Starting up a new business working with a laser etching machine is your golden opportunity to make some serious money while doing something exciting and creative at the same time. Of course, the first question you must ask yourself is what am I going to engrave and who will my new customers be?
Here are a few possibilities:
- Awards & Mementos: Engraving awards and mementos are the most obvious items that will first come to your mind. Lasers and acrylic seem to almost have been made for each other. The corporate clients you’ll find love acrylic because it looks elegant isn’t very expensive and their engraved logos look marvelous etched in it. Meanwhile, acrylic is fast and easy to work with and the products you create carry a high-profit margin.
- An employee of the Month Awards & Plaques: Many companies love giving out awards and plaques that make their employees happy, especially if it’s in lieu of giving them raises in salaries. In addition, employees love to be recognized for their productivity and loyalty. These sorts of awards remind them that they’re appreciated & special, and creating these for your client every month, year in and year out can make you a lot of recurring money.
- Labels & decals: Labels are great to put on tools, switches, control panels, and pipes while decals are usually used on customer products. Many industries may also have items they sell that you may be able to use your laser etching machine on. Once the door is open to a manufacturing industry, they may have additional items, from screen printed decals to labels that you can easily engrave.
- Plastic Signs: Many plants and businesses use plastic signs just about everywhere. From door signs, wall signs, easels, informational and safety signs, locker tags and electrical equipment. Many of these jobs will be fast and easy for a laser and afford you a high-profit margin and lots of return business.
- Stainless Steel Plates: Industries use stainless steel quite a lot because it doesn’t rust and lasts many years. Rotary engraving stainless steel is expensive and time-consuming and rarely does a very good job. With a laser etching machine, however, making permanent engravings on stainless steel is fast and easy and can bring in lots of additional income.
- Rubber Stamps: Many companies use lots of rubber stamps, from return address markers to deposits and more. According to Erryn Deane from Needham Laser, engraving them is easy with a laser and the profit margin is high. Stamps can be made in almost any size, even with logos and images.
- Barcode Labels: Barcodes are fast becoming a great new business for laser printing. The speed of processing consumer products is becoming increasingly more valuable as businesses continually try to reduce their costs as much as possible. Tools also are being marked with barcodes to check them out to workers, greatly reducing the chances of employee theft.
There are countless other projects you and your clients will think of as your new laser engraving business becomes more and more successful. With due diligence, time and hard work, you’ll find out why the laser engraver has become one of the most prominent and useful manufacturing products for new businesses in the modern era.