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Roll Up Banner 1m x 2m price
Had an enquiry for 2 roll up banners 1m x 2m.
I find it cheaper to go to a quality trade printer and get them to print it, than order in 25m of material, and have it sat around most of the year.
I use the same printer, my contact there is fantastic and never lets me down, and his prices are usually I suppose a little steep, but like me won’t sell shit.
He quoted me £140 each, printed, laminated, and delivered + VAT.
Not being greedy I quoted £180.00, each with scope to scrap the design charges as it sounded like they wanted something simple. They’d designed it in word and would simply need re drawing in illustrator, or I could always knock a some off if I was in the region of another quote.
I got quizzed about 3m and their materials. I explained that it’s a very good material, used on ambulances etc, however, there’s equally good brands out there. 3m is well known, but within the industry the likes of Spandex, Metamark etc are equally as good.
After praising 3m, they only then tell me that they’ve had a quote of £100, each using 3m material. 😮
I’ve tried several trade printers and no one will get near that.
The customer didn’t know what laminating was, and even asked why it needed laminating, and why would they need ‘scuff resistant laminate’. It’s going in the bloody trafford centre, with high traffic, buggies etc.
I know as well as you do, that yes they’ve probably got these stands lying around, imported from china, and are utter crap, but even so… £100.00!
Please tell me if I am being well off the mark (I’ve had customers in the past pay similar if not more), or do I have one of those local competitors.
Rant over.
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23 Replies
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laminating is pointless for roll ups… and also watch out for UV ink as it doesn’t laminate well at all, especially on white backgrounds as it steps.
A roll up with UV ink however will withstand any scratches, not an issue unlike other printer that can mark especially on black.
Only you can tell with pricing… we would use a non-3m product as thats all i got lol
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Dave, I dont think £100 is a cheap price to be honest. I have just taken an order for 200 and a good quality budget stand comes in at around £30 in a case. They vary the cheapest is £14 and to be honest it’s not a bad cassette but it wouldn’t be usable on a daily basis.
The £35 are teardrop low footprint stand and available from a supplier in Southampton called easy roll up. My client only want his for 2-3 events max, even so we are giving him a better quality stand. The material from metamark runs at about £6 a meter for 1350 and £4.50 a meter for 914mm so at very tops a good quality banner is going to cost £45 in raw materials. It takes about 10-15 mins to assemble so £45 profit after production isn’t bad I don’t think anyway. Thats approx £100-£160 an hour!
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Mo, I’m not quite sure how you reach a figure of £45 profit on the roll up banner.
If material costs are £45 on their own then with a selling price of £100 that’s only going to leave £55 for everything else.Don’t know what you charge for design time but David would have this to include on his order for 2 stands, admittedly if you have 200 to do that are all the same then artwork costs per unit will be quite low. What about the printer running time, how do you account for that? Cost of servicing and repairs isn’t cheap.
10 to 15 mins to assemble is OK if you have a bunch to do and are using some sort of conveyor belt system but I am still guessing that the prints have already been trimmed & are ready for mounting so where has all that time gone?
If you only have 2 to do then just getting everything ready to mount them takes time.Not saying you are wrong, you know your own business I don’t but I just can’t see how you get the profit figure you have mentioned.
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No design time in that Martin, dave said its already been done, trimming a banner? 5 mins? Its hardly a big job is it? What’s everything else? Drag and drop the pdf in to the rip, press play, trim and put 4 banners together while its printing.
Am I missing something?
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The artwork was done in word. I doubt they’d have supplied it as a pdf.
A word doc would have given me a clue to their layout and spend an hour recreating it in illustrator, send a proof, send to the printer, pay printer, then ring the customer when it arrives.
I could order in 25m of light stop, wider laminate (using solvent printer), found a cheap supplier for 1 stand (most have minimum order), press print, gas off, laminate, trim, mount.
My issue with this is having 25m of wide light stop which wouldn’t get used again for months. I could use it on 850mm, but with more waste.
