should your website advertise prices online?

[Jill Marie Welsh]

I don’t think I’d do it.
For two reasons:
Your competition can see what you are charging and easily undercut you,
and it can really limit you.
You might say it’s such and such price for X size banner.
But the person might have really complicated artwork or want twenty revisions, so in reality you’re not making diddly squat on the job.
If you are really wanting to post pricing you could preface it by saying something like
"Most jobs starting at $99" (or whatever)
I wouldn’t do it though.
Love….Jill
PS
Even putting something like "Call us for your custom quote"
opens the door for them to talk to a real person (you) probably making the sale easier.

[Andrew Martin]

Thanks Jill
One of my concerns was my local competition seeing what i charge and then lowering their prices, getting into a price war is something i cant afford to do.

[Robert Lambie]

i wouldn’t put the prices for reasons already mentioned…. you could put a link with a contact form to complete and on receiving it, you send them a pdf with your price examples. this is no real different from someone calling you on the phone. the benefit is, they are completing the form and answering all the questions you want to ask before handing over the info.

[Peter Normington]

I actually think that you need to put your prices on the web, as you say you are doing fixed price/size stuff, so as long as artwork and extras are additional, your competion for this type of work in nationwide, so I would not worry about your local firms.
I am looking at it from the customers side, they do a google for banners, and say ten come up, yours amongst them., most will have some sort of pricing structure.
This does not just apply to banners but any item. If 8 0r 9 of the sites show prices, they are the ones that a customer will contact first, why would they call a site for prices?

I know its different for bespoke signage, but even so, many companies will put some pretty good guides to price, so the customer has an idea before making contact.

If I wanted to buy a run of the mill pair of pants, and did a web search, I would not expect to have to make a phone call or submit a form for a price, would you?

Well thats my take on it.

Peter

Peter

[Robert Lambie]

quote Peter Normington:

If I wanted to buy a run of the mill pair of pants, and did a web search, I would not expect to have to make a phone call or submit a form for a price, would you?

Peter

Doubt you would find Deep purple, belly warmer Y-fronts anyway mate… 😉 :lol1:

[Paul Hughes]

I am with Peter on this one, people want a price there and then for standard items, bespoke is different all together and need more information etc. they are not going to call you if they have already got half a dozen instant prices from web sites, Instant information is what the net is all about!

I am finding more and more the quicker you get a price to the customer the more chance you have of securing an order.

Also the price has to be what you pay, not ‘from’ or ryanair style price of £2.50ea which is really £90ea by the time you have add all the other items that you have to have with it. people are getting wise to this and have had enough of it, they want the price quick and easy.

Paul

[Martin Pearson]

OK some might say this is sitting on the fence but I don’t think there is a right or a wrong answer to this question and what you do all depends on what direction you want your business to go.

Peter is right in what he says about the local competition not mattering as you are looking to compete on a national scale so your prices will need to be inline with what others are charging for the same product. Some people seem to be charging really silly money for work which I suppose you can do if you are looking at high volume sales. Most people who are looking online for pricing are looking for the cheapest product that they can get and it’s difficult to try and explain to them differences in quality if they don’t know anything about the product they are buying so will generally buy the cheapest they can find which may not be the best.

If your not looking to compete in that sort of market and want to keep most of your work local then I wouldn’t put prices online at all, that way you won’t look expensive to local people who have seen prices much cheaper elsewhere. Robert’s idea about a link to a form is a good one as the customer can at least leave contact details for you to get back to them and may also feel that they are being involved in the process a bit if you ask a few questions about what they want.

[David Rowland]

website pricing, well i do have an opinion on it but I cant post it here…. there is a clue to what i think lol

[Peter Normington]

quote Robert Lambie:

quote Peter Normington:

If I wanted to buy a run of the mill pair of pants, and did a web search, I would not expect to have to make a phone call or submit a form for a price, would you?

Peter

Doubt you would find Deep purple, belly warmer Y-fronts anyway mate… 😉 :lol1:

Nah Purple is so yesterday I wear pink ones Rob

Peter

[Robert Lambie]

quote Peter Normington:

Nah Purple is so yesterday I wear pink ones Rob

Peter

Good good good, thats what i like to hear mate. for a minute i thought you were a man stuck in his ways… change is always good. Crotchless maybe OTT, but yeh never know… yeh just never know. 😉 :lol1:

[Robert Lambie]

Joking aside…

I still have to disagree. We are sign makers, 9/10 products we sell are designed for the individual. so bespoke work is really what we do…

Fine, if you want to offer "off the shelf" products such as cheap bog standard health and safety signs and the like. then list your prices…
I also believe the budget shopper will start his search on eBay before tirelessly searching dozens of sign makers website.

