Is Running A Billboard Printing Business Profitable Here In Thailand ?

[Holysteel]

Anyone in this trade before? What are your opinions..All insight are greatly welcomed..

Thanks

[bendix]

Anyone in this trade before? What are your opinions..All insight are greatly welcomed..

Thanks

What a bizarre question.

If anyone is in this business they are hard going to encourage you to join also, are they?

[apetley]

Anyone in this trade before? What are your opinions..All insight are greatly welcomed..

Thanks

A friend of my wife does this type of thing.

He doesn't make that much money but seems to get by.

His one gripe about the business, which he likes, is that so many people doing the same thing keeps the price he can charge very low.

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[Holysteel]

Anyone in this trade before? What are your opinions..All insight are greatly welcomed..

Thanks

What a bizarre question.

If anyone is in this business they are hard going to encourage you to join also, are they?

Yeah i understand. Was hoping maybe some 'ex veteran' or someone experienced in this trade would be kind enough to share some pointers. The pros and cons to it. The pitfalls of it

[Holysteel]

I assume that the printing trade is profitable then ? anyone ..?

[Goshawk]

i would imagine that with billboards of all sizes practically every couple of metres apart throughout the entire country that the 'industry' is flooded with similar minded individuals spying a goldmine, resulting in very high fierce competition yielding profits very low.. A bit like the bar business. May be wrong, but just a thought.

[LennyW]

If you are talking about outdoor vinyl banners, window stickers etc, then it is highly profitable if you stick at it, major outlay for equipment, 6M printers etc. run in to millions of Baht, if you want to just do window stickers (huge repeat business) then a 1M plotter/cutter will run you around 100K Baht, but you have to be good at it!!

Big outlay for machines if you want to do it properly!!

My Headache is just about going now after 7 years!!!

[sbk]

Moving to business in Thailand forum

[brit1984]

There are a few street lights on the pavement outside my house (Bangkok) all of which have big cardboard / wood posters attached.

Every 2/3 days the posters are changed (nearly from one condo developer to another).

I checked the CCTV twice to see what happened; both times around 3am a pickup truck with half a dozen dodgy looking chaps (different crew each time) turned up and these guys swapped the posters over.

Whoever runs these guys must be making a few baht (but it cant be a lot of baht).

I think the only way to make good money from this sector would be to get on your bike (car better) and try to find new untapped sites (ideally on busy commuter routes) but, again, I can't see the return on effort being worthwhile given the saturation of the market.

One related business, that seems to be under penetrated is flyering; given the huge differential in low-level labour costs, I have been surprised to see that the rate of leaflet dropping in my letterbox has been lower in Bangkok than in London.

Equally, I am surprised that more business aren't employing (or contracting agencies to employ) people to promote products in innovative ways around the streets.

Obviously though, if the OP is really interested in marketing he should focus on the online market; for example he could help the many Thai businesses that haven't claimed their google places spot or he could focus on helping businesses with their organic SEO activities (I have noticed a few industries where even the front page of google for the most obvious search terms is dominated by non-optimised sites).

Sent from iPhone; please forgive any typos or violations of forum rules

[Holysteel]

Good information. Keep it coming guys..Really appreciated it

[Holysteel]

Is there any books on outdoor printing? i search high and low both in internet and store. There doest seem to have one..

[brit1984]

Is there any books on outdoor printing? i search high and low both in internet and store. There doest seem to have one..

If there is, the author's manuscript will be the only copy

Sent from iPhone; please forgive any typos or violations of forum rules

[Holysteel]

Is there any books on outdoor printing? i search high and low both in internet and store. There doest seem to have one..

If there is, the author's manuscript will be the only copy

Sent from iPhone; please forgive any typos or violations of forum rules

Yes, i think so too..do you by any chance have source for that manuscript mate ?

[steveromagnino]

OK, some info.

Billboard printing is an asset intensive business, and has several levels, as other posters mention. At the bottom end, doing basic lettering and diecut single colour stickers with a plotter cutter up to massive oversized high resolution lightbox skins using 60m baht printers and fancy controllers.

At every level, the most important thing is connection to your customer base; as a foreigner you immediately cut down your ability to deal with clients by a factor of 100 unless you speak fluent Thai and can handle all the stuff like Thai fonts, proofing, legal regulations etc. The idea of sticking up temporary signage (used a lot in the property industry) or looking at all the bill boards out there and thinking there is a bunch of work you could get is not true; almost all those services the printer and supplier of media is one and the same; JCD, Maco, Rightman etc all have their own access to printing so you won't get any of that work; there is indeed a ton of work there but none for the little one man band shop. If you want to know further detail, actually it is quite common to sell the media (say 6 months) with a requirement that the printing is done at a certain price per sqm as part of the same contract; going further the reason for this is often that the landlord splits the billboard revenue 50 50 or some other arrangement with the media company...so guess what the media company does they lower the price per month and bump up the cost per sqm.