I am having a few ideas going around my head- do I utilise the fact I can print that wide, stock the material and sell wider roll ups? Ebay and alike seem to be mostly 800 or 850 which I assume is because they use a small printer.
Looking at carrying more stock, ie coloured vinyl, lighter poster paper aswell as heavier. So those who want cheap can have cheap, but I make the same money. Those who want quality can get it, for a price.
Roll ups, I am not convinced I’ll have enough business to justify it now. When I run out of current light stop I might look at the wider material so I can do it.
I’ll take a look at your supplier mo and hopefully I can be a little more competitive.
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MY BAD! sorry I was basing this on a 800x2000mm banner not 1000×2000…
Do you advertise them dave? I’m happy to take whatever work comes my way, if someone comes in and asks me to make them one small decal I do it… no job too small, because it often leads to larger jobs.
But if you have to add artwork into that mix it doesn’t leave much in it.
I think it’s hard when you are workin on your own to find a balance and still be competitive with pricing. I have had someone working for me for 6 weeks now and it’s made a massive difference. I can charge less for production because I can get on with selling.
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quote David Hammond:My issue with this is having 25m of wide light stop which wouldn’t get used again for months. I could use it on 850mm, but with more waste.
you can buy in 10m rolls from metamark…. 🙂
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They’re on my website (I think).
I increased my banner prices to include 30 minutes or design. Usually that’s plenty.
I try not to turn away, but for one sticker I charge material and design. I cannot find myself spending an hour or two messing about with a single sticker for free and have people who are paying for the design time wait.
I’ve one customer who thinks they can order 4 stickers at 46p each. My cousin (the previous owner) did that. Yes they"ve spent some serious money with me, but its really not worth typing the sticker out, then sending proofs, printing 4 tiny stickers on 1600 wide material, cutting it and posting it.
Since stocking t-shirts and transfer I’ve sold more than ever. People like the simplicity, there’s the shirts, that colour text. Keeping things in house does mean more profit.
I think I might next time look at buying the material in, do it myself.
I’ve got 25m of blockout vinyl arriving monday for these bloody cafe banner…. I’m hoping he orders another two so I am not at a loss on the material.
On the artwork side- I get word docs, or images of google, and they don’t understand it when you explain, I cannot cut that in vinyl.
My other trick is include vat in my prices- they don’t know until I make the bill out! Its simpler for the customer. See a price that’s what they pay.
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I’d happily do a one sticker job as long as it was 1m long 🙄
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quote Neil Speirs:I’d happily do a one sticker job as long as it was 1m long 🙄
Yeah I’m the same Neil, my min order is one linear meter. however if the customer supplies artwork ready to go I do a sample pack for £5 which is basically a 200mm strip with about 4-5 decals on it ( I use offcuts ) that includes postage. Usually they are serious customers and they nearly very always come back after getting the samples
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My terms says I only sell material by whole meters.
However, if I’ve charged for design I will round it off to the nearest 1/4 meter. Also It says orders will be subject to a minimum of 1 hours labour. My rate is £25, so that really should be my minimum order.
Its swings and roundabouts though.
Mo does your supplier sell 1000mm wide stands? And do they sell single units?
I think my mistake was getting the narrower roll up media. Metamark do the roll up that doesn’t need laminating now too. 🙂
I think I need to market these better, and if I can do them cheaper but make more money then it might be worth serious consideration.
At the moment I am trying to make the most of my available space, carry more usable stock, so those small orders of 1 or 2 I can do, without ordering in a meter of vinyl.
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Mo, I have no idea what the process is which is why I asked, I doubt you are missing something but I was just asking as it didn’t seem you had any sort of allowance for printer servicing/repair etc which surely must come in somewhere.
Sorry but I don’t own a printer so don’t do any sort of work like this at all, I have no idea what is involved in producing a product like this or infact most products that you need a digital printer to produce.
