cups

[gus]

new to the forum and looking for some help. I am opening a new drive-thru coffee shop and trying to get insulated cups with my logo on them. The only problem I''m having is that everyone wants me to buy 50.000 per size. I have 5 sizes and that would mean I would have to buy 250,000 cups. Does anyone know of a company that has a lower minimum? Building a new building ground up with all the expenses is enough but to have to put another 25-30k just for cups is a little ridicules. Any answers would be appreciated.
Thanks, GUS

 

[John P]

http://brandedcups.com/

Of course cost per cup is more, but a much more manageable number.

For the hot drinks, you can also look at putting your logo on cup sleeves and put a sleeve on every cup.
and then logo the iced cups.

 

[nemoscoffee]

We also could not have a high quantity of logo cups made. I ended up buying vinyl stickers at www.gotprint.com.

They have a 2 x 3.5" sticker that we use. I believe it was about $300 for 10,000 of them. I thought it would be a total pain to put stickers on the cups, but it really isn't. If you have a slow period of time, you can put stickers on a sleeve of cups in just a few minutes. We use the plain white Insulair cups. They look good with our logo stickers. I also put our address and phone number on the stickers, and that we have free WIFI internet service. We get an amazing amount of business because we put the stickers on the ATM machines at an adjacent bank. Tons of people come in and say they didn't know we were there, but they saw the sticker on the ATM!

Check into that and see what you think. These stickes are high quality vinyl (like a bumper sticker), not cheap paper stickers. This works for us. Even if we could afford to have lots of cups printed with our logo, we would not have a place to warehouse that many cups!

Good luck,
JD

 

[CafeBlue]

Java Jacket or other custom-printed sleeve on "stock" cups is likely the best route for a start-up penny-pincher. Some indie operators also use a rubber stamp...if you have a DIY, organic or rustic look to your brand image.
On the other hand, if you cannot afford the cost of proper brand image development, you may not have the cash reserves to survive the brand development stage of your new venture.

Just as a thread hi-jack --- 5 cup sizes is too many.

Think about a simplified menu offering with 2 or three sizes. Some of the benefits include: lots less inventory, less recipe standardization and development, simpler menu presentation, fewer customer "choice moments" that slow down the order process, etc.

 

[nemoscoffee]

We had the same issue at startup. I can do Photoshop and Illustrator graphic arts, so I designed a sticker to place on cups. The first thought of a sticker sounds cheesy, but www.gotprint.net has business card size (and other size) PVC stickers a very reasonable price. I ordered 2 x 3 1/2" stickers and they were about 3 cents each. They are shiny bumper sticker material and are very classy. We put them on plain white Insulair cups and it works great.
JD

 

[ericwuchina]

it is easy to do in China :x