p.1 #1 · Preferred Printers for Canvas Wraps, Metal and Acrylic
Hello,
I have used ProPrints (formerly Canvas on Demand) for years as my go-to printer for reasonable cost canvas prints--framed and unframed. With their acquisition by Bay Photo that "lower cost" option is now gone. Bay photo is about three-times more expensive than ProPrints. Same is true with metal and acrylic.
I am searching for alternative printers to build a relationship with. I know my market and I will literally go out of business trying to sell products at the Bay Photo cost.
I would welcome any ideas on solid-reliable printers that can offer a wide gamut of products--canvas-framed and unframed, metal and acrylic--would be appreciated.
I sell about 100 canvas and metal prints per year. I realize I am small potatoes but looking to build a relationship with someone who is reliable.
p.1 #2 · Preferred Printers for Canvas Wraps, Metal and Acrylic
One side benefit ; the former users of Pro Prints (myself included) got a discount code to use at Bay- I assume just for 1 order - that is a better discount than I have ever seen from Bay in using them for about 10 years. I do plan on using that to order something, you might want to add something for your own personal collection using this as well.
I do at least try and resell with Bay Photo for their metal prints but understand the concerns especially if you get a gallery or other middleman in between you and the buyer the pricing really gets out of hand.
They are in Canada but may do some sort of truck to the border and ship from the US as I always found the shipping reasonable cost. They have a PRO account with great pricing I thought.
I have ordered a couple 48" Wide canvases from them, quality is good especially for the price probably same level or better as proprints though I sent the files asking for no correction and the saturation is definitely dialed up significantly. Not positive if that is how canvas often comes out due to material spread/bleed compared to paper/metal or if they adjusted my files.
They have a process that allows for your signature on the backside of the canvas which I really liked.
Anyway, I did not use them after that because I decided to stay away from canvas as I wouldn't feel comfortable selling them unseen - drop shipped to people -
I was thinking of using them for other styles as well and they do offer both Acrylic and Metal at reasonable costs but also I just decided not to pursue growing at the time when there was a chance to and now mostly just print for myself so stick with what I know so I basically was close to placing a larger order with Pictorem for a few different styles but never did.
At that time I did a lot of research into different options - was having a middle man enter the picture so I needed to try and bring down costs without sacrificing quality too much.
I didn't have too high an opinion of ProPrints either - great pricing but the options were too limiting for me to use constantly. I remember they had low file size upload limits and other things that drove me crazy. I used them when I first started out printed a handful of canvas with them and some framed paper prints but I was not very good then so not really fair for me to judge those prints to what I might print today.
Bay Photo I have always been happy with the options and quality - used mostly for metal and a few times for paper. Never for canvas.
Some of the niche places like Nevada are a little better than Bay for Acrylic and high quality paper prints but their shipping rates on large prints can be a real deterrent.
