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What price for lettering an artic curtain sider?
Morning all.
I’ve been asked to quote on lettering a 45′ curtain sided trailer. This thing is huge! 45′ long x 110" high available lettering space.
Firstly, I’m unsure whether to use vinyl, or stick with what I know best & use Apollo paints & paintmask.
Secondly, I’m stuck for what to charge the bloke. It’s got to be 2 days work for two men easily, but I’ve seen quotes bandied around for jobs like this before, & they varied between £800 – £3000. Will be two colours on a red curtain, silver & yellow, so more than likely two coats if I use paint.
All input greatly received!
Cheers,
Gwaredd.
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8 Replies
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Gwaredd,
Difficult to comment without knowing exactly how much stuff is on the curtains, and doubly difficult for me with very little experience in curtains, but if in doubt I always go back to basic principles.
You think it will involve sixteen hours of labour. These things always take longer than you think, so make it twenty to be safe. Multiply that by your hourly rate, as an example £25.00, to give you £500.00. Then add your material costs, with a mark-up, together with any other costs, travel, equipment hire (with a mark-up again) and that should give you a price you are happy with. I suspect that will come somewhere around £800.00, at the lower end of your range.
After that come the more intangible issues. Do you know your customer has had another quote for a thousand pounds, are you busy, or is the job going to be a pain? All reasons for sticking a bit on. On the other hand, if you are quiet and really want the work, you might consider dropping a little to make sure you get it.
I would have said that paint is the way to go, especially as it is what you know best. Always better to stick to what you are comfortable with – less chance of expensive cock-ups.
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Cheers John.
I suspect the customer hasn’t shopped around for another price, & to take in your other points, yes I am very busy at the moment, yes the job is likely to be a PITA & so is the customer!
As you mention hourly rates, I’d be interested to hear what everybody else charges. I’ve said it before, but I think us signmakers sometimes undervalue ourselves. We think nothing of paying a small independent garage £40 – £45 an hour for labour, as it’s the going rate, so that’s what I charge my time out at. I’m no less skilled than a mechanic, nor do I have lower overheads, so if it’s good enough for them…
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I can’t agree with you on hourly rates Gwarredd.
You are right on skill levels but I’ve done my time in the motor trade, and have many friends still in it, and I know that their overheads are greater than mine. Yes, they have a going rate, but it’s only a going rate because that’s what they must have to stay in business. I can charge a lower hourly rate and make more profit than they do because my overheads are lower.
Having said that, if you are talking about your personal labour rate, that’s a slightly different thing and I am more in tune with your thinking. For instance, if a job makes twenty quid net profit, after labour costs, for a couple of hours work then I’m not going to do it myself. On the other hand, if an employee does it then we are quite happy to take the job on. If I can make a tenner an hour from an employee’s time then I’ll take on as many as I can get. There’s a lot of employment agencies who work on a lot lower margin than that by purely selling other people’s time.
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Maybe your garage rates are different to mine where you live, but I, like you, did my time in the motor trade & the guys I worked for at the time have a small unit & a few blokes, the same as many sign makers. Same bills, business rates etc, but they charge £45 per hour, signmakers often less. Why? Materials & parts go on top of the labour bill in both cases. Much bigger garages charge £80+ per hour, but then they have a showroom to pay for & lots of smarmy salesmen. The £40 PH backstreet garages do not.
Let me ask you this. Would you strip the vinyl off a van in your unit for less than £40 per hour? We all know it’s a horrid job & there’s no real easy way of doing it. At the same time, the same customer is happy to pay his local garage £40 per hour for Kevin the YTS boy on £6.00 per hour, to change his brake pads. It takes him 20 minutes, but the customer is charged an hour ‘book time’ plus parts.
Like I said, us signmakers often undervalue ourselves. If we all stuck together with a sensible hourly rate like the garages do, maybe we could afford to shut at 5.30pm every night like they do & not work halfway into the evening?
Sorry, not having a go, just on a bit of a rant! 😉 :lol1:
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I think motor trade rates are similar around here. The garage I use charges £45 per hour in the nice new workshop they’ve just had built at a cost of half a million quid.
Another big thing is stocking costs. It was twenty years ago, so prices have moved on, but even then when I got out of the trade we had about £10k of parts in the stores, not to mention a £2k of fuel under the ground, plus oils and lubricants, tyres etc etc etc. All in all, about £15k.
In comparison, to start this business I bought £500 of stock. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
Don’t worry, I don’t think you’re having a pop. It’s just a friendly discussion. Rant on. 🙂 I’m not an apologist for the motor trade, but I do think they come in for a fair bit of unfair criticism.
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Ah, I see where you’re coming from now. The garages I’m referring to are proper ‘back street’ garages, repairs & MOT’s, not fuel forecourts. Sometimes old concrete buildings with cobwebs & old mechanics dripping fag ash whilst peering over a carburettor, not nice new steel cladded buildings with Kwick-fit types, & certainly not much stock or any fuel.
The only stock most of them keep is a big vat of oil & a few bulbs. If parts are needed, they just ring the local motor factors who deliver within the hour. Even little things like spark plugs. Heck, my vinyl & digital library stock is worth far more than what your average garage keeps now, and I’d say their gas analysers & diagnostic equipment is on a par with our ever changing software upgrades, plotters & digital equipment.
Sure they have to fork out for a ramp(s) initially, but we have to buy various access equipment, vans etc. I suppose my point is, although the jobs themselves are vastly different, the outlay & upkeep is pretty similar & the skill is certainly on a par, so why are we, as a collective, considerably cheaper? How much does a good Tailor charge per hour, or Builder/Plumber/Sparky?
God, this must make me sound really greedy!
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It’s not really greedy, the thing is that you may be using the wrong people to do the work.
Fair enough, you don’t want to strip vinyl for less than £40 per hour. And neither do I. So let’s not do it. Let’s use minimum wage, or below (enter the Eastern European folks) to do it. Pay ’em a fiver an hour and charge it out at twenty. We’ll do as much stripping as you like on those terms.
We have the same thing with travelling costs. If I send a highly qualified and well paid fitter out to do a job, then his hourly rate has to be covered when in reality the driving could be done by a minimum wage driver. I often have to explain this to customers and point out that it is in fact cheaper overall for them to send the van to us rather than us go to them.
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(mod-edit) please read board rules :police3:
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