shop sign pricing,

[Phill Fenton]

Sorry Matt – But I will only reply to questions like this in exclusive UKSG members only forums.

How much did you quote 😀

[Justin Williams]

quote Matt Hards:

Hi i posted this in the quote section on the forum too, please help if u can, cheers matt

Had a phone call this morning for a shop sign. A small old shop. Requiring a 2835mm x 320mm sign, supplied for him to fit himself. He wants to screw and glue it. He wanted white fascia, yellow on blue text stretching length of sign.
So I quoted for a 5mm foamex gloss fascia, with yellow on blue text, and drop it off for him.
How much would you charge for this, as my price was way higher than two other quotes he had. More than double in fact.
I would be very interested in finding out, as I am usually very competitive with my pricing, some where middle of the road to other local companies.

Hi we had a similar job a while back, guy wanted to fit it him self, we would of charged £150.00 + fitting,
But for him to do it him self we charged him £120.00 supply only and let him struggle. which by all accounts he did.

What did you quote him?
jus

[Kevin Flowers]

Hi
just a quick question if it was £150 + fitting why did you then drop it to £120 cause he fitted it himself. The £150 didn’t include fitting anyway so you have basically lost an additional £30 because the man wanted to fit it.

Matt
if he as had quotes much lower than yours why hasn’t he gone with them, i think its either not like for like or the man his trying his luck. Sometimes you have to quote your price & then walk away.

Kev

[Dave Harrison]

Matt whatever you’re charging, its highly likely I’d be charging more because I never use foamex on shop fascias. .( IMO its not the right product for the job, even when hung ! ) quote for dibond or alupanel then at least if your quote is the highest you can argue you case by offering the best materials for the job !

[Justin Williams]

Hi Kev,

Purely because he beat me down on price either further, he was relentless about the price, & was under the impression that my price was including fitting, which it wasn’t.

So after many phone calls we gave in to him & dropped it to £120, more so just to get rid of him.

cheers

Jus

[Matt Hards]

Thankyou to you all for your replies and personal messages. All your quotes are very similar really. I quoted £140 for the sign personally. I have always found dibond to be a lot more expensive in comparison to foamex. maybe i havent found the right supplier. So for such a small size sign I decided to quote for foamex.
Anyway, the price he told me he had been quoted from two other compaines were £40 and £50 , I nearly laughed on the phone, lol, I told him that £140 was my price and there was no way i would lower it to anywhere close to that. That is one of many things ive learnt on here, as well as from friends in the trade, and thats to never lower your price, stick to what you have quoted, and quote fairly to begin with.

[Dave Harrison]

Matt I’m sure he must have been trying it on mate, no one in their right mind would quote such a stupidly low price. . !
Glad you stuck to your guns, It’s much better to walk away from jobs like that.

[Martin Pearson]

Matt, I find it hard to believe that anyone would be so low in price, even if you were working in your spare time for beer money and didn’t declare anything you would struggle to make anything at that sort of price.
Are you sure they didn’t quote him just for vinyl lettering for him to apply to the existing facia himself ?

[Matt Boyd]

i think hes trying it on matt! no way can anyone quote that price. i too would have priced it similar to your quote. its the oldest trick in the book, they tell you they have had quotes way lower and hope you will either match it or at least drop your price considerably!
matt

[autosign]

He’ll be pleased in the summer when that sign is warping all over the place:)

[Alan Wharton]

a sheet of foamx 3mtr x 320mm is what ? £5 ish, 6mtrs text (2 colour 3mtrs each) £8-12 ish so £17ish + markup £130-150 nice hrs work 😉

[David Rogers]

I did a similar job for a local shop – guy wants cheap..he gets ‘cheap’.

2@ 8′ x 14" 5mm white PVC + green vinyl – £160, now as it’s just a half sheet of foam, 1 colour of vinyl & a straight copy of a sign I made before I think that’s damn good!

Fitted it to his painted fascia with hi-bond d/s tape, evo-grip & some capped screws (stops all the warping)…will probably last longer than his business!

I would have put your one out at well, whatever I could get for it. £90 + fitting (£30) at the low end…£120+ fit at the top end.

