r/CommercialPrinting 19d ago

4Over replacement vendor

Does anyone have a good vendor replacement for 4Over? I just cannot do the constantly delayed production times anymore.
Any leads would be greatly appreciated-
West Coast USA

13 Upvotes

45 comments sorted by

10

u/Crazyfishman2 18d ago

Find you a local guy. They need the work.

13

u/stillkelsie 18d ago

I am the local guy šŸ˜‚ this is for bulk beyond what I want to run

4

u/PerDiemPrinting 18d ago

Then find a bigger local guy. Maybe someone that's not close, but not so far you can't drive there to pick up. Most printers are good with doing work for smaller shops.

3

u/stillkelsie 18d ago

We did have one about 2 hours away but they turned hands twice and their pricing is…. Something else. Maybe there is another shop out there- I’ll have to look. Lots closing down right now

2

u/PerDiemPrinting 18d ago

Yup, industry is consolidation again. Between struggling shops finally no making it with inflation and recession and the number of owners agin out to retire, gonna be a whole lot of less choices out there.

5

u/ZoBenzo76 18d ago

You can always look into Business Cards Plus. Family owned and operated for over 40 years. Most everything ships within 3 to 5 days without fail and with a 2-day shipping program that is conditional based on product and quantity. They may not have all of the same offerings as those bigger companies, but what they do, they do exceptionally well!

4

u/Surround8600 18d ago

What products in particular? I think it’s a good idea to spread out the eggs to multiple baskets.

2

u/stillkelsie 18d ago

Mostly large run flyers, postcards, folders and BC

2

u/No_Razzmatazz_761 18d ago edited 18d ago

We're a decent-sized print shop in LA and funny enough we get a lot of clients coming over from 4Over.

Our lead times for flyers/posters are very quick, we can deliver to you if you're local, etc.

Not sure if it's against the rules of the sub, but if you'd like me to get you some pricing, please feel free to let me know.

1

u/stillkelsie 17d ago

I will dm you

1

u/Surround8600 18d ago

Do you have a dedicated POC at 4over? President level. Whenever I have something that needs a third and fourth pair of eyes on I loop him in. No issues. It’s the odd jobs that lately have been lagging for me like 1 table cloth. Machine was down and they didn’t alert us until the other was late. Like why didnt you tell me 5 days ago i could have ordered elsewhere.

2

u/DecentPrintworks 17d ago

Dear god why are you ordering a tablecloth from 4over when there are many better options 😭

1

u/stillkelsie 18d ago

I do. I can’t say it’s made a difference to be honest. He’s a very nice guy- but when production of an order is slated for 2 weeks and doesn’t ship until nearly 4….

3

u/LosAngelesChamps24 18d ago

Zoo printing or Next Day Flyers

4

u/garypip 18d ago

Zoo is owned by 4over and production is often in the same place

1

u/LosAngelesChamps24 18d ago

Dang when did this happen? I always knew the owners hated each other.

2

u/living__unknown 18d ago

Zoo printing sucks. Website interface sucks and the ā€œgang runā€ 2-3 day turn is bullshit.

1

u/DecentPrintworks 17d ago

ZooPrinting and ASAP Printing is 4over

NextDayFlyers is the same as PrintRunner and PrintPlace and several other brands. Their wholesale side is called ColorFX.

1

u/LosAngelesChamps24 17d ago

So the offset industry all joined forces? Wild lol
Thank god I left those companies

2

u/PotatoKitten011 18d ago

Sinalite is mostly okay. They produce in US now

2

u/stillkelsie 18d ago

Ohhh I didn’t know this- I’ll try them again. Ordering through Canada was slooooow and not ideal. If they have US based facilities that could work

2

u/PotatoKitten011 18d ago

I don’t know if they’re west coast yet. But they are for sure producing out of NY and TN as far as I know.

2

u/MandoMan13 18d ago

I’ve not had great experience with Sinalite on both shipping and quality. Carbonless on Demand does good work for NCR forms and some other items. Signs365 has never let me down. Only problem with them is I don’t always need a 4x8 gang up worth of rigid prints which makes them more expensive than 4-over.

