Crazy Price for Van Livery

[Jean Oakley]

only time will tell, but better off sometimes walking away from customers like that

[Jon Marshall]

It wasn’t for a courier company was it? Had one recently after quotes for doing a lot of vans nationwide but wanted half wrapped Sprinters and full Luton box wraps for a similar cost.

[Reza Faezi]

Many many years ago were I worked was asked to quote to do Eddie Stobarts wagons (before they were a complete wrap).
After lettering 2off them we were told the costs of what they were getting them lettered for.
It turned out we couldn’t buy the vinyl (it was all cast special colours) only (No weeding time, application tape or application costs) for what they were been charged for these.
Some jobs can be so big, you make no money on them!

SC

[Robert Lambie]

quote Reza Faezi:

Many many years ago were I worked was asked to quote to do Eddie Stobarts wagons (before they were a complete wrap).
After lettering 2off them we were told the costs of what they were getting them lettered for.
It turned out we couldn’t buy the vinyl (it was all cast special colours) only (No weeding time, application tape or application costs) for what they were been charged for these.
Some jobs can be so big, you make no money on them!

SC

Stobbarts work is all done via AST Signs using sub contract installers. understandable really as Stobbart owns part of the company.
AST have a very impressive setup and at a size it would be very difficult for companies of our sizes to compete with based on any sort of real volume work. Their buying power on media, equipment setup and staffing just make competing a worthless exercise in the long run of high volume work. That said, short run at high quality, at the right price then yes, even i would pull the carpet from them. 😉

Print houses are all looking for volume work to keep them ticking… this is a gripe of mine when it comes to companies of "our type and size" we buy printers and right off the bat we base our pricing structure on "trade only" prices we find online or in the magazines, because we know no better. This is complete stupidity… these machines we are competing with are banging out prints at an alarming rate in production mode, using a fraction of the ink at low prices, same goes for media used. unfortunately the damage has been done to the industry long ago, but it persists and hits us all in the pocket even today, hence the original posters making this post to complain, and rightly so.

For the record, I am not having a pop at the Print houses or the likes of AST Signs, that is their business model and it obviously works well. It is more about us lot need to be more aware of this and adjust accordingly.
Furthermore, over the past few weeks, i have seen a lot of posts complaining about the sharp increase in media costs etc etc by our UK Suppliers. Yes it is a pain, but the suppliers cannot sustain their own costs, so in turn we are hit with them. I wonder just how many of "us" sign makers, printers and wrappers have adjusted our prices??? or do we yet again absorb further loses trying to compete? I doubt 5% of the people reading this have even considered a price increase. :awkward:

[David Hammond]

Well said Rob.

In my opinion it’s harder to sell on anything other but price, but I find the rewards far outweigh the negatives. Service, Quality, Design, are all things you could be selling before price.

Shrug it off, and move onwards :thumbsup:

[Mike Thornley]

No it wasn’t for a courier company, the job was for a client of a design agency (our client), the end client had also decided to shop around for prices, obviously the person shopping around has no real idea on what they are buying, just looking at the price.
I did say to the design agency to mention to their client to not to go only on price but enquire about the materials being used on a like for like basis in the quote.