Does This Price Sound Reasonable????

[kdw75]

We recently lost a client that we had been dealing with for 3 years. They didn't do a whole lot of printing, but it was regular. We had always gone out of our way to be helpful and work with them, and their advertising agency, but the ad agency never deals with us for anything else. At the insistence of this client the ad agency had dealt with us over the years though.

One of the regular jobs we did was 11,000 4/4 fliers on 100# gloss text, creased and letter folded. Then they wanted them delivered to 3 different locations in a 80 mile radius, and they had to be delivered on different days. We had been doing this for just over $900. They placed the order with us as usual, but then called back the following day and cancelled it. After asking why, the ad agency told me that they had found another printer that would do it for about $500. I then contacted the woman at the clients office who we had dealt with, and after apologizing and thanking us for how much we had catered to them over the years, they just couldn't overlook such a huge savings, and that they had made the decision to move to that printer for all their projects.

This smells fishy to me. I really can't imagine anyone doing it that cheap. They are fanatical about color accuracy as well.

 

[gordo]

Talk to your estimator to confirm that you can't do the job at that price point without losing money.
If the other printer is local to you (i.e. shares a similar cost of business) they may have just low-balled the quote to keep their presses running.

 

[Slammer]

You never know, if they are as fanatical about colour as you say they may be back cap in hand faster than you think.

 

[pippip]

Yeh, generally low ball prices like these don't facilitate fussy customers. I'd say you'll be hearing from them eventually.
Also, just because they low ball on this product doesn't mean they low ball across the range on the other products.

Still never nice to loss a customer.

 

[keith1]

Agree with the others. Can be done but that's pretty cheap. Especially to deliver to 3 locations. I'll also bet they skip the creasing (scoring) before folding so if there's a nice solid ink running through the fold, hope it cracks

 

[MailGuru]

A couple of questions:

(1) What was the finished size of the flyer before the crease/fold?
(2) Are the flyers digital or offset?
(3) Are they static/generic print, or, do they have variables necessitating digital?

 

[KAMOULA]

I don't see how any Printer can do it for $500, I worked out the numbers and the Best I can do is $780 (offset), and that's cheaaaaaaap.

 

[kansasquaker]

That's basically materials x2. It sounds like gang run pricing to me. I'm sure their color will turn out just fine......

 

[KAMOULA]

The only way it can be done at that price, if gang Printed and Customer pays for UPS/Fedex Delivery to All 3 locations.

 

[Tim-Ellis]

We had a sales woman who gave a two colour price for a six colour job. We had to just swallow it. It was a huge print run. Maybe your rival just got the sums wrong.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I ran the numbers and came up with $475 to deliver it to 3 places, about 50 miles apart each.

Kidding - it really sounds like either a intentional lowball or someone made a mistake on the quote and is running with it.

We had a sales woman who gave a two colour price for a six colour job. We had to just swallow it. It was a huge print run. Maybe your rival just got the sums wrong.

Tell us more!

 

[Tim-Ellis]

Tell us more!

Well... We spent three weeks trying to see if we could produce a CMYK plus two specials job out of just two inks. This was ten years ago so at the time we had no spectral colour information to help us. We knew we were flogging a dead horse but we had to try to get it to work.

Guess what happened the sales woman when the next round of redundancies came up.

Ok ...ok... to be fair the CMYK was only there to give the impression that the job was printed on stained/distressed recycled brown kraft board. She thought if we used an actual recycled brown kraft board then all would be well. The two specials were Navy blue and a vivd orange. The blue could maybe create the stained/distressed look but the orange ... well the orange ... vivid orange (sigh) ... on brown board .... when every pack of recycled brown board you open up is a totally different colour ... DOH!

 

[kdw75]

It was a simple 8.5 x 11 letter fold. Digital or offset would probably be fine and they are static.

We bid one about six months ago for the county. Simple little black mailer reminding people to register to vote and there were roughly 30,000 of them to mail out. They sent back the bid results with what each of us bid on it. Two of us were within $80 of each other, but the third printer priced it $200 less than what the postage should have been. We figured that must have been an estimating error.

The bad part to stories like these is that you rarely hear any kind of conclusion.

 

[AP90]

This job would have to be ran offset. I ran the click and paper cost for me doing it digitally and it came out to just over $630. And thats JUST paper and clicks. My guess, someone made an error. We had an error on some spiral bound books one time. We just honored the price and ate it. Chalked it up to a learning experience. I think we were able to not loose on it, but it sure didn't make any money.

I received some bid numbers back a while ago, and one of the bids really shocked me. Job was this:

28 page including cover
Cover: 4/4 plus varnish, 110# Gloss Cover
Interior: 4/4 80# text
Quantity: 24,000

Winning bid was $6800. Seemed a little low to me considering the cover and varnish. But oh well, if someone can make money at that, good for them.

 

[KAMOULA]

This job would have to be ran offset. I ran the click and paper cost for me doing it digitally and it came out to just over $630. And thats JUST paper and clicks. My guess, someone made an error. We had an error on some spiral bound books one time. We just honored the price and ate it. Chalked it up to a learning experience. I think we were able to not loose on it, but it sure didn't make any money.

I received some bid numbers back a while ago, and one of the bids really shocked me. Job was this:

28 page including cover
Cover: 4/4 plus varnish, 110# Gloss Cover
Interior: 4/4 80# text
Quantity: 24,000

Winning bid was $6800. Seemed a little low to me considering the cover and varnish. But oh well, if someone can make money at that, good for them.

$6800 Doe not even cover the Price for Paper and Plates , Not including Printing and Binding. Some Printers should really get out of this Trade.
There was a time when Printing was a Skilled Trade and Everybody was making a good living at it. Now a Lot of printers just happen to have nice machines, but the skills aren't there...
They eventually go out of Business, but after driving a lot of printers out of business too...

 

[gordo]

[snip]

Winning bid was $6800. Seemed a little low to me considering the cover and varnish. But oh well, if someone can make money at that, good for them.

People don't get into printing to make money. They get into it to...errr...uhhh...I forget why. Need some forum help with this.

 

[MailGuru]

Maybe this will explain it.......................

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...50031AD1267ACC6A273050031AD1267AC&FORM=VRDGAR

 

[kdw75]

If printers were smart they would have lobbied for a law that requires a license to be a printer then publish MSRPs. If you don't follow them you get your license pulled and can't practice. If you can't make a profit, just hire a lobbyist.

I makes me cringe thinking about the new high speed sheetfeds and just how much work it takes to keep them busy. Too many hungry presses to be fed. Oversupply.

 

[Slammer]

People don't get into printing to make money. They get into it to...errr...uhhh...I forget why. Need some forum help with this.

For the betterment of mankind, that´s my take and I´m sticking with it.

 

[AP90]

If printers were smart they would have lobbied for a law that requires a license to be a printer then publish MSRPs. If you don't follow them you get your license pulled and can't practice. If you can't make a profit, just hire a lobbyist.

I makes me cringe thinking about the new high speed sheetfeds and just how much work it takes to keep them busy. Too many hungry presses to be fed. Oversupply.

Here we go again, more government regulation.....