Printing banners is often one of the first areas that any new printing business looks at when it is starting up. Why is this? Well, one reason surely must be the low cost of the machinery when compared to digital printers used for stationery etc. These machines can cost £40k plus, while a wide format banner machine that will do 5ft widths can be yours from around £15k, and a lot less if you are prepared to buy used. These machines also make sound second-hand buys as they have relatively few moving parts and are a whole lot more reliable than their digital counterparts. The finishing equipment needed for large format banner printing is also less. While a digital setup would require a guillotene, creaser, folder, laminator etc, making banners requires only a large table, an eyeletter, a sharp knife and some double sided tape to get you going. Easy peasy! Once this lot is in place you can make good quality banners to your heart’s content and never need anything else. When work gets busy enough, just add a second machine and another table. You can keep on increasing in size this way indefinitely, with discount banner printing being your main source of income. With it’s easy design principles and low res requirements, banner printing can be a headache free way to get into the trade with low outlay and instant sales and success. You will probably want an e-commerce website though (maybe from web design manchester), so make sure to find your ‘vinyl banners uk‘ or whatever you think is best! You could attempt to sell into the music and band industry as well – function bands often use banners as large backdrops which can look really good!

What comes further down the line though? Well, one thing is the maximum size of the banners that you can make. As you get more and more orders you will surely begin to get more requests for banners that are larger than your 5ft machines can produce. To start with you might turn this work down (if you are stupid) or you might farm the work out to a bigger print facility at a small profit (if you are smart). Either way, there will eventually come a time when you are getting enough large banner work to want a bigger machine, and this is where the costs of banner printing start to change. Above ft wide, the costs of banner printed machines starts to increase exponentially. No longer are these machines a cheap way into printing when compared to digital machines. So what do printers do? Well, take Aura Print. They can print banners up to 5m in width, but with such large machines comes a lot of expense and the need for more space in which to make them up. Take this all into account when planning the future of your banner printing business!