Colour sample cards: Industrial fabrication is the future

Colour sample cards and colour swatches for films are extremely important for sales in the signmaking industry. And yet film manufacturers do not make full use of the possibilities of this marketing tool, which is costly and time-consuming to produce. NEPATA-CEO Fabian Franke knows the solution: an industrial production process.

February 2023

About the Author: Fabian Franke is CEO at NEPATA GmbH. The company specialises in machinery for efficient film conversion - rewinding, trimming and slitting machines along with suitable software solutions. As a service provider, NEPATA offers the production of colour sample cards.

Summary

Did you know that at NEPATA we not only build efficient film converting (((Link https://www.nepata.de/en/rewinder/#u machines)))? As a service provider, we also produce individual colour sample cards and colour strips - automated and cost-effective Made in Germany. In this article, I explain why it can be worthwhile for you as a film manufacturer or distributor to place the production of colour strips or colour cards in our hands.?

Colour cards for films - they are essential for film trade and signmaking

Colour sample cards are extremely important in sales for vinyl film manufacturers and dealers in the signmaking and garment decoration industry: This is the only way customers can make an accurate choice from the huge range of decorative films, car wrapping films, htv, flock films, flex films, etc.

A signmaker or car wrapper is to cover the new delivery van of a craftsman. Now he has to decide: Which Oracal shade best matches the company logo? Or would a vinyl film from Aslan, Mactac or Arlon fit better??

A senior class would like to order shirts with neon green lettering. The creative team is now in the showroom of the garment finisher. What looks better? The flock film or the flex film? From film manufacturer SEF or from Politape??

Ultimately, the end customer in particular will only order what he can see and touch - because he doesn't know anything else. However, it is impossible for the signmaker to have all the materials in stock. It is even more difficult for online stores: the colour display on monitors is anything but meaningful. How to choose the self-adhesive film for the kitchen improvement project?

This makes colour carts all the more important. And they should actually be available in large quantities so that they can be distributed to as many customers as possible. Because it is certain:

Colour cards increase the chance that customers will purchase the exact film they see for their professional or DIY project. They are the central tool in film distribution.

However, the production of sample cards is complex, time consuming and expensive for the manufacturer. Especially in Europe, the situation is like this: You have dealers in Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland or Spain and everyone needs a couple of hundred colour cards per year in their language version. Above all, however, it is the creation of the small sample strips that leads to trouble and high costs.?

This results in the dilemma of not being able to provide all customers with colour cards due to the high costs. For example, many manufacturers are very restrictive in terms of the number of sample cards they make available - to the disappointment of dealers and customers. And also, for marketing campaigns, e.g. widely distributed mailings or inserts in trade journals, costs and lead times are often simply too high.?

High quality, high speed - through industrial production

This is where we come in: NEPATA has developed a unique production process to make colour strips for self-adhesive media. With our industrial production, we can quickly and precisely cut colour strips in large quantities. At the same time, the automation ensures a lot of flexibility - and above all low unit costs.?

We developed this production process and the machines required for it 10 years ago. It is therefore a proven system. By the way, the production and thus the value adding takes place directly at our German headquarters.???

By the way: initially, we have only offered the production of colour strips and their further processing into colour cards, in which sample strips are glued into folding cards. Recently, we have also been able to include fulfilment for colour swatches. These sample fans have the advantage that you can present a larger sample of the film material. But of course they are?bulkier than the colour cards and less suitable as give-away items. In the following, I will concentrate on the colour strips and colour cards because in this article I want to show you why our production process is particularly profitable for larger quantities.???

Lower unit costs with expanded production

Because our process is highly automated, production naturally becomes more profitable with larger quantities. I would say that from 500 strips of one type you can start thinking about it. Since we are not a manufacturer, it becomes really interesting when there are several 1,000 pieces.?

This is all the more true when the source material is also taken into consideration. For the 5,000 sample cards from our example, we need four of these 50 metre long and 2 cm wide bands of each colour. This means that the main roll is missing 8 cm in width. Since this roll can no longer be sold by the manufacturer anyway, the material can be used for even larger quantities of colour sample strips or colour cards.?

