Ask the right questions...
Even though I've been in publishing for a long time, I only began buying print about 10 years ago.
What I have learned is this: The question to ask a printer is not, "Can you do this?" it's, "What do you specialize in?"
You'll find that virtually every printer will say they can do your job, but many will job it out themselves. This is particularly true with smaller local printers. So, while many people want/try to "shop local," what they may not realize is that their "local" printer is jobbing out their project. I'm not saying that's wrong, only trying to educate.
That being said if you are a designer/reseller doing print projects for profit, you will probably have a hard time making money on the print component working through local print shops. You are their competition.
A great trade-only resource for biz cards and a variety of other projects is ZooPrinting.com. They require registration, and it's best to use Zoo when you have projects that fall within their standard choices, but they have grown considerably, and have a huge array of product choices.
You will have a very hard time beating their prices and turnaround times, and they now have three production facilities across the USA, so shipping is very reasonable.
Hope that helps!