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Dave: 😀
I carry very little stock, most of what I have is left overs from jobs, I order on an ad-hoc basis. basically when I price a job I include almost double the meterage of material required so that I get a small amount of stock vinyl left over for small jobs that come in (you know those people looking for a cheap job?) I say well I have this colour in stock, if we use that I can do it for a better rate.. blah blah. The only stock that I really buy in bulk is digital white vinyl and label material along with matched laminates because I know that will get used up.
Most suppliers these days are happy to sell you small orders. The banner stands that I buy I can get one at a time if I wish, and as i buy more they get cheaper, not by much. Like T shirts, I ordered 200 this week for a job, now because I get them lots cheaper if I buy 12 of a certain size, then where I have say 10 xl to buy, I order 12 because it works out a few pence cheaper but it leaves me with a few in stock that literally cost me nothing, so again if someone want just 2 tshirts, I say if you have these its x amount (but i’m making more profit because they where paid for on the last order).
So with that in mind, If I sell some roll ups, or wheel covers at a decent price, i will often order 2 or 3 instead of just the one, they can sit around all day long because I know I will get a walk in looking for a cheap banner. But i will still have a decent mark up.
One thing you need to account for when only ordering small amounts is the delivery costs, for example I have had to buy just one wheel cover, only £23 but then you add £11 for delivery all of a sudden your looking at a £34 wheel cover.
My poster paper I probably go through 200 meters a month sometimes 300 but I only ever order 3 x 30m rolls at a time and re order when i’m down to the last roll. That just helps cash flow, but i do account for that in pricing. Where I can I try to include artwork in the price, but then again I’m selling most of the time so i have got used to my prices and how long it takes. Sometimes i come unstuck and have to spend a bit longer than expected on artwork, but that’s just because I’m fussy about it and like to give good customer service, I find it doesn’t help keep backwards and forward looking for better image res etc, by the time I have doen all those emails and phone calls, i can just as easily have re done a logo as a vector. But, design and artwork I have done since i was a kid so it’s really fast for me, i expect most of you guys can blow me out of the water time wise when it comes to taping, weeding and fitting, that’s where i fall down.
Martin! 😳
Doh, sorry mate I thought your post was more of a statement than a genuine question… for me banner production works like this.Artwork in if ok then literally drag and drop into the rip, set the size and profile etc while the guy in my workshop loads the right material into the printer. set the print running usually takes about 20 mins for a decent 2m print so I start work on another design or the next job. The invoice and job is already on the board so when it’s done my staff unload, trim (3 cuts on a banner) and stack for gas off. that jobs basically done apart from loading in the cassette and packaging (which is 15 mins tops) we run all the prints for the jobs going out on the following day so we have several jobs going at once. When we get in first thing we do is start on completing the jobs that have gassed from the previous day and complete while I deal with orders and enquiries that have come in over night.
Banner stand is £30-35, material is £8 and ink is negligible say less than £1 Trim and load in the cassette 15 mins, print time doesn’t really count as we are doing other stuff while it’s printing and we run 2 printers so we have good workflow. maintenance costs? well mine are lower than £300 for the last 12 months, these digital solvent printers don’t really need a contract like you do for lasers etc, they pretty much run on their own, and really are quite simple to maintain. Ive done my own head changes and services (everything you need to know about maintenance can be found on the internet somewhere)……. BUT!
If i was still working on my own, i doubt I would make a good profit on the banners at that price (I don’t sell out at £100 BTW I’m a bit more than that but i don’t take the p!ss) as my hourly rate would have to go up and workflow decrease. I now know that to run a business like this in normal working hours on your own, and earn enough money to give you a really comfortable life style in this current economical climate is impossible at best.
If you are trying to achieve that you will need to be marking up really high and running the risk of out pricing yourself. having said that, I’m sure region plays some part in that process, I’m in a village in Kent, I have a simple 3 bed semi, nothing special and over a 1/4 of a million mortgage to keep me company fuel at my local garage is £1.40 a ltr for unleaded… that probably has to play a part….. I keep my overheads and fixed costs low though.
