Building A Canvas Printing Business

I still think it’s strange I’ve somehow found myself on the printing business owner list, something I never set out to do but equally, really glad I took the opportunity, 

I juggle it from home but it doesn’t come without struggle, the printing errors, the ‘none work like’ conditions and of course, the limited space.

I think I’m probably weeks away from having to find a ‘proper’ commercial premises. 

At the moment my printing looks a little like this:

After work, I turn the printer on and set the heaters on full in the garage, the lesson I’ve learnt here is that the printer DOES NOT like cold, wet conditions and my garage is very much cold and damp, I’ve learnt to jump over this hurdle by plonking 2 portable heaters in the garage and leaving it to warm up for 45 minutes to an hour.

Once the garage is heated, I come down to set the prints up, usually run 20 canvas prints at a time, 20 gives me a long enough roll to mass print but also short enough to make sure im not dragging anything on the floor or folding prints too much risking creased, ruined prints, 

Once 20 are printed, I cut them and place them on a bubble wrapped pasting table where I repeat the process for how ever many prints are needed. 

It’s a case of hitting print, going about my day and returning back to the garage to repeat the process.

Once all are printed, I tackle the rest the next day with some help.

The day after printing, we take each 20 roll sheet and cut into individual print sizes, once cut we package them up ready to go to the end customer.

Once all packaged up, they go into boxes of 50 and 125, these boxes are then sent off via a courier to the fulfilment agency I work with, the fulfilment agency hold the stock until orders are received, once received the agency ship the product to the customer and forward me the tracking, 

This process is then repeated literally every week, as soon as the stock is low, I repeat the 20 sheet process, once we test a new design, we repeat the same process, send 100 design to the agency, run ads to sell them and once low in stock, 20 roll process starts again.

I think eventually this little printing business run from my damp garage will turn into a business of 5+ printers with multiple staff, I have big plans on how to grow the business but was the old saying goes – Rome wasn’t built in a day and I’m very aware that businesses can struggle if they grow too quickly.

Let’s see where it goes.