Lets say You list your banner/sign price on your website… that’s what they expect to pay!
by the time the inquiry has come in, you then get asked for this in the design, that in the design and so on… all of a sudden you have to introduce the extra costs for your time. here is where your Internet Budget Shopper walks away… "armed with your design"… that’s if its not "The Good Reverend John Smith" simply wanting 250 banners and will pay you in advance! 😉

Don’t get me wrong, I know fine that there are many products and scenarios having the prices would help, i just think that as a sign maker, we offer more of a face to face line of work.
use your website to show your customers… "whether it be local, or someone browsing the net", what you can do for them. what you have done for your previous customers, as well as give them a bit of reassurance investing in your products and services is the way to go.

then again, if you really want to offer a budget line of products, why not have your own website as pucker as you can, but have another website under a different front/name selling the budget stuff. this way your local competition do not know its you… Hell there is enough "Trade Suppliers" doing it these days… :lol1:

My point is, build your website to reflect your company. if its pushing budget products and prices, that’s the type of customer you will attract. where as the more reputable firms will look further ahead…

even peter’s pantees, ahem… i mean underwear example…

Two websites side by side…

Site 1 – Sports a skinny pale bloke wearing Grey saggy pants with a little tea stain at the crotch. [ 3 Pairs for a £1 ]

Site 2 – Sports a Tanned Greek God standing in the latest Calvin Klein Ball Boasting Boxers from Fabio & Fabio Mens Clothing Inc. Est-1968 [ Click here & Submit for more info ]

My point is, if you have a reputable business selling great signs . let your work sell itself.

Maybe its just me, But I would rather do 5 well paid jobs a week, than 50 small stressful jobs a week.

sorry, im babbling again… where was i? :lol1:

[RayRosher]

Very Good Babbling Rob and Almost exactly what I was thinking,
And Yes I have /Am doing the cheap and nasty 3 for a £1 Crap,
it’s very basic bread and butter money, But that’s all
Any decent jobs come in and the B&B stuff gets put to one side…

[RayRosher]

Oh!
And thanks by the way
I now have an image of Peter and his Pink undies in my head,(oogle) :yikes: :yikes: (oogle)
THANK YOU SO MUCH! ROB!

[Peter Normington]

Rob I agree entirely, but the original post was for fixed price, fixed size banners.
if that is the product then you need to keep up with the competition,
banners by nature are cheap temporary signs, most buyers dont give a dam about a good design, they are just buying on price, and are happy with their own publisher designs, made by their nephew, or niece (cant be sexist) so you cant convince them to spend more than they see on line, and they can even design their own for free on some sites.
so joking apart, why do these companies make a good living selling cheap banners, and advertising the prices?
its because they have a demand, and can sell at a price with a good profit,
yes we are "signmakers" but that does that exclude someone that has invested 60k on a printer just to make banners at a low cost? yes i would also rather do 3 good paying jobs than 10 lesser paying ones, but its not a valid arguement, it depends on the profit and loss account at the end of the year,
damon hirst can charge tens of thousands for one job, but most of business has to produce at the optimum cost. If you have employees, it is better to make 10% profit on a long run, than -1% on a big job

Easyjet and supermarkets like Lydl etc, pile them high and sell them cheap

Peter

[Martin Pearson]

Sorry Peter but I have to disagree with your last comment, I don’t believe that many of them do sell with a good profit, some of the companies I have seen are using them almost as a loss leader to try and attract other more profitable work and some are only turning a profit by volume selling. You can’t do that as a small company or one man band, well I don’t believe you can anyway.

[Peter Normington]

quote Martin:

Sorry Peter but I have to disagree with your last comment, I don’t believe that many of them do sell with a good profit, some of the companies I have seen are using them almost as a loss leader to try and attract other more profitable work and some are only turning a profit by volume selling. You can’t do that as a small company or one man band, well I don’t believe you can anyway.

