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Another Van Price
I’ve already done 2 vans for this customer. 1 combo, and a connect, we digitally printed the logo’s as they wanted drop shadows as per their stationery.
They’ve come back again as they’ve had to replace one of their fitting vans, and have shown me what the last company (no longer trading) proposed. They’ve got 3 vans all the same, and they want this one based on the same style. (although it’s hideous!)
I will be using Oracal 751c for this job, and I’ve got prices around £250 +VAT in my head. ( I charged £190 for their smaller vans)
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30 Replies
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where to begin? lol.
first off, PJR needs a border.
price wise, are you printing the logo’s? my first impression is ‘too cheap’ at £250+vat. I’m not vat reg’d but would still prob be more than £300.
if cut vinyl, a rough guesstimate is around
TEXT
7m light blue, £122.50
4m dark blue, £70.00Logo’s,
printed + Lam 3sq mtr? £150 (min)fitting around 3hrs, £75
so nearer £400.00 to do it properly with decent materials.
imho!!
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I know Hugh… I put a boarder on the printed logos I did for their smaller vans, but now they want the bigger van, to match their other bigger vans which another company did.
I was planning on doing it all in cut vinyl, as I don’t have a cast digital film. I didn’t think MD-5 would hold well in the recesses?
There’s no disputing the designs awful… it’s an improvement on what the last company did with a mix of upper and lower case lettering all over the van.
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£500.
According to my pound/dollar converter, you are only charging $400 max to letter a big van like that? I charge $200 for two pickup truck doors.
Love….Jill -
I could cut all but the largest two logo’s I think, would get someone else to cut the bigger ones still, or make from more than one piece, perhaps. even then it’s maybe another 2.5-3m of grey, black and blue? say 7.5m £130-150 so, a similar end price still.
Hugh
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I scaled down the logos on the sides so I can cut it in one piece using 1230mm vinyl.
I doubt I will get anywhere near £500, probably put a price in for £395, make it all out of cut cast vinyl.
I do quite a bit of work for them, and in fact have an order for 20 double sided correx signs going through now.
Thinking long term I would probably get their other vans when they’re due to be replaced, they’re all the same model so wouldn’t involve any more design just re-cut and apply.
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tbh I’d probably use oracle 551 on that, the recesses aren’t too bad are they? 751 will be fine though. I only cut 610 so can’t cut larger – rarely ever need to!
ultimately, as long as you make a decent profit margin then there’s no issues really, I charge my 551 out at £17.50 pm (cut/weeded/taped) and labour to install at £25ph. quoting labour separately gives the tightwads the opportunity to say "I’ll fit it then" and save me the bother- until a week later when they’ve messed it up and want more!
sometimes a job does look expensive but, you have to come to a point where "it costs what it costs", I’ve found I lose no more jobs by sticking to my pricing than if I knock off £50 cos I think it looks too much!
people will generally pay extra if they get the service they expect, I only really lose the odd job where I’m too slow to get a quote in (i’ve only got two hands!).
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Never base a price on the promise of future work, no matter how long you’ve had a relationship with the client.
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quote Jill Marie Welsh:Never base a price on the promise of future work, no matter how long you’ve had a relationship with the client.I can second that……..I was once promised that the owners wife would show me her wrinkly stockings but it never happened.
Jill will understand!!!! 😀
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I bet you gave him a great price, too.
:lol1:
Hey for all my big talk about pricing and deposits, I got burnt this week.
A girl had emailed me twice (a somewhat regular client) needing signs ASAP for an open house this week.
I replied with prices and she said she was stopping by with the deposit.
By Friday, she hadn’t stopped and it was do-or-die with ordering the materials to meet her due date, so I went ahead and ordered them.
I emailed her again after she did not reply when I said I needed to know (before I ordered the stuff)
Finally she emailed last night saying she did not need the signs.
This was after I emailed her again saying I had bought the materials.
Here they sit.
Luckily it’s only correx and I can use it but still. I need to listen to my own advice.
The next time she emails I’m going to tell her to f*ck off. -
There’s no promise of future work, but this customer is a member of my Networking group, I’ve done his 2 smaller vans, and now this one, along with an order for 20 signs… so I don’t do bad out of him.
£17.50 PLM… I could should add another few quid on my price, I am around £12 + VAT per metre, although I can collect it from RHG for free.
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Networking group? Run, run far away as fast as you can!
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I based my prices on how a colleague did his own pricing some 5-6yrs ago, I started off at £12 for oracle 651 and as £15 for 751, since then prices have gone up but i’ve found better suppliers so my costs haven’t gone up a lot – material wise, i’ve gradually crept up to the £17.50 for 551, which i pretty much use for 75% of work, 20% is reflective and the remainder is specialty or non oracle films. then I buy in my print ready done so retail that £50-65 psm for laminated, probably on the more expensive end but, I rarely charge anything for artwork – unless very involved!
I really should properly revise my pricing though, it varies from one customer to another – depending on how good they are etc.
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What makes you say that Jill?
I know a lot of it hype, I am never going to make £20k a year from a the group I am in, but I know the kind of work I want… I do well out of other printers.
Hugh I need to look at my pricing for vans, especially now I am moving to a unit and plan to make that my main income rather than print. I am making a poster up with a from price for each size van and layout similar to the Price it right guide.
Material costs aren’t massive for vehicles, but it’s all time, and time costs money. Still annoying when you sell something for less than you could have.
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In my experience, networking groups (or groups like the chamber of commerce) are a pretty much useless means of getting business. They stroke you along until you think you are getting the job but almost always end up going to some cheap hack.
