There’s usually a divide between customization businesses – like sign printers, apparel decorators, promotional products businesses – and ones that cater to the automotive niche.
But just attend any of the big industry trade shows and car wraps are EVERYWHERE. To do those car wraps though, you’d need to invest pretty heavily in a pretty big printer and develop or hire a VERY specific skill set.
Using Mid-Sized Flatbed UV Printers for the Automotive Niche
For those of us in the OTHER customization businesses, there is a good way to address the automotive niche and maybe wrangle a few customers in the door. Using the same equipment you do for signs, drinkware, basketballs, and more.
Making Custom Car Mats
Generic car mats can be found online for $12-15 per set of 4 and customized mats sell from $80-100 or more per set.
And depending on the size of the mats, you can customize them just like anything else with the Compress iUV600s or iUV1200s!
Watch this video, and then we’ll take a closer look at the numbers:
The mats we used for the demonstration were stock Honda Accord floor mats. They serve as a pretty standard example.
We printed a cartoon shark illustration downloaded from iStock and chose to print it at 12” X 14”. And used our Hybrid Ink set because the mats are… floppy.
The wipe-on adhesion promoter we used to help it handle the wear, tear and flex of a car mat can be found on ColDesi Supplies site – Colman and Company.
Time, Money and ROI
Print time was just under 15 minutes (on the 600s – would be a bit more efficient if doing 2 mats at one on the 1200s)
The ink cost under $1.40 per mat.
Adhesion promoter ads $.30-$.40 to the cost of materials per mat.
We found generic carpet car mats online for $12.95 for a set of 4. So each mat costs $3.24
So the Total Cost for each mat is:
$3.24 + $1.40 +$.40 = $5.04
That makes the cost of producing a set of 4 as $20.16
The set of 4 customized floor mats sell for right at $100 on a site like Zazzle.com
Gross Profit per Set = $100-$20.16 = $78.94
On the iUV600s printing one mat at a time you could turn over a full customized set in about 1 hour making your gross $$78.94 per hour.
Using the Compress iUV1200s you can essentially DOUBLE that productivity for a whopping $159.68 per hour.
While this is not the most profitable thing you can use your printer for, it still translates into a good ROI. And a VERY good cash flow.
Because you can finance a Compress iUV600s for around $600/month.
$600 per month payment / $78.94 per hour profit = Monthly break-even at under 8 hours of printing car mats!
Do that 8 hours a day, 5 days per week, and your machine is paid for in a little over 2 months.
Now that’s ROI!
