Versa Camm Trade Pricing

[Robert Lambie]

i always say go fo around the £50 mark a square metre mate..
i know you can go lower and still get good profit but you know the saying, “you can be a busy fool” if your laminating the prints i definately think you should be charging no less.. at the end of the day you may have to undercut to get a job but at least your going in at the right price.

[Rodney Gold]

50 quid a sq meter is VERY high for the Trade Robert , it’s even very high for medium volume work unless you are the only player in town.
We work on under 25 quid a sq meter for 10sq meter + jobs and about 30 quid for less then those meterages provided artwork is “ready to print”.
Premium vinyl here is about 4.50 a sq meter and the worst ink usage you can possiby get is about 20ml per sq meter (carts here cost 50 quid for 220ml (effectively 200ml) ) thus its about 25 pence per ml. Generally 15ml is what you actually use , but total cost shouldnt be more than 10 quid a sq m and is more likely to be around 7-8.
We are actually going to stop doing trade and high volume work with our soljet. In terms of high volumes the industry is way too cut throat
There are people doing digital printing here at under 10 quid a sq meter and the biggest guys in town have dropped their prices to about 14 quid (to their customers ,not trade). The smaller signguys over here tend to give you mickey mouse stuff with rediculous deadlines and their knowledge of formats and correct artwork is generally very poor and you get blamed for the wrong colour or the poor results generated from their low rez graphics. We are going to concentrate on very high definition and quality work , printing on exotic and unusual materials and are pushing our protected die cut decals like mad , these are VERY profitable areas.

[druiddesigns]

Hi

I was looking at around what rodney was talking, a few euro more for MD5 but the ball park.i am making a few euro and not killing the trade..

One thing that i have noticed is that the pricing is so hard to get right, some are way higher and some not making ends meat, (:) busy fools..

I think if you provide a good service on time you deserve a fair return,

It is a very complex issue (pricing) but an important one ,

Cheers

Richie

[Robert Lambie]

aahhhh sorry mate, wasnt reading your question properly. ‘TRADE pricing’

i was talking in general, i agree with the points made, but… i still wouldnt go an awful lot lower. maybe 10-15 pounds off. you are giving them a good quality print/laminated after all..
again, i would look at what the trade suppliers offer their prints for & try to maybe get around that mark.
when looking at prices, remember to look at them ‘like for like’. a while back i got stung buying in prints at 17 pound a square metre unlaminated. service was excellent but the prints were pixalated. i was only buying 3 coca cola adverts 1m x 1m and look pretty poor from 6 feet away. 😕
these were big suppliers and that was the price. stick 3-4 pound onto that laminated then increase the resolution to high quality and your up to about 30-35 pound.
i think for good quality prints, laminated, then 35 pound is a fair price for you to offer. the large trade suppliers can offer these prices based on the high volume of work they get in daily, but can you long term?

[Rodney Gold]

We charge about6-7 quid a sq meter for lams , but we are very cheap for that cos myself and the lam suppliers go back way way to when they were just a teeny org and we have kinda grown together and I know em well , so what happens is we get our lams at distributor price (40% discount minimum) so can go in at that level and make good money , but generally a high quality cast conformable lam is at thw 10-12 quid level , so 35 quid is pretty much spot on!! (Well done Robert;)
Thats EXACTLY the problem robert , the cheap guys do high volume low rez printing (the pixelation issue) and a LOT of the customers see digital printing spotty stuff viewed from a zillion meters back and dont even KNOW what a Soljet or a Grenadier etc can do – so when you come it at a price that is higher but with photorealistic graphics that POP , it’s a moot point , the cheap guy wins!!! That’s why we have decided to get out that market. Same thing happenes with POS pex fabrication , we are 20% higher then the cheapest guy and we lose out on the massive jobs , regardless of the fact that we use UHI (ultra high impact) pex that is impossible to break when dropped , is not stressed (and is about 1.4x the extruded price) , Regardless of the fact that the pex is laser cut with polished edges and our glueing is invisible , our bends are sharp etc etc , this doesnt matter a whit!!!! , if the co’s can save a penny or 2……………
I have decided that we will do furniture grade or better pex fabrication and charge an arm and a leg for it , deliver on time and deliver something you can inspect with a magnifying glass and see no fault in. I relish the opportunity to do the fiddly work no one wants to touch , we make more money:)