Dave

[Martin Pearson]

Alan, where do you get your foam so cheap? I only used to use 751 so vinyl would have been at the top end of your pricing if not a little more. I am not sure of current prices for materials but I seriously can’t see anyone that is quoting £40 for this job being legitimate so they are unlikely to be able to buy materials quite so cheaply.

[Dave Harrison]

Alan I’d also like to know. . . £5 ? for a 10×5 sheet of foamex ? ( are we assuming you have to buy a fresh sheet for the job!) are you buyng this stuff by the tonne ! :lol1:

Even if I had the correct size of foamex off cut collecting dust in my work shop, and the guy wanted stock colours. I’d still want between £150-£175 plus fitting !

I see absolutely no point in under selling my work. . if you give it too em dirt cheap once, they’ll want it dirt cheap forever !

[Matt Hards]

yes i think he may have been trying it on too. Its nice to hear everyones ideas on quoting too, makes me feel better to know im doing it all the same way. my foamex, 5mm in 8×4 sheets in white, i get from a local supplier at £25 a sheet. Is this about right to what you guys pay. I try to stick to a local supplier, also makes it easier, dnt have to wait on deliverys, just go over and pick it up as i need it.

[Luke Lansdell]

"Even if I had the correct size of foamex off cut collecting dust in my work shop, and the guy wanted stock colours. I’d still want between £150-£175 plus fitting !

I see absolutely no point in under selling my work. . if you give it too em dirt cheap once, they’ll want it dirt cheap forever !

quote :

”

I totally agree with you Dave.
If you price this up ‘properly’ what about cost like- rent, equipment usage, layout time, application time, phone time (initial contact time), all very short time allocations I know but once you add them all up you start to get to the £150-£175 mark. If there are ‘cowboys’ out there selling this sort of stuff for £50 then obviously they are not running a company and are doing it for beer money and at that not a lot of beer!!
My view is to stick to the price you originally quoted (with allowance for acceptable discounts) and maintain that your product and service are superior to your competitors.

We to have the attitude that foamx is a NO NO for facias!

quote :

[Martin Pearson]

Dave you are quite right, when I was working I was a busy fool as Peter would say, I used to do work cheaper than I should have been doing it because I was always listening to people saying they could get it cheaper elsewhere, I ended up with loads of customers all wanting work done for nothing. Do one job cheap, they tell their mates and before you know it you have loads of the wrong type of customer. I ended up working 24/7 for next to nothing and made myself so ill I couldn’t work at all.

[David Arch]

I’d put that out around £95. The only reason is that I have huge amounts of dibond lying around that are off cuts of about that size, thats £95 in my pocket for a job someone else paid for the materials for.

As a note I buy foam from the local plastics place at £16 a sheet, discount if I buy 10 or more, large orders will get it down to £13.50 a sheet +VAT.

[David Rogers]

RE: Alan’s £5 sheets of material…that was pro-rata.

Still, a good quality 10×5 is about £35 to £40 or 8×4 at £18 to £20.

Think about it this way – you can spend 6 hours (total) on a vinyl only vehicle livery for £250…or you could churn out 10 of those signs in the same time for £90 each…I KNOW what makes more economical sense to me. It’s NOT a ‘busy fool’ if you can generate more profit for the same amount of time. The fact that it was just ONE sign – an hours work for £100 ish – say £80 gross profit, less rent, wages etc. still leaves you with a good margin.

It’s a 9×1 bit of foam with a bit of vinyl stuck to it, not a digitally printed di-bond masterpiece! If some of these estimates are to be honestly believed (and I seriously doubt anybody would get away with flogging it for £175 + fitting) – it would be like selling an 8×4 – 5mm white foam board with two colour vinyl for £600!! That’s fantasy numbers…di-bond or alloy perhaps, and even the it’d have to be something a bit special, not a bit of foam.

Granted, WE know what the material is, and would rarely sell it as a fascia sign to be screwed up (figuratively sometimes), but as I said before – customer wants cheap…gets ‘cheap’. You tell them it’ll warp if they don’t do it right…if they still want it who am I to deny myself the sale.
I’ve NEVER had a ‘cheap’ sign damage my reputation as the people who buy them are made fully aware of the materials properties and that it is a low-end grade…reflected in the price they pay. Much like those who buy ‘premium’ quality items expect zero problems, long life & immaculate finishes are willing to pay the going rate for those.