Setting up in a small shophouse, doing lettering for cars, boats, company signs etc, yes there is ok money in it and it's not hard to set up at that level and do ok business, but it is really only leveraging labour; the cost per sqm is VERY standardised for each grade so you will be buying the same 3M or Chinese sourced sticker material, printing and/or die cutting, then applying, for 400b, 500b, 600b, 900b, 1200b, 1500b per sqm approx, and off you go. People will develop a relationship with you if you good, straight, accurate work and deliver on time, and so that helps, but won't enable you to bump your rates up as it is a highly cost driven business.

The biggest work; huge oversized billboards, I struggle to see how you would get it unless you really invest in very impressive unseen in Thailand machinery then go and pitch to the media houses....an example of a firm at this end of the market would be Pro Decal located in Yannawa/Rama 3 area; if you were to ask them to print you a 2m sticker of some sort and go and pick up yourself then you can see the investment they have in machinery (I would guess 200m baht of equipment) and staff (20+?). At that end they are doing the big high DPI skins used at the airport, lightboxes, luxury brand facades, etc all the way down to the lettering for a single colour shop house sign advertising Somchai Dry Cleaning.

Like anything, any business you can do if you understand the concepts of building a client base, investing in equipment and staff, delivering a superior client experience....;however it isn't one that stands out as being massively profitable.

Unlike the beer bar and 6 room guest house or Thai Restuarant sporting a name like Peter and Lek's Cafe. Which I am sure are vastly profitable.

[Holysteel]

Is it possible to think that 1 outdoor printer could rake in 1M baht worth of sales per month?, provided the printer keeps on working, with all the incoming orders, maxing out its capacity as per se ?

[brit1984]

Don't take this the wrong way but this is not going to fly; I recommend you focus on an industry where you have some knowledge or experience

Sent from iPhone; please forgive any typos or violations of forum rules

[bendix]

Is there any books on outdoor printing? i search high and low both in internet and store. There doest seem to have one..

If there is, the author's manuscript will be the only copy

Sent from iPhone; please forgive any typos or violations of forum rules

Yes, i think so too..do you by any chance have source for that manuscript mate ?

Good grief. Are you for real?

[bendix]

I assume that the printing trade is profitable then ? anyone ..?

What do you mean, you assume the printing trade is profitable? Good lord, man. Some businesses in the trade will be profitable, and some won't be. That is what business is all about. There is nothing magical in the printing business - or any other business - which says it will be profitable or not. It depends on demand, how the company is run, competitive pressures etc etc.

You give the impression that you have decided to do this business, and you're seeking comfort by asking inane questions like can you expect a million in sales and is it profitable

You do understand the concept of supply and demand, don't you? And competition? And market forces?

[Holysteel]

I am trying to figure out how much sales can 1 printer bring in a maxed out capacity month...I did not ask 'can i expect a million in sales? ...........

From what i know. A printer print out banners at 20-40 per metre square in an hour. I dunt see there any way that it can hit a million baht in sales per month. Hence my question. Would need at least 2-3 printers to hit that target.

Alittle about me. Yes i do not have experiences in this industry or the know hows...The only thing that i have is the huge contacts in various sectors over the nation that WILL send me business every month. I have talked to all of them. And they have all confirmed.

Still i need to know more about this trade on whatever i can. As there is no written book on the market for sale. Although i have friends in this trade and i could learn a thing or two from them. They are not going to share with me all their secrets are't they ?

Peace

[Holysteel]

My only main concern now is that i learned that print wholesalers/agents/authorised distributors here in Thailand who have acess to machines, vinyl materials. inks etc at very low special agent price from their respective manufacturer, had been setting up 'shops' here all over the nation that do not trace back to them but reap their profits from behind.

How could a honest end user possibly fight and compete in such a scale? Is this right and ethical ? Is there a channel or authority to report such business acivity or there is none?

Anyone with the knowledge care to shine some insight on this?

Do advice.

[steveromagnino]

So your claim is that somehow being a vertically integrated firm like 7:11 (owned by CP in Thailand, so naturally puts slightly more effort into selling CP products) or Tesco Lotus (stocks own house brand products) and opening their own outlets which use their own products they import rather than relying on inefficient one man band shops around the country who may or may not choose to use their inks, skins, etc is somehow dishonest?

If you were the distributor of, a brand and wanted to ensure you had strong market share, surely this is the most obvious and basic way you would do this? That's the whole concept of being a distributor isn't it?

