Balloon Printing machine

We have a new range of machines so that you can print your own balloons.

www.balloon-printing.com
Our starter kit has a custom-made printing screen and instructions on a very basic method to print balloons. We also sell the special ink for printing on balloons as well as portable screenpresses that can print balloons, T shirts, paper napkins and large items such as gift boxes.

 

 

Print your own balloons

Unique opportunity to get detailed inside information so you can set up your own home business. Two types of personalised goods with excellent profit margins and strong demand. I have been selling printed balloons since 1990 and printing on paper napkins since 2011. I have designed and built my own machines to print balloons. This meant Inhave a good working knowledge of the pneumatic control circuits used in silkscreen printing machines.

I am looking ahead to retirement or semi-retirement in the next couple of years so am trying out the idea of passing on my hard-won knowledge to men and women who want to work from home and to be their own boss or who want to add personalised balloons and napkins to their existing business.

What is for sale here is a 10 page document covering all the main topics to do with printing onto latex balloons and paper napkins. It includes the following topics 

LIST

and gives specific information about where to buy screenprinting supplies , the printing machines and the printing ink.  It is the first version and I will be interacting with people who buy it to fill in the gaps.  Updates will be sent out.

I will answer queries by email for 30 days and give you access to private YouTube videos of our printing machines at work and other areas of the process.

My goal is to help set up selected people as printers and then support them for a small monthly fee. Not a franchise but a support system supplying advice, technical support for the machines,  supplies like ink and giving good bulk deals on stock of balloons and napkins. If you decide to sign up for this arrangement the cost of the booklet will be deducted from the fees.

Turning over a new leaf with Social Media for 2015. Trying Facebook advertising

Like many small businesses I have made a token effort on Social Media. But it has never really appealed to me and there is always something else to do at work rather than thinking up something to post on Twitter or Facebook. Last month I  had the offer to have my business appraised by the government's Growth Accelerator program which prompted me to look at our weaknesses from an outsider's viewpoint.  And guess what?  One of them is definitely a lack of Social Media presence.  This has serious  implications for lack of engagement with customers, for the ranking of our websites in Google and for missing out on the chance to interact with a whole new audience of potential customers.
I have been busy reading blogs by such experts as Jon Loomer.  and VerticalResponse. There seems to be some kind of Social Media 2.0 emerging where businesses can no longer recruit fans just by posting regularly and will have to be prepared to pay for Facebook Ads. 
I actually like the idea of paying for adverts to recruit fans to my page. As a hard-headed businessman I do not believe in the airy-fairy something-for-nothing of a lot of Social Media hype.  FB adverts are quantifiable, with very good stats, and once I have people as fans I can try out various offers and promotions.   It is very much in Facebook's interest to make the adverts work because they are playing catchup with Google.  The underdog must try harder.

I had not realised how precise the targetting of Facebook Ads can be.  For example you can say that the ad will only be shown to customers who have first visited your website.  (This involves putting a special "pixel" on you site first of course.)   And you can select audiences by their likes using Facebook Graph - you could target only fans of  Breaking Bad for example. Or fans of my competitor's page.
 I can upload my mailing list and Facebook will find my customers' Facebook accounts. Then I can "clone" this audience to build a Lookalike audience of similar people.  And when I run the ad I can do further selection, male or female for example.
  There is something called Power Editor which you use to fine tune the ads, by creating new "Advert Sets" which could have a different photo or a different audience. Just remember to only use jpeg images, Facebook does not appear to like pngs.
 After using Adwords for so long it is a breath of fresh air.  Google are always asking me to increase my Adwords budget but mysteriously I do not get many more sales when I do as they say.  And if you ever let their "experts" tweak your campaign  then be prepared to have a big increase in costs.

With Facebook ads I seem to be ahead of the curve. When there is something I do not understand I go to www.peopleperhour.com and ask a PPH consultant.  But there is nobody specialising in Facebook Ads. Many of their consultants will reduce your Adwords spend or improve your SEO but FB ads  are apparently untouchable.  I will have to teach myself then.
Watch for my next posting when I report back on my results!

