computer, CorelDraw and work the Edge. They start at ground zero with no customer base. It also takes my buddies cousin like, 3 days to design one logo. No money is coming in, but the Edge bills are....
My buddies cousin gets upset because he isn't getting paid, and my buddy says, "How can I pay you? We haven't done anything to make any money yet, and I've got these equipment payments!"
So he quits, and my buddy is stuck. I agree to help him get going as long as it doesn't interfere with my regular job....so I've been working like a dog at my regular job [extremely busy right now] AND doing some design for him occassionally to keep him afloat, AND trying to do a couple things on the side for myself because I'm a workaholic and a masochist {and probably stupid}.
The only good thing, is that I get free use of the Edge whenever I want/need it....but I often wonder if it's worth me killing myself over.
I sorta talked the guy into going into the business cause he was looking for something to do that was "steady". He fly's helicopters/planes and does aerial photos, buys and sells cars, and owns part of a decent business....so he's kind of self employed.
I suspect he makes a lot more than he's willing to admit....but spends a lot of money on stuff he doesn't need. But, I figured his cousin would work out. I wish it hadn't got started, really. I'd rather have my life back.
However, things being what they are, any ideas to put this machine to good use would be appreciated. He's not very motivated to go out and get the business, and frankly hasn't even put the time in to learn the Omega software and tricks to doing things in it like he needs to...but he will do what he can if people come to him. Kinda sucks huh??
Posted by Jon Aston (Member # 1725) on :
Todd:
Sounds like you need to plug into 4EDGEtalk.com. Plenty of creative, friendly EDGE and EDGE2 owners to throw ideas off...
Posted by Todd Gill (Member # 2569) on :
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
) that doesn’t know about the offer. Makes me wonder all the more why Gerber is not a merchant? “Readership” that can interact with a merchant? Try that with traditional print campaigns!? (And I believe my involvement on this and other sites have proven that I’m a Gerber supporter, so I’m not “bashing”, just trying to understand?? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
)![[Razz]](tongue.gif)