It’s all good until a new member joins the group who will whore out their business (no offense intended) for even less than you. Rarely does another member offer a service which will benefit you, so oftentimes you are giving way more than you’ll get.
The person who did the initial job may still be trading, and just left the networking group for the reasons I’ve mentioned.
It’s not about the materials cost or even the time it takes to do a van, really. It’s the percieved advertising value of it. That van will advertise for that company from the day you apply the lettering until the day it’s removed (sometimes many more years than the warranted life of the vinyl) Think of the cost of lettering the van as pennies per day to the client rather than what they’d spend in a year using the yellow pages or even a website.
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Your prices should really be based on what others are charging in your area so will vary depending on where you are in the Country, when I say what others are charging I mean companies that you consider to be on a par with your own not the people working for nothing doing cheap jobs. Place yourself where you think you belong, I wouldn’t be the cheapest or the most expensive but place myself somewhere in the middle. Seemed to work for me when I was doing it.
Networking groups seem to vary a lot even when you get 2 in a similar area there can be huge differences which generally comes down to the members & the types of business that are members.
If you have found a good one David then its worth sticking with but having been a mamber of a few myself over the years I can see why Jill is against them. -
We know the true value of vehicle graphics for advertising, its trying to get the customer to understand.
Pricing is a fine balancing act, its being cheap enough to get the work, but no too cheap to become bogged down with it, making no money, but not being more expensive than the competition.
I am looking at my vehicle pricing with a from price for different size vehicles and layouts, similar to price it right guide.
Networking worked for me, its given me business I wouldn’t have got, in addition to my usual work.
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Seriously mate I’d go in at £650 for that. There’s far more work involved than you think. Your under pricing yourself and once you do that you’ll only ever go backwards. You’re not selling sticky back plastic, you’re providing a professional service with quality materials. 😉
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😮 I wish I could get anywhere near that Karl.
Seems around here everybody expects to pay no more than £200 for any van, regardless of size.
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quote David Hammond:😮 I wish I could get anywhere near that Karl.Seems around here everybody expects to pay no more than £200 for any van, regardless of size.
Perhaps if the sign industry got together and stopped feeding these sharks, they would go away?
Don’t even consider doing a job like that for £200 (I wouldn’t even if it was for my mother 😕 ) you can’t run a viable business with prices like that. Far better to turn the job down and find more viable work to do.
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I’ve put my price in of £400 (which is better than my original price I thought of charging)
Best start making their 20 signs up for them too!
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😮 Just had an e-mail back from the customer who wants me to look at the price again.
Apparently they only paid £250 for the van to be done almost identically, a couple of years ago.
Think I might just walk away from the job if they pull their face again.
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£60 a side?
Walk away David…
Martin
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I’m now in at £350, but they’re not getting a cast film I will use 551, as Hugh suggested.
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I recently had a good long standing customer try to put the squeeze on me. I replied with the following sincere response:-
I am disappointed to hear you are disappointed with the prices you are being offered. However, we need to price our work in a way that allows us to produce a profitable and sustainable business that allows us to provide our clients with a consistently high level of service. I have seen other companies that have gone out of business as a result of underpricing their work. My goal is to continue to provide a first class service at a reasonable and fair price.
They understood my point and actually agreed with me. And we continue to supply them on terms that are reasonable to both parties. I suspect your client is the same. They probably realise they can’t get these vans done at £250 each because the joker that did these before is most likely no longer trading as a result of underpricing his work:-?
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Exactly.
I am happy to work on price, he’s not get a cast vinyl all over the van, he’s getting a Polymeric vinyl. He know’s the difference and that it wouldn’t be my choice, but in order to save money, I will use it.
He’s accepted my price, and we’re both reasonably happy. The signs I am doing will make up the difference, as I’ve got an excellent price for those.
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I don’t drop my price after quoting, it makes it seem like you are trying to rip them off.
And since you’re using cheaper vinyl, they will come back and bitch at you when it pops out of the recesses.
And if they complain that it was £250 a couple years ago merely tell them that the price of materials has gone up. It has!
The £400 was a better price. But still on the cheap side. -
I can remember when I first started doing graphic design when I was 15. No matter where you went for signage and the like the prices back then were high and most accepted this as it was classed then as a respectable profession.
Midland Spray and Signs who I first worked for charged good rates. Looking at todays prices and those of back then many are charging the same or less than in 1989. Now I see many signamakers treated badly and are forced to reduce their prices even lower. I was asked today how much I would charge per day just to fit vinyls. The max they wanted to pay was £50 per day. I declined gracefully. 😉 -
I have done quite a bit of work for contacts through networking groups and have always priced the same as normal. I found that as all in the group are also small businesses they understand running a business and do not expect work done cheaply.
If you feel you want to give a deal then price your quote as normal (or higher) and the at the bottom State that a 10% discount can be given because of being an associate in the group. That way they see the true value of the work and would not then start telling other people your discounted price. And if no leads or other work is forthcoming you do not have a problem returning to a full price in the future as you have already said what it should be. -
quote Stuart Miller:I have done quite a bit of work for contacts through networking groups and have always priced the same as normal. I found that as all in the group are also small businesses they understand running a business and do not expect work done cheaply.
If you feel you want to give a deal then price your quote as normal (or higher) and the at the bottom State that a 10% discount can be given because of being an associate in the group. That way they see the true value of the work and would not then start telling other people your discounted price. And if no leads or other work is forthcoming you do not have a problem returning to a full price in the future as you have already said what it should be.It’s good practice generally if you are doing work for charity or at a reduced rate. Give them an invoice for the the full value with the ‘discount’ clearly marked.
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£50 a day. Pay peanuts get monkies. Some cheek there and would have told em so as well.
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