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  • Print Pricing guide help please?

    Posted by Stuart Wilson on December 30, 2013 at 6:50 pm

    Hi folks

    I hope I’m posting this in the right place ! With the impeding arrival of our VS300 I’ve been looking at a few past quotes which are the typical jobs that we either turn down or put out.

    One that came up was for 500 stickers 45mm x 20mm, two colours purple and black. Artwork supplied from their designer is whatever format we wanted.

    One of our trade guys quoted £58.00 + VAT, we would have put that out at £81.20 + VAT.

    So my question is where would you be on a job like that ? I’m just trying to get a feel for pricing these small jobs.

    Thanks in advance.

    Stu

    Stuart Wilson replied 10 years, 2 months ago 3 Members · 8 Replies
  • 8 Replies
  • Robert Lambie Robert Lambie

    Member
    December 30, 2013 at 8:29 pm

    is your trade guy a "trade only supplier"
    are the graphics contour cut stickers?
    is it a standard digital vinyl?

  • Stuart Wilson

    Member
    December 30, 2013 at 8:36 pm

    Sorry I should have been more specific with the details….

    The trade supplier is a converter who supplies end user and trade, their prices aren’t the lowest but the work is good. We gave up on rock bottom priced suppliers simply because the materials were often B grade or inconsistant from batch to batch. Quality is very important to us as many of our customers are blue chip who dont want a cruddy job.

    Yes the stickers are contour cut, traditionally we would have supplied them waste stripped on rolls, in most cases cut sheet is fine.

    Normally we would quote this on a 3 – 5 exterior vinyl and they wouldn’t be laminated.

    Hope this helps.

    Thanks
    Stu

  • Robert Lambie Robert Lambie

    Member
    December 30, 2013 at 8:36 pm

    guestimate here is if its unlaminated.
    your going to use about half a square metre.
    so for that amount contour cut ide be looking for a minimum of £35+vat
    based on set-up and square meterage of vinyl used at £50

    production cost about £2.00 excluding labour

  • Robert Lambie Robert Lambie

    Member
    December 30, 2013 at 8:39 pm

    keep in mind the above ios based on, open graphic, array/stack mode, print.

  • Stuart Wilson

    Member
    December 30, 2013 at 8:49 pm

    Bingo !!!!

    I was thinking that if we did that ourselves we’d be looking at about £40+VAT give or take a tenner depending on the customer (really good regulars we tend to keep it sweet, one off PITA’s we bump it up a bit)

    Thanks Rob, thats good to know I’m working in the right ball park.

    I was looking for a spreadsheet to help me with the calcs, I though I saw one on the forum but cant find it again, but I may just set one up in excel to give my team a quick calcuation for quoting. I had always factored in about 20% wastage too, does that seem reasonable ?

    Thanks again.
    Stu

  • John Thomson

    Member
    December 30, 2013 at 9:11 pm

    I would have been a bit cheaper…….

    Orajet 3614- 0.5m is 50p for 760mm wide plus ink……
    .anything else is labour……set it to print then go do something else before contour cutting…….max 10 minutes work (assuming artwork supplied)

    John

  • Robert Lambie Robert Lambie

    Member
    December 30, 2013 at 9:14 pm

    yeh it does mate…

    when wide format printing kicked off over 10 years ago the pricing structure of £50 per square metre, un-laminated was the trend.
    fast forward till today and i do my best still to keep it there, because many got caught in dropping prices as times moved, but they did not compensate for the media, inks, wages etc getting more expensive.

    in a nut shell, i still try keep £50-£60 per square metre for un-laminated print, contour cut into stickers. i dont print one offs, as your media waste, labour etc outweighs that. at very least ill sell them by the width of the media. so if i can run ten stickers up the width of the media then thats the minimum they get + small setup fee.

    the reason for me asking was YOUR supplier a trade only supplier. DO NOT use industry trade only suppliers as a bench mark. this is a BIG mistake.
    in most cases your machine output beats them hands down on quality. as their pixels are about the size of a stamp! 😀
    the speed of their machines are spitting out hundreds of metres by the hour, yours will be doing 20 tops.
    their prices are often based on large minimum quantity.
    they buy their inks in by 3 litre+ carts and ink cost per square metre is buttons.
    remember what they buy their media in also, we all buy by the roll, they buy by the pallet, some times by the container load. discounts to them are huge and often from china and the like…

    not saying you will, just steer clear of that trap mate. 😀

  • Stuart Wilson

    Member
    December 31, 2013 at 11:54 am

    Over the yeras I have learnt that trying to compete with every man and his dog proved to be the best way to make no money. Pricing is a major issue in our industry so we tend to try and price at a point which gives us a reasonable margin, the customer a decent price and provide a great product backed with good old fashioned service, sounds corny but people do appreciate it.

    I’m still getting my head around this new part of our business and in fact the labour cost is the biggest unknown as I expect every job to take us much longer than it would take you guys, so initially our real world margins will take a hit but over time we’ll learn and become more efficient.

    I’m grateful for any input.

    Thanks !

    Stu

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