Thats my 2 pence worth, ad-hoc is a slightly more expensive route to take initially but it’s worked for me and I have built p some decent stock doing it…
BTW – 😮 although I may get shot down in flames for this, i don’t really believe the term "trade prices" exists any more. Dave if your buying in a completed product, the person who is supplying you one will put exactly the same mark up on it as you would if you had made it, why shouldn’t he? It takes the same amount of time and effort right? Would you do all that work and then sell it to someone whose going to try and sell it on for less than you could afford to do it for? Essentially we are just going to the shop for the customer, buying a mars bar for 60p and trying to sell it back to them for £1.. the smart ones go to the sweet shop themselves 😎
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Great post mo.
Pricing is the hardest part of the game.
I am surrounded by sign shops and printers. I wish I was shifting 100m of paper a month. I might do that in 3 – 4 months.
I took advice from the site and ordered in a small selection of shirts, I ordered in 5m of choice of transfers. That’s worked in that I have sold some. That would be work where before I wouldn’t have done it, or been over priced with ordering in materials.
My theory is the same, if I order in a choice of vinyl, I will be able to do similar to you. These colours cos £x, ordering in costs £y.
My plan is the same with changing poster paper, or stocking two types. The heavy weight goes down well with some customers. Others aren’t bothered. I plan to offer cheaper options, but hopefully make just as much profit as the heavier paper ones.
Digital media I stock md5, gloss and matt, and matching laminates just because of space.
There’s parts of the business I need to push more. Canvas prints. I could buy in some bits of frames and save money there, but again, I don’t have the work load to justify it.
Maybe I have over priced on some things- my price list in the shop is ok, there’s no complaints with it, its the bespoke stuff I am rough on. Or when to charge artwork, streamlining the business. Its a learning curve.
I am now realising I cannot solely rely on selling quality. Joe bloggs is only interested in price.
I see the future to buy in some stock- a little risky and slow cash flow down for a little bit. And offer things cheaper, but not silly prices. Its a balance of shifting stock, but making money without killing myself working!
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No Mo it was a question lol
There are a lot of things mainly to do with the digital printing side of the business that I don’t have much of a clue about, pop ups, roll up banners, canvas printing & framing. I could go on but you get the idea I’m sure.
If I need a print for something like a customers van then I buy the print in from someone else but that’s about all I have done with digital stuff and I doubt that will change for me.Not so sure you are 100% right about the Trade suppliers though, I will admit that it is very difficult to find a supplier who won’t supply direct to the public and trying to get a reduced price from them has become very difficult but there are still firms out there that will only sell to the trade honest :lol1: :lol1:
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quote David Hammond:I am now realising I cannot solely rely on selling quality. Joe bloggs is only interested in price
Thats a good thought Dave, but please don’t believe in that statement fully, because your customer is always interested in quality too. You will have many different types of customer this week alone I have had these types:
Mrs X: Owns a multi million £ listed national heritage house in oodles of acres of grounds. Yobs pulled down one of the two wooden signs on her rather large gates at the end of the very long driveway. replaces both signs with hand made mahogany painted white with gloss black vinyl on for £120 each. One phone call from her PA gets the job done with us. Happy as larry no need to shop around.
MRY: Brings in 4 corroded aluminium face plate dials from a selection of vintage petrol pumps, normal bloke not rich. Asks me if I can replicate them, we talk about substrates, metalic vinyls and other methods. No money mentioned he says get them done and let me have the bill.
