talkmagic.co.uk

Something just dawned on me.

Bicycles. Lovely cards that they are.

Printed on really nice, slippy card stock.

And this Card stock, you can also buy this plain, completly blank, no printing, nada.

So, my question is this. At retail a standard pack of bicycles costs in the region of 2 pounds give or take. So, despite the fact that it has to be far easier to make up a pack that you don't have to print at all, just stuff 52 plain pieces of card stock into a box, why does it cost £3.75 for a blank deck?

Thats almost double for less work and overheads!

Is it just me or does this seem a bit daft?

Nope... it doesn't seem daft at all.

However, they are a 'special' item.

The USPCC, like many printers, has standard runs. These are done day-in, day out. Deviation from these—such as blanks—is non-stanard, and therefore 'special'.

Also, because of the demand of regular decks, their price-per-unit is lower.

AND because the demand is lower, they are harder to obtain.

AND BECAUSE they are harder to obtain, they command a premium.

Much the same way that a whole pair of jeans in George @ Asda costs less than the component parts

Yeah these print runs are pretty much automated, with very little human input.

I can't imagine what they think of us down at the plant in Cincinatti, when they have to run off another batch of blanks. "Stupid ******* magicians" springs to mind.
You can always buy blanks singly; three blanks last me months and cost me 15p each.

Mind you, I have to disagree with Seige when he says

Much the same way that a whole pair of jeans in George @ Asda costs less than the component parts

Asda jeans are cheap because they are made by slaves.

Can I jump in with a bit of simple economics? There's a high demand for normal bikes. You can stack 'em high and sell 'em at a price that guarantees that the margin per unit is N. There's lower demand for blank ones, so you print less, charge more and the margin is still N.

Hey siege, cheers for that.

I guessed it would more than likely be the george@asda syndrome...still daft though.

You could just buy normal bikes and a pot of tippex?

The "presses" if you will are set and run almost all day long....each and every minute they are not running costs them money. So when they have to shut down to reset the machines for something other than the day-to-day regulars it costs them precious time and money. This loss is refelected in the pricing of the product that was produced - ultimately the product that shut down the system - and it is averaged out amongst the units produced.

We have a few newspapers in town, and one of the really small weekly papers gave me a tour once. The cost of stopping their printing press for example is $1000 per hour. So when they have a big news event that comes in after press time they have to factor out whether or not it will increase the paper sales the next day in an amount that is greater than the equivilant shut down time.....so I would assume that it is s similar thought process with cards. Shut down = higher prices or it is simply not worth it in the long run.

These cards just appear to be blank.
THEY ARE NOT!

A special hi-tech invisible and undetectable special formula for the ink on these cards is used to make them look like cards with nothing printed on; but it is there!

This special ink is much more expensive compared to regular ink on regular cards. So these cards do cost a little more; still way to cheap!

Amen.

.....muahahhahahhhhaaaa.

Cardmaker...

You really should use ample ventilation when working with rubber cement

seige wrote:Cardmaker...

You really should use ample ventilation when working with rubber cement

I don't use rubber cement anymore.
Must be something else then....

Their is a point not mentioned above.

To create Blank decks takes up much more work then normal decks. The whole press needs to be much cleaner before attempting this run of cards. Its not the main factor that their is less demand, as a minimum run is only 5000 decks and the cost is not that much more than a normal deck in comparison.

I bet they cost less but they charge more because they can.

1:There is no setting of any printing, so time saved
2:No body needs to check to see if the run is off centre etc
3:No sample runs needs to be done.
4:Packing is easy as its just 52 cards and not 52 individual cards
5:They are lighter so cheaper to despatch (hehe)

Though tongue in cheek you get the drift.

FRK sorry to disagree with you.
you still need to monitor the cards as the sheets are still passed through as though they were being printed on and you still have to make sure that no cards get any specs on them, as a tiny spec is noticable on a clean sheet

frk wrote

No body needs to check to see if the run is off centre etc

you mean to say they have a guy who checks the normal ones?

sack him I say

They cost more because they come equipped, ready to cover your D/L . Or, Lost your break? No problem. Si Stebbens? Can't remember after a long night at the pub? There just so versatile, that's why they cost more..... at least that's the scoop from the 'other me'.