Anyway, you take what you can reasonably expect to sell something for in YOUR locality. I pitch so as to be perceived as ‘value for the money’, with personal, enthusiastic service that although I may be more expensive than some, the repeat custom generated with an interactive approach FAR outweights the ‘one big hit’ that another local company does (and has a worsening reputation for). If the customer ‘believes in you’ they won’t question your prices, design or look alsewhere.

[Martin Pearson]

Dave, you would need 1/4 of a 10 x 5 or half an 8 x 4 so on your figures you are still looking at about a tenner for foam which is double Alans £5, not that it really matters anyway because I still don’t see how anyone can knock this out at £40 and make a living, I would agree with you that some of the quotes seem to have been a little on the high side but we are back to the differences in price depending on location debate again. The lowest anyone has said they would have supplied it at is £90 which is still more than double the price Matt said one company quoted.

[Alan Wharton]

5mm 8×4 foamx/foamalite i think they call it is only £25ish from Pyramid so if you are using 1/2 on a job thats £10ish 751c price on paperco price forum although if they want cheap cheap i use jac’s vinyl £1 mtr, i had the same problem a month ago a guy wanted i 30’x3′ for nothing i blanked the job but he did come back a week later and ok’d my price though so stick to your pricing if you do a cheapy for some1 you may get later on down the line ‘but you did joe bloggs sign for £x much cheaper than you are quoting me ,Why’ 🙄

[David Rogers]

quote martin:

Dave, you would need 1/4 of a 10 x 5 or half an 8 x 4 so on your figures you are still looking at about a tenner for foam which is double Alans £5, not that it really matters anyway because I still don’t see how anyone can knock this out at £40 and make a living, I would agree with you that some of the quotes seem to have been a little on the high side but we are back to the differences in price depending on location debate again. The lowest anyone has said they would have supplied it at is £90 which is still more than double the price Matt said one company quoted.

OK, Alan’s £5 was a bit ‘off the cuff / optimistic’…but you can get some really crappy stuff for under £10 an 8×4 sheet, and I’ve come across some companies that put stuff out for next to nothing…like £60 for 8×4’s JUST to get the job – it’s not to make a living, it’s just ‘busy fool’ syndrome & stop others from getting it! £40 would barely cover costs for a ‘proper’ business, but I bet somebody would. Like a local guy that was doing ‘transit liveries’ for £50 a pop – they looked appalling, was the cheapest of cheap materials…and he was inundated with fly-by-night joiners etc…and went out of business (had the tax, unemployment agency , suppliers etc ALL on the hunt in the end!

Dave

[Dave Harrison]

quote :

but as I said before – customer wants cheap…gets ‘cheap’. You tell them it’ll warp if they don’t do it right…if they still want it who am I to deny myself the sale.

It’s all very well warning the customer in advance, but watch their selective memory take effect when it warps 6 months later ! They’ll soon be on the phone. .. so that sign you knocked out for £90 becomes a £90 headache you wish you’d never supplied !
With the greatest respect Dave, if I am going to rip a customer off by supplying a product not fit for purpose then I might as well do it properly and charge them a fortune for it ! :lol1:
Joking aside, I would advise the customer on the correct materials and price accordingly.

[Peter Normington]

If fitted properly, foamex should not warp, it has been used in millions of signs, worldwide,

I agree dibond looks better and is my choice for coloured substrata.
But there is no reason why budget signs should not be made from it.
I said in another post I would photo some foamex signs that I fitted more than 5 years ago, they have not warped, and still look good.
I must try and find the time to do it.

Dont exclude foamex as a substrata, it is cheap as chips, and can make you a good profit

Pter

[David Rowland]

lowering your price to beat a silly cheap quote is pointless… omit defeat immediately and get them off the phone 😎 , your loosing money by talking to them… if they ring you back then its like they didn’t really have a second quote and trying it on 😕

[Chris Dowd]

quote David Rogers:

I’ve come across some companies that put stuff out for next to nothing…like £60 for 8×4’s

We have a big (20,000 sq. ft. plus) company not a million miles away from us knocking full colour 8′ x 4′ 5mm foamex at £45 – ridiculous!

