Copy Job Cost and Pricing...

[kdw75]

There is a lady that we have dealt with years ago who is a customer we don't want, but she is affluent and a member of lots of clubs and organizations as well as being a realtor, so we try to please her. She came in and wanted 2 Color prints run. We are a commercial printer and not a copy shop, so our pricing to her was $34 when using our estimating software. We figure a base charge on any job of $15 to cover writing up the order, providing an estimate, and file handling if it is a print-ready file. She said that was unreasonably high so we told her we would just do them at no charge, which again she rejected. She said she wanted a "fair price". Of course it turns out that her print ready files are actually 150 dpi .jpgs that are the wrong size and proportion. I tracked our exact time on the job and not counting overhead, but purely employee pay the job COST us $33 in time between the quote, file fixing, multiple customer contacts, and printing and cutting. The materials were about $2. She told us she thought $20 would be a fair price.

I mostly wanted to vent, but at the same time wondered how others handle situations like this. I figure her going away somewhat happy is a big plus with all her connections, but at the same time doubt she would ever say anything good.

 

[pippip]

Yeh hard one when you have dealt with them for years. As long as you feel you get the return from other orders associated with her.

I think you just have to keep it simple, shop hourly rate is 100 dollars, this will take us 20mins.

I find if customers complain on costs I say "we'll i can simply hit print to the file with no prep and you can trim it yourself if you'd like to save"

 

[jwheeler]

There is a lady that we have dealt with years ago who is a customer we don't want, but she is affluent and a member of lots of clubs and organizations as well as being a realtor, so we try to please her. She came in and wanted 2 Color prints run. We are a commercial printer and not a copy shop, so our pricing to her was $34 when using our estimating software. We figure a base charge on any job of $15 to cover writing up the order, providing an estimate, and file handling if it is a print-ready file. She said that was unreasonably high so we told her we would just do them at no charge, which again she rejected. She said she wanted a "fair price". Of course it turns out that her print ready files are actually 150 dpi .jpgs that are the wrong size and proportion. I tracked our exact time on the job and not counting overhead, but purely employee pay the job COST us $33 in time between the quote, file fixing, multiple customer contacts, and printing and cutting. The materials were about $2. She told us she thought $20 would be a fair price.

I mostly wanted to vent, but at the same time wondered how others handle situations like this. I figure her going away somewhat happy is a big plus with all her connections, but at the same time doubt she would ever say anything good.

Many moons ago I work at a print shop similar to you...we didn't even have a cash register because most of our clients were billed or had a CC on file. We only had a CC terminal. I always hated these walk in copy customers because they were more work than they were worth. We'd even get the occasional person asking if we could fax something for them. Usually the owner would ask if they had cash and just tell them $5-20 depending on what was involved. Sometimes he'd give the cash to me or the employee who handled it and said "Here, enjoy lunch on me." He had the same idea as you that they were leaving as a happy potential future client or could at least refer other larger clients to us.

 

[kdw75]

I pretty much write it up as being advertising. It seems like the problem customers that complain just keep coming back. lol

 

[TJPrinter]

Earlier this week I had local printer call and wanted to vent about a real estate agent. It was a small mailing job, and he sent a quote that broke down the costs. Apparently, she thought the fees were all negotiable and wanted to know if she could use his permit and take the mail to the post office herself because she didn't want to pay him for it.

My suggestion was to ask her if it’s okay if he uses her real estate license to list a property on multiple listings because he could save a lot of money not paying her a commission.

In your case, I think I would have handed the agent some of my business cards and ask that she hand them out and refer some new customers to me. Then explain that I’m losing money having to put so much time into a very small job that I don’t normally do. Heck, I’d give her the job for free and see if any of the referrals come through. If no new referrals, no more favors fixing files for small jobs that aren’t ready to print.

 

[Stickman42]

Many moons ago I work at a print shop similar to you...we didn't even have a cash register because most of our clients were billed or had a CC on file. We only had a CC terminal. I always hated these walk in copy customers because they were more work than they were worth. We'd even get the occasional person asking if we could fax something for them. Usually the owner would ask if they had cash and just tell them $5-20 depending on what was involved. Sometimes he'd give the cash to me or the employee who handled it and said "Here, enjoy lunch on me." He had the same idea as you that they were leaving as a happy potential future client or could at least refer other larger clients to us.

I've had almost the exact same history. We are a digital book manufacturer in a one square mile town, across the street from village hall and next door to a village trustee. We kept our door open to the locals for faxing, copies, etc... in an effort to be a "good neighbor". I did cringe almost every time I heard the front door chime, because it usually meant time spent on a losing customer versus staying with our core business. Covid shuffled that deck and we politely explained that some of our services would no longer be available.

 

[kslight]

I love not being a walk-in shop, our minimum charge is much higher than that and while we charge fairly we never chase folks down the lowest price rabbit hole. Nobody has time for a $20 or $50 job, I don’t care how insignificant the actual work is it’s never worth it IMHO.

 

[Ynot_UK]

Had one early last week from a customer with an average spend per visit of less than £10. "Urgently need this multi-tab excel file printed onto A3 pages, need it for tomorrow latest". I took a quick look at the Excel file - no pagination, no formatting, no rows/columns to repeat, etc, nothing set whatsoever. So rather than just printing 21 pages of unformatted garbage onto A3 as requested, I offered to fix it and send a PDF proof for approval. We do much VD work & are very competent in Excel, so this little job wouldn't have taken more than 30 minutes if the first proof were accepted. I advised we charge £80+VAT per hour for this type of work and would charge pro-rata, only for the time taken (plus the usual print charges). Upon realising they wouldn't get their Excel work done for the price of 10 B/W A3 prints @ 40p each, the urgency and indeed the need for the print job suddenly evaporated...

 

[tngcas]

I'd tell her the price I quoted is a fair price with the price of labor what it is these days is what I quoted. Lean into the "we pay our employees living wages." This kind of person is usually more civic minded (or wants to claim to be) but then do something like I'm willing to do it for her for $20 because of her outstanding efforts in the community.

If she isn't willing to accept that or if she's a bully, then I trust my reputation to outshine hers. She can badmouth our shop to people if she wants to but eventually people are going to see thru that. The ones who don't or can't are probably ALSO not customers we truly want.

It's definitely a hard place to be though. I have one customer (graphic designer-ish) who likes to throw the "I refer lots of people to your shop" thing in our face every chance she gets and complains about mistakes she makes a lot. Every time she does it I literally just pretend she didn't say it and treat her like I would everyone else. She's slowly stopped doing it over time because it doesn't get her anywhere.