Advice/Help/Info Needed Please

[supu249]

My partner and I own and run a wrap and screenprint and embroidery shop. I have suggest a pricing method that uses an hourly rate to price our jobs. Our rate is in the $200 to $250 range. That doesnt include paying ourselves. For the apparel jobs we do well. We can knock out lots of t-shirts and embroidery with ease. Some jobs we can receive gross revenue of $2500 for 4 hours total of work(burning screens, reclaiming, setup everything included). So, in my mind 4 hours work times our $250 is $1000. Cost of product with shipping is $500. $1000 left over for him and I right. Wraps are quite different. We have a VP540i. Just to print a full wrap(250sq ft) takes at least four hours. Lam, trim, one hour max. Then lay time for us best case is 8 hours. We would typically sell the wrap at $2500. So, 13 hours for $2500 gross revenue. That seems pretty terrible compared to an apparel job. He argues that the printing shouldn't have that rate because there is no actual work being done by anyone. OK, take the 4 hours away and that still leaves 9 hours. 9 times our shop rate of $250 is $2250. What am i missing here? Why does the wrap seem so terrible? Any advice/help/info would be greatly appreciated. TIA

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

It's a totally different process and industry. Wraps are not always a job of scale like screen printing is where the more you do the cheaper it gets.

Wraps even on massive scale has limitations on equipment speed, ink cost, install time, etc. It would be inherently hard to price a wrap with all the variables on a set hourly rate. You would either price yourself out of the market or shoot yourself in the foot.

 

[supu249]

Should we just not do wraps? How can we find a true cost? So, my comparison isnt fair? He is much older than I am, and he sometimes thinks he knows better than me. In this case he could be right i guess. Just seems like we are wasting our time comparatively. I even suggested outsourcing printing and installing so we can concentrate on even more apparel. He say we would be better off buying a faster printer.

 

[rossmosh]

People talk up vehicle wraps because

1. It's a booming marketing.
2. Most prefer doing a $2-3000 job over 10 - $300 jobs.

If you can make more per hour/day/year doing apparel, then stick with it.

 

[Fred Weiss]

There's a term used in valuing real estate: The highest and best use of the land. It is most obvious in looking at commercial land on a busy corner as compared to a similar sized lot in a run down neighborhood. The busy corner is worth a lot more and will justify more investment than the lower valued land.

You can paraphrase this in your situation as: The highest and best use of your time. If you can stay busy doing work that returns $500 an hour then you should not do work that only returns $200 an hour. If you can't, then do both. Better yet, hire someone to do the $200 an hour work and pay them $30 an hour to do it for you. Now you get $170 an hour for no effort expended.

 

[ams]

Wraps are a headache and are usually a low profit for those who aren't professionals in it. It can take anywhere from 8 hours to 24 hours to wrap a vehicle. $2,500 is accurate for a wrap of a small sedan car.
I try to never take a wrap job because it's not worth my time. I can install an electrical sign in under 3 hours for $3,000 and have way more profit than with wraps.

 

[supu249]

Thanks for the replys