Do you charge clients for preepress re-design?

[Alith7]

An obvious extension of the "let them pay" argument is to charge for customer parking: which is clearly ridiculous. And it is certainly the height of folly to make parking as a line item on the final invoice.

LOL...stayed at a resort recently??

 

[davarino]

Nope, but a friend did a coupla months ago and I already have my next price badgering weapon prebuilt: "Oh, so you care so little for my staying with you that you'll risk sending me down the beach a half mile so you can make another $25? So what are you going to comp me now to make me feel good enough to keep talking with you?"

Just another example of the silliness of corporate-style management: if a COO's chestnuts are not in the same basket as the business's chestnuts, she'll look after her own. If she's not sticking around for more than 3 years, why would she bother to develop an enthusiastic customer base?

 

[kaiserwilhelm]

Here is the scary part to me.
I have been in this since 1990. Back when customers expected to pay for every piece of film, plate, and expensive match print that their bad designing cost.
I personally put the change at right when Epson printers and direct to plate came online. Suddenly, proofs were free and along with that, why not just "Jump into my file for a minute and fix that up there sonny boy"

Here is my concern. I now drive two digital web presses. 500fpm. For two years, the only value has been to save our customers black plate changes on press. Now, however, we are really attacking the variable graphics.
With the mentality that we have created in print, we will kill ourselves in digital. Easy fixes are no more. Mistakes that should have been seen, are now masked on p 118 of the document, because that graphic is not being used until that point!
How many years until retirement?

 

[JimBob53]

The digital world is killing us! It the past you could change for changing art in an ad or flyer... now the customer has 'designed' his own art and it takes twice as long to get it ready to print, but most customers are not willing to pay because they supplied 'print ready art' or a 'print ready PDF'. Bull muffins! Our designers now spend a majority of their time fixing bad design files or trying to locate a program to open customer supplied files that are some $5 program they bought on sale. Where has good judgment gone!
Wonderful progress! Retirement is only about 6 years away... come on 66!

 

[Alith7]

the sad part is, sometimes, you don't have a choice. My hubby and I vacationed in San Diego over New Year's last year and stayed at this great resort in the bay right by Sea World. Only problem, you're on what was essentially an Island, and there WASN'T any other parking. so you really didn't have a choice. Although, we couldn't complain too much as we were staying there at a 75% discount to begin with. sure as heck can't afford to stay there normally, not at average of $400/night! LOL

 

[davarino]

I hate to say it this way, but those fools will always be with us.

The trick, as I see it, is not to sell to every fool in the neighborhood but to go for every person who can understand that there is a value to what you (and they) produce.

Now, of course there can be tight situations like being the only printshop in a small community... you have to be conscious of your market. But in the long haul, even the retail print/copy shop is going to have to get its customer to understand that you can't kill a deer and get someone else to butcher it and cook it for free.

When I was working counter in a copy shop, my fastest technique for selling our design services was to run one copy of the customer's .doc file from my Mac and place it next to another job that we had produced that week. Free. Show the value.

And if they don't care, don't get upset. Just run it joyously. There's plenty of good work that really needs your attention.

If you're in a larger shop, the story's a little less complicated: a salesperson can usually demonstrate the glorious difference between crap and shinola. And if the customer sees no benefit, GIGO should still be the name of the game... with impeccable service.

 

[Possumgal]

The digital world is killing us! It the past you could change for changing art in an ad or flyer... now the customer has 'designed' his own art and it takes twice as long to get it ready to print, but most customers are not willing to pay because they supplied 'print ready art' or a 'print ready PDF'. Bull muffins! Our designers now spend a majority of their time fixing bad design files or trying to locate a program to open customer supplied files that are some $5 program they bought on sale. Where has good judgment gone!
Wonderful progress! Retirement is only about 6 years away... come on 66!

It's only going to get worse from here on. Gee, for only so much a month I can get Photoshop from the Cloud and make all my own business cards and flyers! I already can get any art I need from the internet. Whaddya' mean, it's not going to look good when printed?

 

[minch]

The trick, as I see it, is not to sell to every fool in the neighborhood but to go for every person who can understand that there is a value to what you (and they) produce.

Yes, you are right. We compare ourselves to car dealers: are we selling second hand wrecks or are we a little more upmarket or even in the luxury market?

 

[april.djt]

this is can do print by this software(packmage), after you design your work, save and return, and then print

 

[Pitersen]

Digital Print became a very competitive market but not for long guys. I see many companies calling themselves "super printers" they charge now £25 ($35) for 1000 business cards and this includes design! The reason for this low pricing is, that the are in a poo. I know at least 3 companies like that here in the UK. They say "buying power" & "Latest technology". But the fact is that they financed too many machines an just to keep the payments up to date, they dropped their prices down to the bottom, right below break even logic. I know that from the people who actually work for them.
The clock is ticking and one after another they will go bust. 2010's will go in the history as over investment times. Here in the UK even Lawyers go bankrupt! Another 2 -5 years and 80's will be back.