Or do you think the entire concept of economies of scale in business or creating barriers to entry are unethical? Hmmmm I think we attended different business schools.

Selling at 400b per sqm, and printing 20sqm per hour 8 hours per day, 6 days per week, you can generate turnover of around 1.5m baht per month. Obviously, this is the less important issue (capacity of your operation), the more important is generating clients and business, to ensure you can print and make a profit.

If it was as dead simple as it appears, I would imagine the printers I know would all be filthy rich. As far as I can tell, the big ones do a pretty decent trade with staff of 20+ people, the small ones do ok for Thai SME standards leveraging their own labour, but it isn't going to be a multi billion baht facebook enterprise from day 1, they are probably making profit 50k-90k a month using a single printer which for a 1 man band is probably ok, for me given the toxic nature of the industry, I'd be wanting to earn far more than that....if you are running 3 printers or 1 makes little difference...customer orders is where it is at.

If you have all the clients already then that's a major start. All over Thailand is suspect however, the shipping cost and issues of 'attaching'/'hanging' may prove problematic, but no doubt you have a solution of some sort for that.

If you want further information, you really should volunteer your business model, so we can comment more knowledgeably on it.

[Holysteel]

From what i have know. This is not from me though. They are not allowed to do print job. They are not allowed to take orders. They are only here to sell their respective printers. They are here to promote and advertise their products. To provide after-sales market assistance. They are here to sell their spare parts. Their inks, their media material etc..nothing more.

They are not allowed by their respective manufacturers, to compete with their end-users who are their loyal customers.. It is the same as selling these printers to one customer and immediately shot him in the face..its pure suicide..There is no in a way that the end-user could possibly compete with these 'wholesalers'

In the end..its all come down to price....The cheapest price wins !

[bendix]

Ummmm. OK.

You seem to have got the model worked out perfectly. I suggest you go for it and come back in a couple of years and report on progress.

[Holysteel]

Yes i will. I am definately go ahead with this shop. Nevertheless keep the advice & insight coming in. Could learn a thing or two by keeping my 'ears' open.

Thanks

[steveromagnino]

who told you this?

"From what i have know. This is not from me though. They are not allowed to do print job. They are not allowed to take orders. They are only here to sell their respective printers. They are here to promote and advertise their products. To provide after-sales market assistance. They are here to sell their spare parts. Their inks, their media material etc..nothing more.

They are not allowed by their respective manufacturers, to compete with their end-users who are their loyal customers.. It is the same as selling these printers to one customer and immediately shot him in the face..its pure suicide..There is no in a way that the end-user could possibly compete with these 'wholesalers'"

This is the exact situation that Macro has; they retail to consumers (in bulk), and also retail to the retailers who onsell their products. Same as Bobae clothing market, Pratunam, etc where you can go and buy from the wholesaler (in volume) or buy from the people who buy from the wholesalers at MBK etc etc. it's the entire supply chain set up.

To be a company distributing, and have a wholy owned subsidiary doing retailing makes perfect sense.

It is was such suicide...then why would the manufacturers care if the distributor has a business model that provides high revenue and high sales and service and market share? Of course they set up subsidiaries to do this. I would be surprised if they would be stopped from doing it.

Edited May 23, 2012 by steveromagnino

[Holysteel]

Let me just give a very simple example here..Lets not talk about 7-eleven or Makro supermarket or whatever..

Let talk about an iphone. The norm supply chain will be = The company Apple Inc > Authorized Telcos which will be the Distributors/"wholesalers' > Resellers/Retail Shops > End Users/ Customers. Although Apple does't have retail shop to do their selling. They do it themselves through apple store. But for the better understanding of our topic. Let just say they do.

I would you feel as a reseller store if these distributors sells directly to end users at a cheaper good price,foregoing bypassing your level. Given that they have a better 'wholesalers" price directly from the 'manufacturer" itself. Reaping the huge profit & sales price in between? Screwing you in between as a honest reseller shop trying to make a decent living?

Although this is nothing comparable to the printing industry..How would you feel for example, if you brought a 10 million baht printer from HP at a "end user" price here in Thailand. And you found out that, the authorized distributor are doing the printing directly to the crowd, charging at 50-60 baht per meter square, using their benefits as a distributor in getting cheap inks, media, materials directly from the manufacturer itself etc.? They jobs is to sell machines ! Not to compete with their buying customers trying to make a living. While the small pop & mom print shop who brought their machines from them at a higher price have to charge strugglingly with the market price of a measly average price of 120baht per meter square?