Savings on postage costs with Itembase and PackCrowd

We sell a lot on Ebay and a company called Itembase contacted me several times  by phone and email before I gave in and listened to what they had to offer.  Their main pitch is that they can increase your sales by using their database of your customers to send reminder emails and other offers. We already do that with our email marketing (using MadMimi). So not really interested. They also provide a lot of stats about your sales.

But then their sales rep Anika showed me a page of postage rates if we joined up and use their PackCrowd shipping service.  I think is based on Itembase's link with UPS who are also investors in the business.
Needless to say the prices looked great with shipping inside the UK for under £2.00. I am so fed up that we cannot get a better rate than £2.80 from Royal Mail or anybody else  for small light parcels. Not much cheaper than if we went out and bought the stamps.  Anything wider than 25cm or thicker than 2.5cm is a parcel now.  I do not want next day delivery, I just want the package to get there reliably within 3 working days.  And when my customers complain I want tracking which I think Itembase will include.
Also sending packages to Germany by airmail we are having a lot of failures and at a cost of over £3.50, without tracking, this is a bad value service.  Again Itembase promise a cheaper tracked service.
And every small mailorder business hates the fact that Royal Mail charge us a whopping £900 each year just for their vans to collect our mail. The red vans turn up here at least 3 times a day delivering letters and parcels anyway so could they not collect my mailbags for free?

So we are still waiting to be linked up to the shipping service. Is it too good to be true - watch this space!
December 2014: Latest news is now that nothing will happen until New Year.  I might have a word with Mr Jørgensenand  on LinkedIn. 

PS ItemBase is a Berlin based startup . It was founded by Denmark native Stefan Jørgensenand investors include UPS.

Learning curve for our first job colour printing on serviettes

First experience of printing a real life order on our flatbed inkjet printer. Big learning curve.  Running out of cyan ink so have to order more by next day delivery.  Marrutts have despatched already.

Inkjet print on napkins, placecards

I have read many posts about digital printing that ask about the cost of ink per item. Some printers rely on  the printer software to measure ink usage.  It occurs to me that with the CISS ink system (continuous ink supply system) which has the ink tanks separate from the printer it would be quite easy to weigh the tanks before and after printing a job.  Then if you assume 1ml of ink weighs 1 gram the same as water you can estimate the volume used.   Or you can do the same with the bottles of ink when you top up the tanks to a marked level and find what weight of ink has been added to the tanks.  I have never seen this idea of weighing the tanks posted anywhere else.

 I might need to purchase some small accurate scales but it would repay the cost to be able to cost jobs accurately.  We offer printing on 3 sizes of paper napkins, cocktail, lunch and dinner sizes. So if a customer wants a big image on the 40cm dinner napkins I need to factor in the ink cost.  Also in future  I will be removing  dark backgrounds from photos because printing these is drinking ink!

Small Business View

First posting on my blog since 2010.
I have realised that I will have plenty to say about what it feels like to run a small business in 2013/2014.
We have had the usual slowdown before Christmas and I still have not found that magic product that will fill in this quiet time for personalised latex balloons and custom printed napkins.

I have been usefully filling the time trying out our new DTG colour printer which enables us to print in full colour onto 33cm linen feel paper napkins.  I also have a plan for developing a method of printing in full colour onto "normal" size mylar foil balloons.

The German version of eBay

We have just signed up to a website in Germany which is similar to eBay but better! It seems to be really busy.
The cost is £39.00 a month but there are no selling fees. Card fees are only 2%.
As you know eBay take three bites of the cherry:
1.The listing fee
2. The selling fee
3. 4% Paypal commission.
We tried selling our products in the UK on eBay but found the pricing very competitive and after eBay had taken their cut it was not worthwhile.
There are fewer competitors on this German site and the fees are lower. If we can sell only 20 items a month the fees work out much cheaper than eBay.
I am looking forward to promoting a wide range of goods, not just our own products but also locally made items from our area of Gloucestershire.
Once you create a new marketing channel you can theoretically push all kinds of things down it!