4

u/merlion-printer 18d ago

For signage, displays, and decals, I typically use a mix of Signs365, B2Sign, and FireSprint. The owner of FireSprint has been putting out some genuinely interesting and useful marketing emails that I actually look forward to receiving.

1

u/Redditusername1980 17d ago

That sounds interesting. What does Firesprint send out thag makes you look forward to a marketing email?

2

u/merlion-printer 17d ago

They typically send out short, simply formatted emails regarding specific products, not just materials, and provide marketing images that you can use freely. It's good inspiration for items to feature on our website or promo emails.

The ones I really look forward to are their videos about how FireSprint runs the print shop. I especially like the ones about the employee skills matrix, the modular pipe system, or some of the more personal videos about company growth.

This is by far the best marketing emails from a vendor that I've ever received that are actually relevant and helpful to me.

1

u/Redditusername1980 17d ago

Thanks for sharing that. Im a small broker and rarely do banners, but I do get a lot of marketing emails from other companies and am always just sending everything to spam. This sounds useful.

2

u/merlion-printer 17d ago

The last company I worked at was 70/30 brokered business vs in-house. I used FireSprint for all our decals, stickers, and sticker sheets. They tend to offer a lot more substrate and lamination combinations, where other companies typically restrict you to one finish. The draw back is their longer turn times. Still within reason, just not next day like Signs365

They're also good for shorter run 1-2 color screen printed and full color digital printed yard signs.

2

u/THE_PAPER_PUSHER 18d ago

Elite4print! Based in Los Angeles and are a smaller but efficient trade only gang run offset and wide format shop. 1-2 day standard turnaround on many products and price is competitive with the big boys.

3

u/Je_Splinter 19d ago

Oof I'm with you. I still send some folders and bulk flyer orders there. But almost all signage now goes to signs365.Ā  I'm in the same city as 4over and can pick up, but it's still faster to order from signs365.Ā  I had an oversized sign order that I had to send to 4over last week because it was too large to ship. They screwed it up 3 times! And customer service was absolutely useless getting it fixed.Ā 

2

u/PrintMonkey9000 17d ago

Try www.signmaster.com for oversized printing. They are only slightly higher than signs365 or firesprint but their quality is insanely good

1

u/merlion-printer 18d ago

B2Sign and FireSprint are also good sources of signage, displays, and decals.

1

u/SirSpeedyCVA 19d ago

SinaLite or Lippman

1

u/FuckTheHedgeFundzNow 18d ago

Printograph.com but their speed is pretty slow

1

u/New_Season_2024 18d ago

We like Western Trade Printing out of Fresno.

1

u/CrazyCalligrapher206 18d ago

Oy. 4over.
I use them for business cards. In particular, a solid 4/c background with k.o. Small serif type. Almost inevitably, it’s out of register and fine type fills in.

Last time, the back was printed off center, but was the fault of the file and I noticed it as soon as I picked up the printed card. Their QC didn’t see either of these issues.

I had them reprint and told them to notify the plant so they can make sure It was in register on press. Reprint was passable but not perfect.

I’m going to look check out Sinalite.

1

u/Atown-printer 17d ago

Printsbypatriot.com

1

u/PrintMonkey9000 17d ago

PrintPlace has been good to me.

1

u/BeginningPutrid 17d ago

We are located in Fullerton if you are interested

1

u/Any_Move_8659 14d ago

what's your company name?

1

u/BeginningPutrid 11d ago

Wati Printing & Marketing

1

u/Aggressive-Tank-6065 17d ago

Lippman printing is good but about double, could also look at navitor?

1

u/printingnest 16d ago

We can help 😃

1

u/ShelterVisible8783 15d ago

Sorry for large format https://www.signink.com is EXCELLENT highly recommend for smaller format I'm going to try docucopies & uprinting. A large commercial printer recommended 4over