Martin, there are many companies that just sell banners, no hidden costs, and no you cant do it as a one man band, so that is why I dont think banners are really part of a signmakers trade anymore, I can buy them in cheaper than make them myself, and this has been pointed out on the boards many times, so it is has become a specialised trade, the people who are making money are the ones that invest in quicker machines and specialise, it’s competetive out there, I dont even try to compete

Peter

[Martin Pearson]

Peter, yes I know there are and like you I don’t try to compete with them, in fact I can’t remember the last time I made a banner for a customer.

Maybe I picked up your post wrong, I guess you are saying that they make a good profit overall and not per item. If that’s the case then you are probably correct. If your churning out thousands of them even with little profit per banner it will mount up.

[Peter Normington]

Martin.
well sort of.
its down to the profit margin if you use your printer once in a while, or all the time,
Example.
I print 1 sq per day at a premium price of £200 (grossly exaggerated) and that is all I do so very easy,
so call it £195 gross profit based on materials only
I could print 50 sqm per day @ £20 which will gross £750 based on the same principal.
I only have to organise the rip, press the button and go for a pint while the printer
gets on with it,
so now the few high paying jobs are put into perspective,
yes rob, I agree I would rather do less for more, but the real world is often different to what we would prefer
and as an aside, the well paid jobs are usually more stressful than the cheap ones,

Peter

[Robert Lambie]

Peter…

you are very wrong by assuming just because the sign maker charges more, he has to be printing less?

These folk "as you say" that "don’t give a damn" about their "company image" and get their kids to design the banner will probably be in for one or two small banners at most.
this being the case, the small company charging very little to snatch up the banner budget buyer over the net. will in turn have to "find" a high volume of customers to earn the same amount.

also, are you telling me the budget buyer guy coming in with the word document containing a banner designed with a 30kb thumbnail image and Algerian Font is only demanding the low price banner because hes purchasing in high volume? i wouldn’t think so, would you?

I do not know about you, but i find it easier to find one good "repeat" customer that’s willing to purchase at the going rate and maybe buy multiple signs, a van or two and maybe banners also. than find dozens of new budget sign purchasing customers on an ongoing basis week in week out.

so who is less stressed now? the sign maker trying to explain to Budget Bob that his image the size of a stamp wont blow-up to a 4’x2′ banner and that yellow algerian font on a white background might look great to him and bobby jnr… but just aint going to cut it when printed!
whilst your other customer Budget Bill Hickok’s 100gigabyte file he emailed you for his 4"x2" banner keeps crashing your RIP.
meanwhile back on the ranch, The Good Reverend John Smith has just canceled his £500 cheque for those 250 no. 8"x4" banners you delivered the day before?

as i say, there are obviously people out there willing to do so. best of luck to them, but my opinion is they are selling themselves short and doing nothing but devaluing our trade.

[David McDonald]

Hi All

Loads of good points of view on this thread.

Personally I won’t put pricing on my core website (apart from a limited number of specials), rather keep these to separate sites that aren’t obviously linked and are for specific product categories, ie. banners. I can then offer a value added service at a proper price plus a light touch service where you get exactly what you upload and no more.

Plus how many times have you been asked face to face by a customer to give an estimate on say a fascia and you’ve replied for example somewhere between £1000 – £2000, and the only figure they remember is £1000 and anything quoted above this thereafter is a problem? I think that could be the same for website prices.

I see a lot of sign makers advertise small, medium and large vans from (from in very small letters) £69, £99, and £129 (or thereabouts) – it would be interesting to know what percentage manage to get more for
work or are held to the bottom line figure because the customer won’t accept the ‘from’ bit?

Cheers
Macky

[Andrew Martin]

Some very good valid points on this topic and some food for thought too and it looks like the general opinion here to putting prices on the web is no.

Although I’m not trying to compete with the budget one off print boys, I would not mind a small piece of that market in between the more profitable jobs just to keep some money rolling in like RayRosher’s comment, so maybe a second website with prices is in order or possibly better still just a link on my site to a pdf brochure with prices including the budget ones.

[Martin Pearson]

David just my opinion but if you are advertising vans from ……. does it really matter if you get more from the customer or not. Easy to make a profit by just putting a name and telephone number in one panel on each side.

Of course if you also show the customer what else he could have if he digs a little deeper and how the extra money will sell his business that much better then you have the chance of the customer going for a different option.

Not that I do it myself but I can see how this could be used to get customers through the door so you can speak to them. Downside as I see it is you are going to attract far to many people who want the world for nothing.