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[kdw75]

About 18 months ago we started using new software for our pricing and while I feel pretty good about most of our prices, every so often I pick a handful of printers online, and compare our prices on a job to theirs. Well, today I quoted a price for a project and was told that we were $300 higher than another larger local shop, which is usually known for being the most expensive shop in town.

So I thought it might be fun to see where other people come in on this project. I will tell you our price, but please no tweaking your price.

2800 4/4 Invitations
7x10 creased and folded down to 5x7 printed on 80# gloss cover
2800 White A-7 Envelopes Printed in Process on the front and addressed from customers list
Invite stuffed into envelope and bulk mailed

They want it mailed within 3 days of giving you the files.

We charge $1,090 and figured to run everything digital. The winning bid was $798.

 

[AP90]

We would be in the $960 range. The other shop isn’t making hardly anything on that. Crazy what some people will charge for jobs. I’ve gotten some quotes back about things that just flat out amaze me. There was one job I had quoted that another person won the bid for less than what supplies even cost. There was literally no way they could have made money on the job.

 

[kdw75]

I have a tendency to always be second guessing our pricing. We do all our envelope stuffing and sealing by hand, so that may be hurting us.

 

[LM_Ike]

there were occasions when things were slow I was told by my boss to bid jobs low on purpose just to get work in the door and keep our people busy or keep it from our competitors.

 

[AP90]

I never thought of it from a shops point of view, but if your in need of cash to make back payments and credit card payments, it would be beneficial to do a job so low. You can then put off that payment of materials for 60 or 90 days and pay the stuff off that’s already 60 or 90 days overdue. Makes sense in that regard, but it’ll eventually drown the company in debt.

 

[MailGuru]

Your price is dead on. My calculations came up to $1,090.80.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot........pricing based on all digital

 

[Keith]

Wow. I come in at $1,701. I might need to look at my margins. I am using a new estimating program so I priced it in my old system and got $1,025 just for the cards! So I didn't bother looking at the price for the envelopes. I'm all digital (Xerox C75) and located in Maryland about two hours from Annapolis and DC. But there are plenty of other jobs I do where I find out what the other bid was and I want to cry over how much money I left on the table.

 

[dabob]

Just a couple of things here . . . I didn't run any pricing since we are in Kalifornia and you are in the flyover states . . . but that couldn't have included postage . . .??? Also discussing pricing on an online forum is heavily frowned upon (price fixing) and I would never ever compare our pricing with online printers . . . its not the same market.

But we do have some of our most trusted customers call around to our direct competitors, same volume, basically the same equipment mix, (we all know who they are) with quote specs just to see how their pricing is . . .

 

[Tim-Ellis]

Hello KDW,

Have you considered that you are being played? If you work in print purchasing then the moment you say you are happy with a price then you are not doing your job.

It might be that your customer is just trying to get a better price. The moment your business competes on price alone is the death knell for your company.

You are not a charity... Your price is your price.

 

[kdw75]

Hello KDW,

Have you considered that you are being played? If you work in print purchasing then the moment you say you are happy with a price then you are not doing your job.

It might be that your customer is just trying to get a better price. The moment your business competes on price alone is the death knell for your company.

You are not a charity... Your price is your price.

I do keep that in mind. The quote was requested through our local Chamber, who was getting the bids for a third party. I have suspected for some time that the CoC are getting preferential pricing. My understanding is that when someone calls our CoC and asks for recommendations on a printer, the CoC will get bids and then pass them along to the member requesting them. My thinking is that by low balling all the jobs they are hoping to build a relationship with new businesses and then can later raise their prices up a bit.

Or maybe it is just my paranoia. Our little town seems to have a healthy helping of the "good ol'boy" attitude at play, where it is all about who you know and how many organizations you belong to.