Vinyl

We’ve all seen vehicle wraps cruising through town (I would hope so, anyway) and understand their marketing and advertising impact for your customers. If you produce vehicle wraps, how often do you sell the wrap’s other benefits, beyond just the advertising message?

What other benefits? Well, what about the ability of a wrap to protect an OEM paint job, reduce the weight of a racecar or increase a vehicle’s resale value, to name just a few? This month, I’ll address vinyl as an alternative to paint in various scenarios. I’ll also examine some unique products that could enhance your shop’s bottom line.

Wraps for everyone!
If you currently offer vehicle wraps as a cost-effective advertising outlet, this part zooms up your alley. I’ve noticed a new trend in various markets that could soon reach your area – vanity wraps. Yep, restyling your personal vehicle has now reached a higher gear. Everyday drivers want ultimate customization, and a personal wrap definitely answers. Think of the Harley owner up the street or the college-football fanatic with team decals tattooed all over his car – these guys are primed to to let the world know their extreme degree of loyalty.

Seriously, custom paint jobs can routinely carry $5,000 pricetags – such upgrades as flames or a custom mural can double the invoice. Such customization requires such labor-intensive activities as airbrushing and masking to create different layers and elements.

However, with current technology, a wrap can be easily designed, printed and ready to apply in as little as two days. Instant gratification is a huge marketing plus when targeting serious car buffs – quickly satisfying that appetite will facilitate sales.

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Another vanity-wrap selling point mentioned earlier is paint protection. If the customer brings you a well-painted vehicle, most vinyl manufacturers offer wrapping films that will apply and remove easily without harming the paint. On the flip side, your customer may have a really terrible paint job to conceal and could care less if the paint gets damaged!

This makes everyone from soccer moms to diehard Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans potential customers. If your particular shop doesn’t attract the restyling crowd, consider partnering with your nearest car-customizing shop that offers window tinting, audio systems, etc., and bring the next evolution of car customizing to them.

Paint, vinyl or both …
As for developing other relationships, consider car dealerships. Not only can you offer wraps to customers who buy vehicles for business use, but products developed specifically to simulate vehicle paint.

Consider this: A customer walks into a car dealership and falls in love with a brand-new car with all his desired features, from GPS to heated seats. He even likes the color – almost. He wants a two-tone look and loves the car’s metallic-silver, factory paint job, but also desires a metallic, gunmetal grey below the side-body panel’s molding.

Available in various colors, vinyls are now available that contain built-in clearcoats that simulate automotive finishes. These 4-mil films also feature an air-egress adhesive system that allows easy repositionability and reduces bubbles or creases. Also, the film’s grey adhesive blocks the paint’s hue from penetrating the vinyl.

What happens when you merge paint and vinyl’s capabilities? You get a really cool product. Chris Harren of Applied Coatings Inc. (El Monte, CA) has developed a painted vinyl for vehicle markings or wraps. He’s worked closely with an OEM, automotive-paint supplier to produce a unique product. Unlike most paints, this system actually allows the paint to flex with the vinyl to create vibrant colors, including metallics and pearlescents with deep clearcoats that won’t crack paint. Also, they offer greater fade resistance when placed in a horizontal application (such as hoods, roofs and trunks) than typical, pigmented vinyls.

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Other details
Before we wrap up this discussion (sorry for the pun), I have two more situations where vinyl can replace paint. For racecar decoration, vinyl’s replacement of paint has grown faster than in all other markets. Racing teams have learned vinyl weighs less than paint and, in some cases, reduces the car’s heft by 35 pounds.

Although this may mean less to NASCAR cars, it’s significant for the IRL, ChampCar and the Rolex 24 Hours Series – weight is crucial to these high-performance machines. Teams are always looking for a competitive advantage, which includes quick fixes to minimize pit stops when their cars sustain damage. It’s much easier to slap a new piece of vinyl on a body panel than to sand, prime and paint.

The fleet industry offers another paint-replacement opportunity. For instance, say a package-delivery company needs 100 new vans. Instead of waiting more than a week for a van to be painted a specific color, why not send a standard, white van to be wrapped in the approximate color of vinyl?

Sounds good to me! Not only can service providers deliver the vans more quickly, but if one sustains a fender-bender, a repair shop could simply repair or replace the fender, apply a piece of yellow vinyl and put the van quickly back in service. Vinyl’s easy removability offers another benefit. It’s much easier to resell a white van sans vinyl than a painted, yellow one. Studies have shown resale values for white fleet vehicles exceed those of any other color by up to 100%. Clearly, that’s a huge selling point.

Hopefully, I’ve shown how vinyl continually evolves within our industry and, more importantly, in vertical markets such as the automotive aftermarket. Vinyl probably won’t completely supplant paint, but, for many markets, vinyl simply makes more sense.

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Also, as you probably know, a massive “green” movement is sweeping the United States, so I advise touting vinyl’s benefits. A business can reduce or eliminate exposure to harmful paint solvents, cut auto emissions and enhance gas mileage thanks to vinyl’s lower weight – these are certainly good arguments.

Educate your customers about the best solution for their particular applications, and they’ll return to you for solutions. If that means they end up with a vanity wrap to suit their style, then you’ve done your job and wrapped up another sale (sorry, couldn’t help it).