UK Printed Mugs;154820 wrote:I totally agree but I am finding it difficult to find placemats of similar coating quality with nice rounded corners though. Any suggestions? As for coasters then since using jigs then tape marks are not a problem any more but I would imagine in reality this was a cost cutting exercise by Unisub rather than "oh the backing company company went bust".
They would deny its cost cutting but either way i know for a fact MDF is cheaper thats why 99% of sublimation coasters are MDF. The others were tempered hardboard which is always more expensive
Thing is pretty sure unisub could have just bought the company that made the backs and brought it all in house.
Unfortunately i have been looking and looking and only xpres here in the uk do their own hardboard coasters.....which i find odd as why can unisub not use the company thats making those hardboard coasters for xpres
My issue with the xpres ones is while they seem a tiny tiny thinner and press ok with no warping is the price is 68p per coaster compared with unisub which is about 60p per coaster
Also the few samples they sent me there was dodgy cutting out at one of the corners same and all samples just the top white part where you could see it was not cut straight
Soni did not order any due to price and that issue as for me i was not satisfied with selling coasters with that issue plus paying more each coaster
I have 2 boxes left of the old unisub ones and a few boxes of the bigger cork back ones so once i run out nit sure what ill do
Its not like the mdf coasters are any cheaper where i could sell them at a lower price to match the now worse quality. As i sell coasters with designs on for £4.10 each plus i have ebay fees and often even people don't want to pay that small price for a coasters and all i get are loads of watchers on the items so i end up knocking 5% off
So my earnings per coaster are not big where i can again lower price even more as theres no point going to the effort of doing it then.
I will say though the front sublimation coating on unisub for me is not the best in the business like they make out either.
Every cheapo coaster i have tried has always printed and looked good it was the hardboard backing that set unisub apart from the rest.
Even those xpres hardboard coasters print same as unisub ones. Also often in a box of 40 unisub coasters i would get a good few where the backing was scraped and had marks along, often the top coating would have lines and marks scraped along also i have actually had a good few where theres been dark bits of something under the top coaster and even small tiny dead bugs under it which could not be used
So unisub are living in dreamland in thinking the main aspect for buying their coasters is just the coating on them