MISSQ: Opening a hair salon on Monday in affluent village, forgot to order signs (1800×300 & 450 x 900 on di-bond), calls me on wednesday, "can you do them and fit before Monday?" answer "Yes".. "Will it be more than £250?" answer "not much more" "can y=I pay you by card now?" answer "Oh ok if you insist"
MRB: "OW much for a full wrap matey boy?" me, "depends on what you want" bloke, "well if it’s more than 500 quid you can go sing swanee" me, "swaaaaneeee how i love ya, How I love ya, my dear old swaneee…la la la" bloke, " smart arrse, can I bring me van in for you to have a look at" me, "If you want to get it done for less than £1k you can go and sing I’m leaving on a jet plane" him, " I don’t know the words, I’ll just go get me van"
So, don’t assume that’s just the way it is, just be prepared for the ones that are like that with a fistfull of reasons why the shouldn’t be like that. Let the ones go that are going to take the p!ss, turnaround the ones that are chancing their arm, and love cherish and kiss the arrrses of the ones who want the best job and service regardless of cost!
Rule number one….
"The customer is ALWAYS right"Rule number 2…..
"When the customer is wrong… refer back to rule number one!" 😉 -
LOL martin: Nice, definitely agree with you there, there are some suppliers who are strictly trade only, but there is always someone down the road who’s not doing trade only selling the same thing to mr public (unless it’s unique)..
Truth is we only used to get trade prices because we bought in bulk, thats how it went. Supplier makes a million products and sell cheap, lots of us buy thousands of those products so we can sell several for more money to people who can only afford a few.
sadly that’s not really the case now, but those of us who have the ability to still buy large amounts can get the trade prices, but as in my case, mostly i buy just a few now and then with the occasional large purchase when needed.
Supply and demand!
Dave I only go through that much paper because one of my products uses about 2-3 meters of it at a time, it’s my best seller. I sell between 40-50 most months with a good margin, which is much better now because when I started I had to do lots of design work for them, but now i have done a few thousand I have a library of unique designs that covers just about everything, so really a bespoke design for something that use to take me an hour is just a 10 min text and image change now, but i still charge the same price, in fact i keep putting it up by a few £ every month lol.
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Suppose you’re right mo.
I am still selling quality, just offering an alternative material to suite a lesser budget. A 120gsm blue back paper isn’t shite.
I have customers who openly say, that’s a bit more than I was planning on spending, and I work with them to give them what they want, at their budget.
Others don’t compromise and expect you to drop the prices, just because they"ve not budgeted enough, or think they know it all.
Its like they tell me ‘don’t laminate it, I don’t need it’ I inform them it doesn’t work like that- I sell quality, and its not worth saving what in the bigger picture is pennies, and reduce the signs durability.
I have a product in mind I plan to sit down and market, and trial. I think these days we need to find that something different.
We tend to push the fact we start each design from scratch, but I suppose things need to change. I could when I am quiet do some templates, for posters, banners, etc. I could then show the customer these, they pick one and it only costs a few quid, or even free with the poster/banner. Then charge design for anything additional…
My dad (self employed designer) and the other chap I share an office/shop with kind of sit back and go with the flow- everyone gets credit with them. I’ve tried to kick them into touch. We have agreed prices, and have the simplest thing a pricelist! We need to sit down and put some packages together.
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Good shout Dave, one of the problems I find with design and in particular with Joe Bloggs, is that every man and his dog thinks their a designer now just because they can use photoshop and most of them couldn’t design a decent birthday card if the truth be known. however, mostly, Joe Bloggs doesn’t know what good design is (especially when it comes to effective advertising) so he thinks that 18 year old nephew Tristan who is at uni with a lap top and a few lungfuls of marijuana is an awesome designer. And generally Joe Bloggs is related to, or emotionally attached to said spotty, free loading, stoned and living of the state student anyway, so he will never be convinced that really… it’s all a load of "Cohones"
having said that, we, as designers, mix with, share ideas and often discuss designs and we are always striving for excellence, which means that what we think is complete cow dung often looks fine to the untrained eye!
