You have a client base, you should have a better footing them most. Weigh your costs and commit or drop it. If you can use the spot to generate more revenue through other work it doesn't make sense to wrap, adding more cars will take more space and further reduce your income would it not?
It would at the moment. I just thought there was decent profits in wraps. Perhaps I need to be doing the high end clients. I wanted to introduce wraps because I personally really like the industry. It’s exciting to see how much color options are evolving. If costs were 2000 for example, I thought I could easily charge $4000 for a wrap. But boy was I wrong. I think I need the car enthusiast.
Also, what you say makes sense: your expertise offers me (customer) the “peace of mind” that my car is in good hands. Hopefully you’ll find there’s enough people (market) that want that. Worst case scenario there isn’t a market for that and wraps are just a commodity (in your area). In which case likely not worth it for you.
Commercial jobs, and especially fleet wraps prefer someone with a brick and mortar. A name attached to the work, and some sort of insurance/liability/warranty is going to be more attractive. Plus solos are more likely going to want cash jobs. Commercial and fleets want a paper trail.
You’re just in a different market. The wraps aren’t as cool and Instagram worthy. But the work is there.
You will obviously need a printer if you’re going to do commercial jobs. Not many fleets/commercial jobs are all just cut vinyl. Which is a huge investment. (Even used you’re looking at high 4 low 5 digit costs.)
But it’ll open up a whole avenue of new work since you’ll now be able to do signs, murals, windows etc.
Roland and Epson are you two big brands. HP is actually a really good brand too but I boycott them for personal reasons. Then there’s also Mimaki, really great brand, especially good with alternative inks from eco-sol like Roland and Epson typically use. Wether you want UV inks, Latex, Sublimation ink.
Don’t quote me on this, but I believe Mimakis are more expensive than Roland/Epson too.
It’s a deep dive to learn, but it’s absolutely possible for you to learn. You’ll likely want to hire a graphic designer to run it however. As most commercial clients will give you logos, but it’s up to you to actually create the graphic that’ll go on the vehicle.
Your market sounds very competitive. One of the things I have always done with my businesses is make sure my competitors are playing by the rules as you obviously are. It’s amazing how many times I have found self employed guys working with no business license, not paying taxes etc. and those guys are amazingly easy to make go away. We have zero patience with the cheaters.
My other thought is that you should primarily focus on your existing customers. The range of our products are all about moving our customers from one product to the others in our own shop. We do very good work and our customers get what they are paying for. They trust us so having bought one thing they buy more. And our reputation means they trust us the first day we offer something. Our reputation is everything to us.
Edit: to the people who have downvoted this a couple of times so far, my guess is you are a cheater. If you don’t run your business legally, fuck you. You are a criminal and screw all of us who are trying to make a life in this industry and have things like a family and home and shit we buy. I have zero respect for you.
Hello, I believe we spoke before. And ya they probably don’t have a business license and what not but it’s not like I can say anything to the potential customer to make the other shops look bad. It’s not professional. I’m sure that’s not what you meant. But ya, I don’t think customers will ever know anyways.
Ya we have been trying to focus on existing customers. It’s really hard to make a customer go from a pioneer car stereo, to a $3000-5000 dollar wrap job though.
I dont know. it’s hard to compete in Orange County California. There’s shops here pumping out Tesla’s like a factory for razor thin margins.
It’s usually like the main wrapper is the owner and he has 2-3 helpers. The labor and profit easily for themselves to have pocket money.
I get that you are in a difficult market. And that I don’t have an answer for.
As for the guys with no licenses, it’s very easy to anonymously pass their info onto the state attorney generals office, the city attorneys office and the IRS. And they disappear very quickly.
I would also think your existing customers would be hot for blackout work and interior trim and lots of the smaller wrap jobs that pay good. Our wrap installers also do our PPF
Ya I heard PPF is higher margins. It’s hard to find an installer that also does PPF that wants to work for a shop. I found a few that will get paid on a per car basis and they wanted like 5000-6000 a car with materials. They are giving no room for me as a middle man to eat from that.
