Alot of my clients need promotional items, for instance a chain of a sports club with 190 locations across the country. They order about 50 t-shirts and 100 sports bottles per month. I outsource the promotional items to screen printer, which I pay a little lower than wholesale. I profit about $0.50 per tshirt and $0.25 per sports bottle for basically doing nothing. Purchasing the equipment would cost (and you can definitely find some cheaper) a little over $2500. After some calculation with the cost of labor and materials. I would have make a one time purchase 20,000 t-shirts in order to break even !!! This is not including equipment costs either. I did not see enough profit in this area to get into it, but if you are selling small numbers of items with a very large markup, I can see you actually making a buck or 2. jsut my 2 cents.

p.s. considering you have a 44″ printer, I’d say you have an epson. Best way to lower costs is get a bulk ink setup. It might cost you around $1000 but lowers your ink cost to under a $0.07 per sq. ft. there are also 3rd party ink manufacturers that is simple plug and play, uses same profiles too.

I know that I’m either going to have to be smarter about these things or drop some of them.

My LFP department now takes up 1/3 of my warehouse and consistsof 3 60″ HP5500 for posters , a 74″ Roland for car, a $250k 10ft grand format vutek that pumps out banners day and night and about to purchase a vutek flatbed uv printer for about 350k. Equiptment cost is high, but between my offset, digital and large-format departments, I can definitely tell you that LFP is the most profitable because of low operational costs and very high markup.

I am desperate to start e-commerce integrated with the workflow, but am having a hard time getting that started especially with a baby on the way. Goodluck.

1) Which of these do you enjoy the most? You’ll put the most into the ones you feel passionate about.

2) Which have the greatest income potential? For obvious reasons.

3) Which fit best with your current skillset and personality? Leverage your life experience.

Of course, it’s easy for me to say, I’m not the one that has to make the decision. Look forward to hearing what you figure out.

Here’s a quick look at some finance-related posts that caught my eye this week:

Flexo has a funny list of seven ways to save while maintaining your extravagant lifestyle.
FMF has some thoughts on juggling multiple job offers.
Jim reminds us to …

1. keep the day job – obvious reasons
2. Auctioneering – go with it, it is big around my small town and a great way for you to live when you decide to let go of #1.
3.The Blog – For selfish reasons I hope you keep it up.
4. The 4 in the Middle (Merchant) – I recommend a new blog. That you can display your goods and sell to a wider audience. You may even link it to other sites like this one to gain a larger crowd. Or if you have some cash flow pay for some great slots else where. This will help to feed your business or help you to decide what pieces to let go of and move on.

What ever you decide it will work out, things always work out.
Good Luck!