When a customer says to me "It’s more than i was planning to spend" I say "Not really, what you want to buy, costs more than you thought it would" and to be honest, unless they where in the same trade as us, how the bloody hell would they know what it was going to cost in the first place? lol
What they are really think is, I want to buy an X, I have no idea how much they are, so i will guess its about £50 I hope it’s not more than that!
As long as we manage expectations we should be fine…. so with that in mind I handle customers like that….. like this…
They will ask so how much is that? Even if you have told them everything that the job entails, please don’t assume they listened to you, because they didn’t, all they where thinking about was money and cost at that point.
This is where I confirm what they want done.. so mr customer you want 3 of x fitted on y to last x years, with y design and abc quality? I’m building a picture of the cost in their mind and at the same time I’m telling them, no sorry, i’m SELLING them (Sell it don’t tell it) every Little detail that goes in to the job. See what i mean? I managing their expectations, so what are they thinking now possibly? "OMFG….. This is going to cost a fortune with all that work that needs to be done"…. Brilliant, that’s exactly where you want them to be thinking, because the chances are, when you do deliver your price you will now be quite a lot lower than they expected even though you may still feel you have over quoted.
Don’t be surprised if you customer tries to order at this point, if he does, then take his bloody money and don’t try and over sell, get it signed. We often miss buying signals, like nodding heads and positive reactions and we go on to destroy the sale by over selling, giving them a chance to re think it and talk themselves out of it. (I have fallen victim to thi soooo many times it’s not funny)… when they want to buy, let them!
AAAAARG, sorry i got on to rambling on about sales again….. buggher me its 1am, i gotta go sleep, have a wrap coming in tomorrow…. Bloke with van 🙂 £1200…… sleep well guys and have a great weekend
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You’re not rambling at all mo. Sales is equally important as the design and production.
Really like your idea of explaining all the details, make the customer think its really expensive, then hit them with a surprising price. They know they’re getting a quality job, with many hours of labour, specialist equipment, but for a surprisingly reasonable price!
You’ve given me some fantastic idea’s, from many threads, and I really should collect these together in my folder. I need to study my price it right guide so I have more of an idea what things should cost off the top of my head.
I think some more examples of work we’ve done around the place so they can see what the £20-40 quid can get them. Seeing is believing. Wish I hadn’t thrown out the crap leaflet someone bought in the other week and re-designed. He loved it!
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David, the price it guide is a useful tool to have but do remember it is just that A Guide. You should be working your prices out using your own figures and just use the guide to make sure you are in the right ball park.
You also need to have a good idea of what your local competition is charging and what they will supply for that money.
I wouldn’t give prices off the top of my head personally, might be OK for someone like Mo who is a salesman but I would have them written down in a book with examples, to me it just looks like right to show the customer something and give the price at the same time. I don’t know for sure but I sometimes wonder if customers think you just made up a figure in your head when you do that.Other thing I would say is when you explain to a customer what is involved you do it in plain English that they will understand rather than try and baffle them with technical jargon they won’t understand. My own experiences would suggest that most customers do listen when you explain things to them at the start but it doesn’t do any harm to go over it again before you give them the price.
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Good advice martin.
I have printed some mock up signs showing basic, intermediate, complex, part and full colour layouts, so can show a customer, and they can point at what they do and don’t like.
I only did this last week- more advice from the site maybe even from you – so I can get a clear picture of what they want, show them the materials.
I do have pictures of a few signs I have done (strangely isn’t many) and a price. But I may do similar to price it right, work out my prices on a sign of each layout at different sizes and keep it in my file.
I could really get pictures of other signs, and work out prices for those. I won’t say I’ve done it so its not false but as an example sign.
I am always warey of checking out competition prices- never sure how’s best to go about it.
I have a fast signs franchise right around the corner, and several shops in the nearest shopping areas…. Its fierce out there. I need to market my business in these areas to at least get enquiries from there.
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We sell Mosquito roller banners at 1m x 2m for £90.00 plus vat on unlaminated stoplite material.
Anyone need any!! 😀
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