Reclaiming Your Money

Greg hamrick

Once upon a time, a screenprinter bought new screens to use everytime he got an order. His thinking was, "The next time they order, it'll be like printing with free screens".

Sounds like that would be the case but that is far from the truth. Lets say you paid $20.00 bucks for your screen, add $hipping and then around $4.00 bucks for abader,degreaser and emulsion. You have around $26.00 per screen. Now if that customer wants a three colour print, you'll have $78.00 bucks just in screens before you even make the artwork or use any inks. Where did your profit go?
One year later and you have one hundred customers. With our costs being the same, you'll now have $7,800.00 just sitting around on the floor.
You could have kept most all of that money in your pocket and made a lot more by reclaiming screens and reusing them till they fall apart, which takes some time if they are well made screens.
The cost to reclaim is somewhere around $4.00 per screen verses $26.00 for a new one.

We all know that the first few years is what makes us or breaks us. So why throw away profit? I did the same thing as well, buy new screens for years untill I looked around and added them up....WOW! After I started reclaiming, I saw REAL PROFIT!
If you reclaim your first $78.00 dollar investment for the next order, you'll have around $12.00 in that order giving you $66.00 more dollars in your your pocket.
If your screens last for say, 10 reclaims, that's $660.00 in pocket verses $780.00 out of pocket. It dosen't take a math professor to see a $1,440.00 difference, and ten orders a week is not that much. What if you were doing more?

These costs are close to the real thing, so think on it and I hope that if you weren't already reclaiming that this info helps and you start putting more money in your pockets so you can buy more...stuff...not screens.

Good luck screenprinters...hope you all do great....

__________________
At the edge of dreams lay the far-flung ideals of true creation.

roberta

Great info! I have forwarded this page to my sister who does screen printing as hobby but wants to start her own little business. Thanks.