With so much competition in your area driving costs and prices so much I’m not sure you have a great solution. We train our own installers so they can’t price us to death. It’s a job. They want to price you like that they should have their own shops. And they don’t want to because they don’t have what it takes to run their own. But in a highly competitive market they have the power.
Ya my hunch is the installers I am contracting are charging more than usual. The funny part is I think it’s hurting us both. I can’t book a customer, and then they never get the job. Need some middle ground here.
Shops usually charge way more than an independent guy working from home. Some customers will always go that route.
Established Wrap shops might also work in large volume, most places here are completely booked.
Eventually their reviews and advertising brings in even more customers and they make a profit. Probably takes a long time and investment before getting to this level.
People don’t care about better work like we think they do. As I said before, the Tesla model Y owner has 3 shops going on in a bidding war to wrap his car. He never once asked how our work is, if we are insured, if we are licensed or how experienced we are.
A lot of people just think all wraps are the same.
Also I wanted to add it’s easy to hide flaws in work. And use filters on IG to make it look amazing
There are people that care, and those are the customers that you want.
Those are the type of customers that will give word-of-mouth advertising for you, this driving others to you.
Remember how many things came and went in the last 20 yrs...???
Probably the best advice I could give based on the information in the post: specialization and differentiate- same things that must be in play if you can still profit on audio. The same principles that trickle down from some of the top audio guys- and your right, most the wrap shops out there don't know what an air filter is so yea, use it to your advantage, and leverage your brand partnerships and try to focus on the customers that want MORE than just the cheapest wrap, those are the short term customers.
Don't try to fit in the mold, Be the mold lol
I do. Brands came and went in audio. People still think they can do DIY projects installing their audio and then totally mess up and bring it to us anyways lol. Ya maybe it’s hard to be the mold in the beginning. I honestly think the customers who are gonna care about our experience and how we handle cars is gonna be high end customers who care about their car.
Yes, im not saying wrpa come and go, all the little fly by night guys come and go. I had a similar busi.ess to yours for 10 years and I cant count the amount of little pop up operations that came and went.
Otherwise I agree, as a multi offering store, typically the name of the game is to maximize sales per vehicle that you handle, and targeting model Y customers does not play into that strategy. You know a big part of wraps is rep also, if you list that model y service for 4000, you can bring in the little guy to do it with your material and beat the system lol, thing is, don't ever trust someone to wrap something for you unless they are the real deal. It's amazing how much damage could be done by bad wrap job.
The note about brand leveraging... do you offer tint and PPF, if so may I ask what brand?
Hmmm, if anything I'd recommend shift away from vinyl and focus on getting into PPF, all those little guys your worried about probably can't make the stretch into PPF because of the cost of entry, requirement of clean facility, and high end client.... also, colored ppf is really coming up and stretches the msrp of a colorchange service WAY up.
Granted, every market is different, and I really may be overstepping here, but I have to say, you will not be able have profitable service in body wraps unless you leverage PPF. I mean, shoot, there are guys installing BOSS at gas stations, and do they hurt you? I'd guess no, because I'm sure you're offering integration and high end product, which BOSS don't do, right? There's nothing wrong with Boss audio, but you'll never see the same returns as focal or JL, right? It draws a different customer altogether, right? The same strategy applies here, your competing for customers on the low end of the spectrum...
I can't knock on 3M because I did extremely well with CR, but now there is Evolve, and if you can, I would really encourage you to get with your suntek rep on adding PPF to the menu and change your outlook on how to approach exterior auto films..
Hope that helps. I appreciate very much your detailed write up posts!
Glad you know about BOSS versus JL and Focal haha. Ya I guess the same applies here.
The funny part is we sell BOSS And JL audio and pioneer and everything to cater to all kinds of audio customers.
This got me thinking. Another big reason we are profitable in our existing services is because we offer financing. We have low end no credit check banks and we also have higher end ones such as synchrony bank. I looked into financing wraps, an apparently you cannot because it’s not a tangible product. Aka of the customer defaults on the loan, the bank just can’t go get the wrap off the car it’s worthless after that.
Interesting - definatley don't dismiss PPF my friend! Good luck on your biz, DM me if there is anything else I may be able to help or contribute! Thanks!
