Id card printing: Is it profitable?

[enakta13]

Hi,
I am planning to start a printing business at my locality (india). There are many schools near my place. So, I think I can get some of them as my potential clients. In schools every year, they provide ID for each students. So this business will only run once a year not the whole year.
I browsed some printers for it at internet, I found it starts from Rs. 50,000.
The school authority usually charge like Rs. 50 from each students. So I guess I could charge them like Rs.20.

Please give me some advice if it is good, if you already own a similar business.

[MyITGuy]

I would think that anyone who has a high volume of card printing would buy their own printer/stock and etc?

Its the people/companies who have a low volume that would likely be your customer.

[KeithVP]

It depends on where you are. How much do materials cost? How much profit is expected?

I'm personally not a fan of "seasonal" businesses, but if you can make a decent amount of profit in exchange for minimal effort, then why not?

[Harold Mansfield]

I agree with the above. People who do a large volume of cards have their own equipment. It's not very expensive to get your own machine and blank PVC cards are cheap.
Who would your customer be?

[MyITGuy]

Just to share since I just purchased some hardware/supplies:

Printer - $2,000
500 blank PVC Cards - $50.00
Color Ribbon (Yields 200 prints) - $75

My costs will be $0.475 USD (31 Rs.) for each card printed (PVC Cards - 50 / 500 = $0.10) (Color Ribbon - 75 / 200 = $0.375)

Now you need to account for your labor, product loss due to printing/quality issues, packaging/shipping and profit.

Something else to consider - I'm sure the schools just dont give out the PVC Cards, so you need to account for clips, badge reels or lanyards in your cost as well.