Minifigures custom printing service (opinions wanted)

[dan76]

Hi everybody!

A lot of you know me for my custom LOTR minifigures for which I received a lot of positive feedback.

After many requests from many AFOLs, I am seriously thinking about launching my own business of high quality minifigures custom printing service on demand: this means that everyone will be able to send his own design to be printed on his minifigures with the same high quality of mines and reasonable prices.

Well, I know that a service like this already exists in the communuty, but in my opinion the prices are really expensive and out of market comparing to the real costs: my target is to offer smart prices even for small quantities. 

So, before starting, I need your help; would you please accept to answer few questions (like a quick poll) to make me know:

- if yes or not you should be interested in this kind of service

- if high quality UV printing is acceptable for you or you are a pad printing purist

- which would be for you the reasonable price for printing one minifigure torso on both sides

- which would be for you the reasonable price for printing one full minifigure  (including legs)

- if you prefer a full service (including providing the parts to be printed) or just the printing service (and you provide the parts)

Many thanks in advance for your help!

 

Dan

Nicebricks 

Edited March 30, 2017 by LuxorV
Fixed title to better reflect topic content.

[Mattyj82]

I would be interested for sure mate. 

And any of the options sound good. I guess u could charge different on each customer depending on demands

[BaneShake]

I would be super interested in someone who could print the parts I provide. I don't mind how it's printed, I will just need figures to look good with very close photography for stop-animation. I would pay based on complexity of printing, certainly, but don't have a specific price in mind as I have no idea what the printing alone will cost.

[09JBlake]

I would be interested in something like this. I'd say maybe $4-5 dollars would be reasonable for a torso and $8-10 would be reasonable for a full minifigure. What I mean is that is the kind of price I would pay. Hope that was helpful!

[Robianco]

I've never seen a fully printed custom figure sold for $8. I think that's an unreasonably low guide to give someone.

I know there are people, myself included, who only buy pad printed figures but for a subject such as LOTR there's such a shortage of custom figures that digitally printed would probably suffice especially if they're at the kind of quality Onlinesailin sells.

I think it's reasonable to make a profit in your figures. Otherwise what's the point? You just need to factor in the cost of parts, the time to design and set up the print as well as the cost to print itself including a very small amount towards the cost of the printer itself. Factor these things in and you should get a good guide for what you should charge.

I think offering torso only options is a good one for people who just want to pick those up. PPM offered a torso print option a few years ago at $25 for 5 torsos (5 of the same design. Torsos had no arms) as single sided print. The quality of those weren't great though. 

[dan76]

8 hours ago, Robianco said:

I've never seen a fully printed custom figure sold for $8. I think that's an unreasonably low guide to give someone.

I know there are people, myself included, who only buy pad printed figures but for a subject such as LOTR there's such a shortage of custom figures that digitally printed would probably suffice especially if they're at the kind of quality Onlinesailin sells.

I think it's reasonable to make a profit in your figures. Otherwise what's the point? You just need to factor in the cost of parts, the time to design and set up the print as well as the cost to print itself including a very small amount towards the cost of the printer itself. Factor these things in and you should get a good guide for what you should charge.

I think offering torso only options is a good one for people who just want to pick those up. PPM offered a torso print option a few years ago at $25 for 5 torsos (5 of the same design. Torsos had no arms) as single sided print. The quality of those weren't great though. 

Hi! Thanks a lot! for your suggestions!

My business will be only offering printing on demand and not selling complete minifigures, in other words customers will provide the file to be printed and they will need to complete their own minifigures by themselves: in this case I think that between 2 and 3$ per torso would be a really reasonable price (between 4 and 5$ for torso + legs).

Making profit is OK,  but only reasonable profit, excessive prices are not my target, I had so many difficulties in the past in finding good printing services for myself and I know a lot of AFOLs still experience the same problem,  so I really want to offer a very high quality service at the lowest possible price. Of course you are right when telling about the cost for the machine, that's why I'm trying to understand how many people would be interested.

Onlinesailin has very good products and I think mine are the same high quality, but he sells only complete minifigures.

 

[Robianco]

7 hours ago, dan76 said:

Hi! Thanks a lot! for your suggestions!

My business will be only offering printing on demand and not selling complete minifigures, in other words customers will provide the file to be printed and they will need to complete their own minifigures by themselves: in this case I think that between 2 and 3$ per torso would be a really reasonable price (between 4 and 5$ for torso + legs).

Making profit is OK,  but only reasonable profit, excessive prices are not my target, I had so many difficulties in the past in finding good printing services for myself and I know a lot of AFOLs still experience the same problem,  so I really want to offer a very high quality service at the lowest possible price. Of course you are right when telling about the cost for the machine, that's why I'm trying to understand how many people would be interested.

Onlinesailin has very good products and I think mine are the same high quality, but he sells only complete minifigures.

 

Offering a printing service that is cost effective is a great idea but I'd be careful to make sure your costs are being covered. This isn't an altruistic venture where you're covering the cost of the printer just to offer items cheaply.

OLS sells figures from around $30 and I know that since PPM upgraded their printer their figures have also been listed at that price.

If you really think you can source torsos and print them to sell for between $2-$3 each then great. But Is that really factoring in the price of the torsos as well as having them shipped to you? As well as the cost of the consumables and a very small fraction of the cost of the printer as well as your time to set everything up?

Like I said it's great if you think that's possible but I know that if I was doing something similar I'd be checking how many items can I print with a set of inks, how much was the printer, how much are services on the printer to make sure it's running well and the product I'm selling is at the best quality? From there you know what you can realistically charge for something that makes it a worthwhile venture. I think the pricing should be more down to things like that than what some people will tell you they're prepared to pay.

While you may only be offering a printing service it may be worth looking into offering figures (even if only generic things such as Gondorian soldiers etc) to help generate revenue. People wanting figures is fine but they may not have designs themselves or be able to generate something of printable quality which could put them off. Having stock designs for people to populate their armies could be an option. Even if you don't sell the full fig with helmets or accessories (people can pick those up separately) it's a viable option.

Also... If people are sending you designs to print I'm assuming you won't be limiting what you'll print to just LORS/Hobbit related?