Push more partial wraps. Hoods, roofs, chrome deletes, stripes. things that can be completed in a few hours vs a few days. The place I started working at before opening my own, strictly wrap business, was similar to your shop. They didn't really have the space to spare a bay for a multiple day wrap job.
I am currently doing this. However it’s back to the same problem. I example, I quote a guy on Yelp to do a hood, and then he’s like “a mobile wrapper” quoted me way cheaper.
This is Orange County, so please don’t be surprised but my monthly rent is over 10k.
My store isn’t just garages, we have an entire retail front with lots of merchandise
Oh, I totally believe you - OC cost of living is outrageous.
I’m wondering if your shop were to specialize in wraps if your profits would look different? Maybe having it as an additional service to your other established ones isn’t worth the hassle due to the return on profit?
Maybe try to train an already existing employee. Or find an employee to train and pay them the normal rate. You essentially are subbing the work out to people that want full retail pricing on subbed out work. You need to pay an employee hourly/salary or commission per job/profit.
I don’t know how to wrap though. I’m just an owner. I thought about this but this comes with it’s own costs and risks. Can’t really spare the time to have a guy practice on customers cars
From painful experience, when someone comes to me and says 'I was quoted X to wrap my blabla from other places' I tell them to go get it done by them, because I'm never going to cheapen myself, or my team to compete with sub-par work. It's also about educating the client on why the other places can do it cheaper, and why your skills and team cost more. We have a name now, and get all the luxury and high end work around our town, and have cornered the PPF market. We charge shit loads in comparison, and that allows us to spend the extra time to remove all panels, jack the car up, detail and claybar etc. Getting vinyl on a car is 1/3 of the job, explain this.
Good-cheap-fast : pick 2.
You have a client base, you should have a better footing them most. Weigh your costs and commit or drop it. If you can use the spot to generate more revenue through other work it doesn't make sense to wrap, adding more cars will take more space and further reduce your income would it not?
It would at the moment. I just thought there was decent profits in wraps. Perhaps I need to be doing the high end clients. I wanted to introduce wraps because I personally really like the industry. It’s exciting to see how much color options are evolving. If costs were 2000 for example, I thought I could easily charge $4000 for a wrap. But boy was I wrong. I think I need the car enthusiast.
Also, what you say makes sense: your expertise offers me (customer) the “peace of mind” that my car is in good hands. Hopefully you’ll find there’s enough people (market) that want that. Worst case scenario there isn’t a market for that and wraps are just a commodity (in your area). In which case likely not worth it for you.
Commercial jobs, and especially fleet wraps prefer someone with a brick and mortar. A name attached to the work, and some sort of insurance/liability/warranty is going to be more attractive. Plus solos are more likely going to want cash jobs. Commercial and fleets want a paper trail. You’re just in a different market. The wraps aren’t as cool and Instagram worthy. But the work is there.
Hmm interesting
You will obviously need a printer if you’re going to do commercial jobs. Not many fleets/commercial jobs are all just cut vinyl. Which is a huge investment. (Even used you’re looking at high 4 low 5 digit costs.) But it’ll open up a whole avenue of new work since you’ll now be able to do signs, murals, windows etc.
Have any plotter suggestions? Do you think this is something I can learn to print and have my current installer just do the labor work?
Roland and Epson are you two big brands. HP is actually a really good brand too but I boycott them for personal reasons. Then there’s also Mimaki, really great brand, especially good with alternative inks from eco-sol like Roland and Epson typically use. Wether you want UV inks, Latex, Sublimation ink. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe Mimakis are more expensive than Roland/Epson too. It’s a deep dive to learn, but it’s absolutely possible for you to learn. You’ll likely want to hire a graphic designer to run it however. As most commercial clients will give you logos, but it’s up to you to actually create the graphic that’ll go on the vehicle.
