Business Card Imprint Pricing

[lkr]

Hi all,

What are your experiences around business card imprints?

I know printers often sell them at a loss to ensure or garner other work from the customer, but when that doesn't happen (as is often the case), what do you do?

We recently re-priced our imprints to at least break even on single card orders, with a variable schedule reflecting a better price the more names ordered at a time.

Now we have customers screaming bloody murder over $20, threatening to take all their business elsewhere if we don't come up with a "win-win" solution. Well, unless I charge what I've indicated in the new price list, I will loose money on single card imprint orders. How can I change that and be win-win? And customers are shopping business card preprints around so much now that you can't make it up on that end...

We've been in business for more than 20 years and, without a doubt, nothing else in printing causes us as much stress and trouble as business cards. No other type of job seems to demand such tight margins or high levels of perceived compliance. Are we just getting cranky?

Just curious how people are handling this situation.

Thanks

 

[Dannymonky]

We charge 20 bucks for imprints too. It was break even til the camera broke and we had to go to metal plates. Now we lose on every one. Sometimes we try and wait til a few names come in and knock em out in 1 shot. But most cant wait.

Charge more for the shells or just keep hoping they bring in work that makes money.