Coronavirus - effects on business

[blue moon]

we are busy. were down a little at one point, but having a good year before and after puts as at up 5% for the year on the printing side.

pierre

[blue moon]

I should add that we are at a lower margin due to taking on some less profitable work that we normally would not do (24 pcs 6 colors for example).

[Nitrox73]

We are still way down. Currently moving into a smaller building after spending the end of last year searching for a larger one. To date- down 68% for the year....

Schools are iffy for the fall. Hearing that they are voting soon to cancel fall sports.

We did sell our Roland VS300i and bought a new VG540 to start doing wraps with. We had an offer to print them for a client that does a lot of custom vehicles. Looking like the only high point for an otherwise crap year. Lost a ton of business with the minor league baseball season getting canceled and we are hearing that the hockey season is doubtful as well.

I do have a bad ass garden growing at home.

[Nation03]

March and April were the worst of it. Feels almost back to normal now. Plenty of work. Gross wise the numbers are down but since I don't need to purchase much this year I may end up netting the same as last year, on pace to do a little better actually as of right now.

[bimmridder]

 

[Maxie]

We are way down.    Running at about 25% of last year.    Our problem is that in these months we normally work with incoming tourists and that is at zero.
Cut back staff, working with minimum.   Fired some, others on unpaid leave.
Took government sponsored low interest loans which we start paying back in a year.
Our problem is that we import our shirts and had ordered before the summer expecting a busy season.
We have about $500,000 of shirts in stock.   At least they won't go off.

[1964GN]

What are the effects on other printers in your market? Here we know of one shop that closed and 2 that have sold. The 2 that sold really only had customer lists. Their equipment is pretty much old, broken down and worthless. As things get worse we expect more fall out in our market.

We have been busy every week but  no where near pre-covid levels. This roller coaster makes it difficult to rehire with confidence.

[mk162]

We're down by almost 50%.  We have a lot of schools and sports tournaments that keep us going through the spring and summer.  We got almost none of that this year.

We usually have lined up work for the start of the school sports teams, but there is about 10% of what we normally have.

It's coming back, not as fast as I wanted it to, but it'll get there.  Thankfully we've run a lot more contract work than normal, so while our overall sales are down, our profits aren't terrible.

[jvieira]

Lots of responses, I appreciate it. I see it's not the same for everyone. Really depends on the market too.
All things related to tourism and sports (gatherings) are down and will be down for a long time. It's a shame and scary too. It feels like it's not over and won't be for a while. We fired 4 people and have 5 more working part time, only about 1/3 of the company is actually working full time right now. We may have to fire a couple more soon if things don't pick up quickly.

[Homer]

We're down for sure,  this month has been the worst so far... I have a few people on 3 day weeks until we pick back up, and that's depending on what happens with schools. I have always said, shutting down the economy is hurting far more people than a virus, but i'm alone in that boat I guess  ... look for the positives, it gives us all an opportunity to revamp and change our systems. I am going to finally set up Teesom so that's a good thing. Improve - always, in all ways...

[mk162]

We're down for sure,  this month has been the worst so far... I have a few people on 3 day weeks until we pick back up, and that's depending on what happens with schools. I have always said, shutting down the economy is hurting far more people than a virus, but i'm alone in that boat I guess  ... look for the positives, it gives us all an opportunity to revamp and change our systems. I am going to finally set up Teesom so that's a good thing. Improve - always, in all ways...

You HAAAAD to mention a boat didn't you.  I just turned 40 and mid-life crisis itch has set in bad.  Actually not really, I've wanted one for years, but our youngest would have been a nightmare on one even last year.

With school going virtual here, and the kids pretty much stuck at home I told my wife we are going to start spending more time on the water.  Our lakes here have some nice beaches, but too many people.  Also, my best memories of growing up were on a boat, and that's kinda the goal of every parent is to pass down my favorite childhood things to them.  I also saw so much of the state travelling around fishing with my dad, it really was the best time I had as a kid.

I know this is off topic, but it's a good reminder that while this is going on we still need to live our lives and make sure our kids don't suffer. 

Also, Homer, let me know if you nail the pricing in Teesom.  I am working on a new pricelist, because my mid-range prices are too high.  I am working on it, but I have hit a mental block.

[Sbrem]

We are way down; some stuff is coming back, but it's pretty effing dismal. But, keep grinding, right?

Steve

[GraphicDisorder]

I am over here trying to find a quality printer for $20-$25 a hour, thats how busy we are. LOL

[inkman996]

We have been pretty busy for a month or so. Mostly due to masks, we are doing masks all day long. It turned out to be a pretty good coincidence that we bought three brand new heat presses in December in preparation for shifting a lot of our printing work on difficult items like jackets to transfers. Since we are low on staff and cutting some hours we decided to try and do as much stuff by vendor instead of in house and that has actually worked out really well. Our printing has been doing pretty good since a lot of shops are closed or running lean and a lot of contract work has come our way. We took on a rather large contract job that is hats and T shirts in 1,000 increments, we have completed two runs of that already.

August is coming tho and we are not sure what that will bring, traditionally it always slows down in August for us before school and fall sports comes on strong.

Crazy thing is in the midst of all this our ball screw on our servo indexer decided to eat itself, I had to rebuild the ball screw, angular bearings and servo coupler. Took almost two weeks for the new ball screw and nut to come in.

[Doug S]

What are the effects on other printers in your market? Here we know of one shop that closed and 2 that have sold. The 2 that sold really only had customer lists. Their equipment is pretty much old, broken down and worthless. As things get worse we expect more fall out in our market.

We have been busy every week but  no where near pre-covid levels. This roller coaster makes it difficult to rehire with confidence.

We are in a rural community and have several small towns around us ranging from 3000 to 13000 in population.  I've noticed several calls coming in from some of those towns that we usually never hear from so I'm sure they have lost a few printers.  If you can just hang in I feel like there will be more work than any of us want once everything recovers which will probably be a while.