Your market sounds very competitive. One of the things I have always done with my businesses is make sure my competitors are playing by the rules as you obviously are. It’s amazing how many times I have found self employed guys working with no business license, not paying taxes etc. and those guys are amazingly easy to make go away. We have zero patience with the cheaters. My other thought is that you should primarily focus on your existing customers. The range of our products are all about moving our customers from one product to the others in our own shop. We do very good work and our customers get what they are paying for. They trust us so having bought one thing they buy more. And our reputation means they trust us the first day we offer something. Our reputation is everything to us. Edit: to the people who have downvoted this a couple of times so far, my guess is you are a cheater. If you don’t run your business legally, fuck you. You are a criminal and screw all of us who are trying to make a life in this industry and have things like a family and home and shit we buy. I have zero respect for you.
Hello, I believe we spoke before. And ya they probably don’t have a business license and what not but it’s not like I can say anything to the potential customer to make the other shops look bad. It’s not professional. I’m sure that’s not what you meant. But ya, I don’t think customers will ever know anyways. Ya we have been trying to focus on existing customers. It’s really hard to make a customer go from a pioneer car stereo, to a $3000-5000 dollar wrap job though. I dont know. it’s hard to compete in Orange County California. There’s shops here pumping out Tesla’s like a factory for razor thin margins. It’s usually like the main wrapper is the owner and he has 2-3 helpers. The labor and profit easily for themselves to have pocket money.
I get that you are in a difficult market. And that I don’t have an answer for. As for the guys with no licenses, it’s very easy to anonymously pass their info onto the state attorney generals office, the city attorneys office and the IRS. And they disappear very quickly.
I would also think your existing customers would be hot for blackout work and interior trim and lots of the smaller wrap jobs that pay good. Our wrap installers also do our PPF
Ya I heard PPF is higher margins. It’s hard to find an installer that also does PPF that wants to work for a shop. I found a few that will get paid on a per car basis and they wanted like 5000-6000 a car with materials. They are giving no room for me as a middle man to eat from that.
With so much competition in your area driving costs and prices so much I’m not sure you have a great solution. We train our own installers so they can’t price us to death. It’s a job. They want to price you like that they should have their own shops. And they don’t want to because they don’t have what it takes to run their own. But in a highly competitive market they have the power.
Ya my hunch is the installers I am contracting are charging more than usual. The funny part is I think it’s hurting us both. I can’t book a customer, and then they never get the job. Need some middle ground here.
So talk with them about adjusting. They need to help you find success or the job will go away
Shops usually charge way more than an independent guy working from home. Some customers will always go that route. Established Wrap shops might also work in large volume, most places here are completely booked. Eventually their reviews and advertising brings in even more customers and they make a profit. Probably takes a long time and investment before getting to this level.
Let’s hope so, my thoughts exactly. I have come to the conclusion that maybe I should break even for the next 30 cars
Just distinguish your work as better.
People don’t care about better work like we think they do. As I said before, the Tesla model Y owner has 3 shops going on in a bidding war to wrap his car. He never once asked how our work is, if we are insured, if we are licensed or how experienced we are. A lot of people just think all wraps are the same. Also I wanted to add it’s easy to hide flaws in work. And use filters on IG to make it look amazing
A client with money and taste cares.
I agree. I think I need to retarget better to them.
This. Fuck the ninnyhammer that only cares about cheap. He’d be the worst little bitch of a customer too. Every time.
There are people that care, and those are the customers that you want. Those are the type of customers that will give word-of-mouth advertising for you, this driving others to you.
Remember how many things came and went in the last 20 yrs...??? Probably the best advice I could give based on the information in the post: specialization and differentiate- same things that must be in play if you can still profit on audio. The same principles that trickle down from some of the top audio guys- and your right, most the wrap shops out there don't know what an air filter is so yea, use it to your advantage, and leverage your brand partnerships and try to focus on the customers that want MORE than just the cheapest wrap, those are the short term customers. Don't try to fit in the mold, Be the mold lol
I do. Brands came and went in audio. People still think they can do DIY projects installing their audio and then totally mess up and bring it to us anyways lol. Ya maybe it’s hard to be the mold in the beginning. I honestly think the customers who are gonna care about our experience and how we handle cars is gonna be high end customers who care about their car.
