3D machines and their uses

[socialgiraffe]

Personally if its phone cases in particular you want to do, I'd be buying (and may well do) a machine specific for these.

Hi Justin, what machines are out there specifically for phone cases? Are they cheaper or what is different to a "standard" 3D machine?

[Justin]

Certainly not cheaper . If you look at the Case I'd machines these are specifically for cases, fixed position jigs to allow use of film.

[socialgiraffe]

Certainly not cheaper

How much are they? I will contact them on Monday, but being an impatient bugger you might be able to tell me on Sunday

[Justin]

Emailing over to you now Simon.....

[socialgiraffe]

Are they the Sublideck machines?

Price of £5249 prints three at a time which is what I am thinking it was going to cost. However what is the difference between these machines and a larger generic machine that I can make bespoke jigs for?

I am assuming they are better made and give better results in much the same way an Adkins is better than a cheapie from ebay.

[Justin]

I know little about them but I'm thinking of getting the single hit machine to take a look at. I've seen bigger machines with fixed jigs that will do 8, 12 etc. but as they're outside UK getting prices is difficult.

I think you're most probably right that build quality would be excellent but I'd like to bring in Ben from the suppliers to take this conversation up....I'll invite Ben along to the thread

[Justin]

I think the original machines were indeed Sublideck, not sure about these ones. I'm looking at film based machines in more detail again.

[socialgiraffe]

Yes, it would be good if Ben could give us an insight as to why they are more expensive but limited in their products. This isn't a dig, far from it, I just want to make sure that there are very good reasons as to why these machines are what they are.

I am presenting to my customers a unique system that will require a good quality machine, film loading capabilities (as I do not like faff!) and good quality reliable printing. But that does not mean I want to throw money away at something I do not need

[Jelliskin]

Yes, it would be good if Ben could give us an insight as to why they are more expensive but limited in their products. This isn't a dig, far from it, I just want to make sure that there are very good reasons as to why these machines are what they are.

I am presenting to my customers a unique system that will require a good quality machine, film loading capabilities (as I do not like faff!) and good quality reliable printing. But that does not mean I want to throw money away at something I do not need

The first half decent machine on the market was the machine that we were selling at Printwear and Promotion in 2012.

We called it the MiniPress, others called it Sublideck, and some know it as the Pictaflex.

In theory the machine was fine, we extensively tested it in 1 of our own retail locations before we started selling it in December, The manufacturer at the time felt it was right to have 2 different companies selling the machine, Octitech and CASE-iD. I felt having 2 companies in Yorkshire was a little too competitive for us, cutting a long story short changes were made behind the scenes. We continued to work with our original cases which in our opinion are the best available on the market, like everything, you can buy cheaper and you can buy more expensive, but in general we sell to retailers who want the best quality in order to achieve the highest retail price, we have tried selling cheaper cases, but if you have to sell for £10-£12 instead of £20 - £28 it didn't make any financial sense, having said all that I totally understand if your customers don't get the chance to see you face to face and actually hold the product a custom case is a custom case online for example.

CASE-iD does work well as a brand for selling custom cases and our most successful clients use our brand in mall or department store locations and we have really helped some of our clients transform their businesses in terms of turnover and profit.

We recently launched 2 new machines, an A5 press for £3495.00 and a B4 press for £5295.00,
Our new machines are built to a high standard and no corners have been cut. Inside the B4 machine there are 2 large industrial grade vacuum pumps, 1 would have probably done an ok job but what we are trying to sell is high end systems for customers that are looking for the very best. Each model also comes with a large HD touchscreen programmable unit. The air is channeled better around the bottom of the case for a better wrap, and importantly everything is tuned perfectly to provide the least amount of distortion in its class.

We have managed to lower the nest prices down to £80.00 which is the lowest on the market. I feel the margins you get on cases are definitely still good for retail but when we are in a recession its always tempting to save pennies here and there.

What we really feel like we offer over and above what you'd expect is great opportunities to sell cases. One of our most recent clients is developing a franchise model. We franchised another retail business back in 2007 and thats where alot of our experience lies, we also provide clients the option of using the code from case-id.com to create their own site,

Unlike others we are not just box shifting, we are there to help clients make their business successful,

Sorry bit of a long boring e-mail for most i am sure,

Ben

[socialgiraffe]

Not boring at all Ben and thank you for explaining in more detail. I have a few questions though.

Firslty, are the machines designed just for smart phone cases? Presumably they are interchangeable jigs between each model?

Will they work with other 3D cases? I appreciate that you are selling the best cases you can find, but I am just making sure my options are open. I had my fingers burnt many moons ago where I was stuck with one supplier of DTG white ink. It was a nightmare! My particular interest is not in retail but supplying retail. Knowing my customers bottom line may well come above the quality

Also, do you have a unit cost to produce 1 case including materials?

Obviously no need to factor labour as that is all subjective. I will just assume that the mini can do 10-15 an hour and the b4 can do 25-30