When we get entire rolls from film manufacturers, we have enough material for tens of thousands of sample strips. In this way, all dealers worldwide could be supplied with colour cards with material that they have already invested in anyway.?

Now, you could also choose not to take the strips from an original 50 meter roll, but to rewind short rolls and use more than just for strips. Well - in this case, the productivity benefits of our automated production process don't really come into play. You can say: The longer the better, i.e. the typical 50 meter rolls for PVC films or 25 meters for garment transfer films are simply more effective than if we process shorter run lengths, yet production from shorter rolls remains possible.?

Speaking of heat transfer films: As described above, our process works for all self-adhesive films. In the case of non-self-adhesive media such as flex film or flock film, we offer to laminate these films with a self-adhesive coating, as part of our full service, also including peeling off the top liner as well.

All-round service up to the finished colour sample card

As a flexible service provider, we can either only take over the particularly economical production of the colour strips. Or film manufacturers use our all-round carefree service and outsource the entire handling to us.?

We then take care of all the steps: printing the cards, cutting the colour strips, in the case of flex and flock films also the self-adhesive finish, plus glueing the colour strips into the cards and packaging.This means that our customers do not have to organise these many steps internally or coordinate several service providers, possibly in different countries.?

In short, the manufacturer or distributor basically just has to take their films off the shelf and send them to us - we take care of everything else.?

Interface between film manufacturer and film trade

And we even go one step further: we can also act as an interface between manufacturers and dealers. For example, the manufacturer has us create 5,000 sets of strips - some of which remains with us. If a dealer needs new colour cards, he calls us, the 300 cards are printed in his language and with his logo, and then the strips are made.?

The solution for film manufacturers: Completely outsource the tiresome topic of colour cards - and do something good for dealers.

The service is even more ideal when a manufacturer decides to provide us with the raw material, i.e. a roll of each type of film or colour. Then we can produce the stripes for the respective retailer according to their wishes: a certain selection of colours, with an individual sequence, etc. Our process is so flexible that it is also possible to change the printed materials as well as the colour samples within a batch.?

Film distributors: individual presentation of the portfolio

Another model I can think of involves wholesalers who have films from different manufacturers in their portfolio. You can make your own colour cards (in your own layout) - and let us produce colour strips with the assortment that is relevant for you. Of course, this is far more attractive than having one stamp field on a manufacturer's card in the best-case scenario and then having to send the customers two, three or four cards from different manufacturers and ranges.

But I understand when film dealers tell me that it is too time-consuming for them to cut pieces from 120 different films to produce the strips, just for a few hundred cards. On the one hand, because it is a lot of work, and on the other hand, because the dimensions of the remaining rolls then no longer meet the customer's needs. Hence my appeal once again to the self-adhesive film manufacturers to consider outsourcing the production of colour cards. Larger quantities are simply more profitable.??

Conclusion: colour sample cards - and it even works

Thanks to our highly automated and therefore cost-effective production process, we enable roll media manufacturers to pass on colour cards to distributors, dealers and customers on a large scale, to enclose them in trade magazines or to distribute them to potential customers in large mailing campaigns.?

Other advantages of industrial production are the great precision of the sample strips and an extremely short delivery time. And the optional full service, including handling of the print templates, glueing in the strips and customization for dealers relieves your own capacities even more. Because, hopefully you'll need them elsewhere when your films are in demand thanks to colour cards.

You can see the media we process and your individual advantages here:

https://www.nepata.de/en/colour-cards/

What’s your experience on colour sample cards? Just let me know …

This post originally appeared on NEPATA’S Company Blog: https://www.nepata.de/en/colour-sample-cards-no-discontinued-model-thanks-to-industrial-production/

#converting #rewinding #filmconverting #vinylfilm #adhesivefilm #signvinyl #htv #colour #salespromotion