[Alan Wharton]

Is that to buy the foamx or is that a made up sign with text on it chris?

[Chris Dowd]

That’s full colour print direct to substrate including the foamex £45 to end users!

[David Rogers]

quote Dave Harrison:

quote :

but as I said before – customer wants cheap…gets ‘cheap’. You tell them it’ll warp if they don’t do it right…if they still want it who am I to deny myself the sale.

It’s all very well warning the customer in advance, but watch their selective memory take effect when it warps 6 months later ! They’ll soon be on the phone. .. so that sign you knocked out for £90 becomes a £90 headache you wish you’d never supplied !

As I said previously, I’ve NEVER had a cheap sign damage my reputation *, and I’ve been at this for some time. If I tell them "it’ll warp mate" and two weeks later when it’s a sunny day it does, why are they then MORE than happy to buy their next signs off me, get their vehicles done etc. Why? Because I told the truth and didn’t say "it’ll be fine…", and besides it would’ve been on offer with a di-bond option "this won’t warp etc." but it’s gonna cost x-amount more.

quote :

With the greatest respect Dave, if I am going to rip a customer off by supplying a product not fit for purpose then I might as well do it properly and charge them a fortune for it ! :lol1:
Joking aside, I would advise the customer on the correct materials and price accordingly.

greatest of respect, joking aside or not, suggesting that i may be ‘ripping off’ my customers is a bit below the belt!! I’ve been at this for long enough to know foamex IS a suitable substrate for the purpose and I don’t need to hide the fact that it’s the ‘cheap option’ from my customers – some of whom I’ve had for over 10 years. IF used properly…and thank you Peter for backing this up. If fitted correctly, ie. bonded / stuck to the surface not just a screw every two feet it won’t warp. It’s NOT a premium quality product, but it does have a place in the market where budget is a primary concern to the client. (However the initial thread was not over it’s suitability, simply the price).

* Once when a dopey idiot used BLUE-TAC to put up his 2’x2′ foamex sign and it broke when it fell off his door.

Dave

[Martin Pearson]

Dave I think the guys brother or a close friend must live round this way judging by some of the junk I see when I go out. I use to try explaining to customers that a good livery would be remembered by people and although it might cost a bit more to do initially it would bring them in 10 times the amount of work so would be far better for them. I stopped doing this because it just seemed to go in one ear and out the other, not sure but I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them just thought I was trying to get more money out of them so I made more profit.

[Dave Harrison]

Apologies Dave, probably not my best choice of words. . .
😳 ( just re-read and it does sound dodgy ! ) it was meant to be light hearted to illustrating my personal feelings on PVC Foamboards / foamex when used for fascias, not for suggesting you are a rip off merchant so sincerely sorry to offend !

PVC Foamboards/Foamex is a great substrate no questions, but for exterior use it has limitations. Not only does it have to be fitted correctly ( which in this case we have no control, cos our customer is fitting ) if used outside to get any real life from the product the edges also need to be sealed.
I appreciate that this material has been used successfully for exterior signs in the past. However with all the variables mentioned, I am still very uncomfortable using it when there are far more suitable products available.
( regardless of what the customers budget is ! )

[David Rogers]

Ah, OK Dave! Offence removed! LOL

True, the ‘variability’ of foamex as a substrate can be from ‘amazing’ to a ‘steaming pile of poo’ depending on the price you pay, what you put on it, how it’s mounted & the weather it will be subjected to.

If ‘cheap crap’ that you get for £10 a sheet it’s a diabolical material and cracks & crumbles after a year (like polyprop flute), at the other end of the scale, a good quality foam, coated in a 7yr vinyl, in a frame (with hangers & proper joins) can last nearly as long as acrylic.

That said, I HAVE to have confidence that the material I offer is up to the job…or I’m out of one!

ps. I can’t say I’ve ever had issues with exposed edges on foam except some really poor quality 10mm I was supplied once – was almost ‘chalky’.