Ah...I think i should rest my case. I do not wish to clarify further on this. Let just say that i give it a try competing with these 'distributors' at cut throat price

and see how its goes......wish me luck..

[Jdietz]

"I can't make profit so let's sue the competition" is not a valid business model in Thailand. That one, as far as I know, only works in the States.

[Holysteel]

Thats enough..

Lets just put aside everything about 'distributors' & forget about it. Totally.

If there is any useful tips or advice..I say bring it on.

Thanks

[steveromagnino]

Ok let's take your apple example, funny you should mention a company i know so much about (my final comment on this, so you can apply it directly to your printing business):

"Let talk about an iphone. The norm supply chain will be = The company Apple Inc > Authorized Telcos which will be the Distributors/"wholesalers' > Resellers/Retail Shops > End Users/ Customers. Although Apple does't have retail shop to do their selling. They do it themselves through apple store. But for the better understanding of our topic. Let just say they do.

I would you feel as a reseller store if these distributors sells directly to end users at a cheaper good price,foregoing bypassing your level. Given that they have a better 'wholesalers" price directly from the 'manufacturer" itself. Reaping the huge profit & sales price in between? Screwing you in between as a honest reseller shop trying to make a decent living?"

Apple DO retail directly through their apple stores (not yet in Thailand, but USA, Japan, China, etc) and their apple website, and while there are pricing tiers with their resellers and also tie ups with telco companies, when an apple store opens directly, they decimate the resellers in the direct 15km vicinity, and that is part of the reseller's strategy when they sign leases, to ensure they are not collateral damage. As far as I know (having had this exact conversation with Apple Asia-Pacific and the 2 largest resellers in Thailand) this is accepted as inevitable, and it's a case of 'make hay while the sun shines'. Or in Thai 'num kuen dtong reep tuk'

Incidentally, when an apple flagship opens, the effect is actually positive for the resellers outside the 15km radius, because it generates positive brand position and some people (like me) have no interest in going to 10,000sqm of retail space selling the same stuff I can find in 200sqm. but immediate neighbours are wiped out. That's the role of business and 'creative destruction'. I would put the apple website and the fact apple retails directly on partner websites against themselves using amazon, ebay, etc etc and no one complains about any of this as a case of proof that the point you are attempting to raise is simply not an issue in macro economics; certainly it would be better as a mom and pop store if you didn't have a big competitor with competitive price point advantage competing against you directly, as you could rook your clients...but if HP isnt' doing it and Canon or some other brands are then HP would be the net loser.

In the case of HP, you may think their job is to sell printers to mom and pop stores. I doubt very much if HP consider this as their job; I believe the distributor's goal would be to get an increasingly large share of an increasingly large printing and periferals including ink industry, and the management of the value chain downstream is to balance large direct sales vs. mom and pops.

The distributor would be gauged on how well they do this, I doubt (but I can check for you) if HP would care that they are setting up price competitive print houses as well to compete against the other ink/printer companies. The industry has several tiers, from what I can see there is a tier of business to business which I already told you a mom and pop store is not going to get a look in (such as printing all the skins at the airport for JCD); then there is the tier of business to consumer where pricing is quite standardised, and this second area is where i understood you would do business (stickers on cars, stickers for company signs, smaller scale billboard printing, etc).

I just asked and now know that a large print firm we use with turnover of (my estimate) somewhere between 100 - 200m baht per year has no connection other than being a large customer of some of the suppliers that you name; if it was an issue, they would have raised it, as this end of the market, they are not paying what you are paying, they are buying directly at the lowest possible ink price.

There are numerous reasons why you would and should pay a higher price than a volume buyer, and numerous reasons and examples in almost every single industry I can think of where the manufacturer sells direct and also sells via middle men. How do travel agents work? How do hotel bookings work? How can Amazon exist? How can Apple, Macro, CP, HP, (insert virtually countless consumer brand in the world here) do business selling directly and also selling via other distribution networks?

If it was such an issue, you would have almost no mom and pop printing shops. Which any search of any village throughout Thailand will assure you is not the case at all, they are all over the place.

What can you use from this? Well first you can identify that brand of the materials matters, and I could tell you that; people will pay a different price for China no grade skins or 3M UV resistant skins etc and inks also the same applies. You could create a point of difference by offering exclusivity in specific inks or print techniques, or offer a wider range than someone else (choose between brands).

I don't mean you would be unique in either of these, but I know print houses that specialise in both these USPs in their respective territories; I do still believe printing to be a territorial business (due to the tyranny of distance in delivery and meeting clients) but your experience in the industry may differ.

[Holysteel]

I dun know about you...I am still pissed off to know that i have to compete with authorised 'wholesalers' that i am getting my machines from..

Peace