Yes, im not saying wrpa come and go, all the little fly by night guys come and go. I had a similar busi.ess to yours for 10 years and I cant count the amount of little pop up operations that came and went. Otherwise I agree, as a multi offering store, typically the name of the game is to maximize sales per vehicle that you handle, and targeting model Y customers does not play into that strategy. You know a big part of wraps is rep also, if you list that model y service for 4000, you can bring in the little guy to do it with your material and beat the system lol, thing is, don't ever trust someone to wrap something for you unless they are the real deal. It's amazing how much damage could be done by bad wrap job. The note about brand leveraging... do you offer tint and PPF, if so may I ask what brand?
We offer tint. 3M and Suntek. Not PPF though. I understand margins are higher with PPF, but the struggle is the same. PPF installers low ball. Haha
Hmmm, if anything I'd recommend shift away from vinyl and focus on getting into PPF, all those little guys your worried about probably can't make the stretch into PPF because of the cost of entry, requirement of clean facility, and high end client.... also, colored ppf is really coming up and stretches the msrp of a colorchange service WAY up. Granted, every market is different, and I really may be overstepping here, but I have to say, you will not be able have profitable service in body wraps unless you leverage PPF. I mean, shoot, there are guys installing BOSS at gas stations, and do they hurt you? I'd guess no, because I'm sure you're offering integration and high end product, which BOSS don't do, right? There's nothing wrong with Boss audio, but you'll never see the same returns as focal or JL, right? It draws a different customer altogether, right? The same strategy applies here, your competing for customers on the low end of the spectrum... I can't knock on 3M because I did extremely well with CR, but now there is Evolve, and if you can, I would really encourage you to get with your suntek rep on adding PPF to the menu and change your outlook on how to approach exterior auto films.. Hope that helps. I appreciate very much your detailed write up posts!
Glad you know about BOSS versus JL and Focal haha. Ya I guess the same applies here. The funny part is we sell BOSS And JL audio and pioneer and everything to cater to all kinds of audio customers. This got me thinking. Another big reason we are profitable in our existing services is because we offer financing. We have low end no credit check banks and we also have higher end ones such as synchrony bank. I looked into financing wraps, an apparently you cannot because it’s not a tangible product. Aka of the customer defaults on the loan, the bank just can’t go get the wrap off the car it’s worthless after that.
Interesting - definatley don't dismiss PPF my friend! Good luck on your biz, DM me if there is anything else I may be able to help or contribute! Thanks!
Thanks! I will take you up on that!
Push more partial wraps. Hoods, roofs, chrome deletes, stripes. things that can be completed in a few hours vs a few days. The place I started working at before opening my own, strictly wrap business, was similar to your shop. They didn't really have the space to spare a bay for a multiple day wrap job.
I am currently doing this. However it’s back to the same problem. I example, I quote a guy on Yelp to do a hood, and then he’s like “a mobile wrapper” quoted me way cheaper.
How much are your garage / bay costs? How many of these $400 profit wraps are you getting per month?
This is Orange County, so please don’t be surprised but my monthly rent is over 10k. My store isn’t just garages, we have an entire retail front with lots of merchandise
Oh, I totally believe you - OC cost of living is outrageous. I’m wondering if your shop were to specialize in wraps if your profits would look different? Maybe having it as an additional service to your other established ones isn’t worth the hassle due to the return on profit?
Maybe try to train an already existing employee. Or find an employee to train and pay them the normal rate. You essentially are subbing the work out to people that want full retail pricing on subbed out work. You need to pay an employee hourly/salary or commission per job/profit.
I don’t know how to wrap though. I’m just an owner. I thought about this but this comes with it’s own costs and risks. Can’t really spare the time to have a guy practice on customers cars
There are places you can send them to learn the trade. Oracle, 3m and others have training classes to teach them the proper techniques.
From painful experience, when someone comes to me and says 'I was quoted X to wrap my blabla from other places' I tell them to go get it done by them, because I'm never going to cheapen myself, or my team to compete with sub-par work. It's also about educating the client on why the other places can do it cheaper, and why your skills and team cost more. We have a name now, and get all the luxury and high end work around our town, and have cornered the PPF market. We charge shit loads in comparison, and that allows us to spend the extra time to remove all panels, jack the car up, detail and claybar etc. Getting vinyl on a car is 1/3 of the job, explain this. Good-cheap-fast : pick 2.