Price list . . HOW!?

[Kanvas Keepsakes]

Quick question guys.  I came across a wesite that has a huge clientele and was browsing through their price list.  It's so dirt cheap it's crazy.  How in the world can a company sell canvas this cheap and still pull a profit?  I'm attaching the price list below.  Also, does anyone know where to buy the backing to attach onto the back of the canvas like the attached image?  Thanks for the info guys.  I'm trying to keep my prices as low as possible but can't believe how low this company is pricing their canvases.

[dgberg]

Is it possibly print only? Stretching is extra?
Who is the company? I would like to review further.

[Kanvas Keepsakes]

http://www.cgproprints.com/

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Stretching is extra?

Not sure about stretching... it seems that canvas is mounted.

[Roscolo]

I would be very suspicious of a company who doesn't have a telephone. Or if they do, doesn't put their telephone number on their contact page.

[Kanvas Keepsakes]

Like mounted on foam core?

[dgberg]

Circle Graphics
Longmont,co.
I would buy a small one If you really want to see how they are making them.
Loss leader,maybe.
I always throw out the high and low and average out the ones that are left.
Will always be someone that sells below cost to get market share.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Like mounted on foam core?

I think it must be something firmer. This is all it says:

[Roscolo]

The review on their home page says, "These canvas prints are adhered to a solid board..."   I would not want my canvas prints "adhered" to anything. I might would get some for cheap short term promo display in adverse conditions where your promos might get damaged though.

Looks like portrait photographers are their target audience. But considering what a good professional portrait photographer is going to charge for a 20x24 canvas, there's really no significant savings in getting a super cheap 8 color canvas print vs. a sharper, more accurate, properly stretched canvas. And as they only appear to offer canvas prints, you would still be stuck getting your other portraits on paper printed elsewhere or preferably on your own equipment, and then those images aren't likely to closely match the canvas prints, and your customers are going to be asking for reprints of one or the other. There go the "savings." So I think their target audience is all the snappy photogs who still blindly try to compete with cheaper prices, and we all have seen those folks don't stay in business too long.

[Kanvas Keepsakes]

Good point Rosco.  Thank's for the insight.  Does anyone know what kind of backing I can put on my canvas wraps?  Cloth material?  Where to buy? 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... I would not want my canvas prints "adhered" to anything...

Why not? What's the downside?

[Colorwave]

"Our extensive fleet of state-of-the-art printing equipment can produce more than a million square-feet a day."

Wow.  I've never turned out more than 500,000 square feet in a day.  

For the record, that would equate to over 6,700 rolls a day of the 44" x 40' rolls that some of us mortals use.

[Roscolo]

Why not? What's the downside?

For starters you don't know what it is adhered to the board with. If that canvas every bubbles, warps, needs repair, etc., or the more likely scenario, if the board itself warps, takes on moisture, is damaged, needs repair, etc. good luck removing the canvas from that board. If the canvas is stretched, it is easily tightened in less than a minute if it gets a wrinkle or sag, and can always easily be removed and simply restretched for any reason. I've had customers call me almost in tears with broken stretchers from a move and they thought their canvas was ruined. Nope. Just an hour or so to restretch and it's good as new. Go to any fine art museum and you won't find many, if any, canvasses adhered to a board or glued to anything.

Again, I suppose this cheap method is fine for their target audience, and it's the method they probably have to use to keep it cheap.  I would definitely glue some canvas or prints to board for any sort of 1-2 day promotional event where your stretched canvas could get damaged lugging it around. Maybe even order some of these cheapos for that purpose. They are cheap and  pretty much disposable.
The 20x24 portrait canvas my clients pay upwards of $500 for, I'm simply not going to deliver to them a cheap canvas adhered to a board. Not good for my client or me, or the long term viability of my business. YMMV.