How is this even possible?

[Techman]

Ditto"""

 

[TXFB.INS]

People lie, and Addy has no clue.
Some things never change.

best quote ever

 

[Pat Whatley]

what your competing against is a guy who has the equipment, the material, and the knowledge to do the job.

He can make money on this job and you can't. Nothing to rant about. This guy may just be running a much more cost efficient operation than you. Maybe he owns his equipment out right and has hardly any expenses to cover.

The folks on here saying, this should cost X or Y really, don't understand how economics works. A product or service is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. You can demand all you want but, if someone isn't willing to pay for it. It doesn't mean squat at the end of the day.

The trick to any business pricing is finding a happy medium that pleases both you and the customer.

Why do you insist on making posts like this and doing this to yourself?

 

[Pat Whatley]

Spent $400 on prints to install on a trailer only to discover that I'd screwed up the written quote I'd given them so they only ended up paying $420. I did four hours of installation for $20.

They've since had three other trailers lettered with the same design.

This thread just made me wonder if they took my underpriced invoice around town and found someone to beat it?

 

[player]

what your competing against is a guy who has the equipment, the material, and the knowledge to do the job.

Or you are competing against someone who has crap equipment, crap material and has no clue what he is in for.

He can make money on this job and you can't. Nothing to rant about. This guy may just be running a much more cost efficient operation than you. Maybe he owns his equipment out right and has hardly any expenses to cover.

Who says he can make money at that stupidly low price? This guy has no idea about what to charge and how long it will take and what proper materials cost. He certainly isn't costing in the cost of his equipment and maintenance and repair of the equipment, much less replacement down the road when it wears out.

The folks on here saying, this should cost X or Y really, don't understand how economics works. A product or service is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. You can demand all you want but, if someone isn't willing to pay for it. It doesn't mean squat at the end of the day.

Ridiculous. If you think the cost of signs should be decided by what the customer wants to pay, then we might as well stop making anything but cut letters on corro. I want a 60" HD TV for $25. Fat chance of that!

The trick to any business pricing is finding a happy medium that pleases both you and the customer.

You have to ask yourself if you can afford to let this client walk away. Like you said, you have mouths to feed.

The trick is to find customers that understand the cost of doing business and the benefit of quality signs. Only a fool would do this job at that price... to do so would actually take real opportunities away. This is called opportunity costs.

 

[Locals Find!]

Or you are competing against someone who has crap equipment, crap material and has no clue what he is in for.



Who says he can make money at that stupidly low price? This guy has no idea about what to charge and how long it will take and what proper materials cost. He certainly isn't costing in the cost of his equipment and maintenance and repair of the equipment, much less replacement down the road when it wears out.

GINO did

Ridiculous. If you think the cost of signs should be decided by what the customer wants to pay, then we might as well stop making anything but cut letters on corro. I want a 60" HD TV for $25. Fat chance of that!

Your missing the point. I guess you slept through that class in college or didn't take it. Market value is determined by the Market (the consumer) if a majority of consumers agree to pay a certain price the value is determined by that majority. This is a basic economic principle. Your TV example shows that. The majority of Consumers will pay for the retail price of that 60" t.v. that is proven by the number of TVs sold at that price. If they weren't selling. Companies would be forced to either lower the price or quit making them.


The trick is to find customers that understand the cost of doing business and the benefit of quality signs. Only a fool would do this job at that price... to do so would actually take real opportunities away. This is called opportunity costs.

Calling someone a Fool is opinion not a fact. What is a crappy job to you, may be a decent job to someone else. Like I said before, this job could be done for for that price. A respected member on here who I don't get along with even backed that up. It's not maximizing your potential profit margin to it's fullest though.

 

[Locals Find!]

Call their bluff.
If someone else really wants to do this stuff for minimum wage, let them and focus on work that really will feed your family.

I had a call yesterday from someone in a real bind apparently.
They are here from overseas for a promotion and their graphics didn't turn up.

So we are their last minute call. I gave them a price and they said it was too expensive.
Fine, I said. Thanks anyway.

Today they called back to see if we can still do the job.

People lie, and Addy has no clue.
Some things never change.

You sir, prove my point exactly. You found a customer willing to pay your price. Therefore the job has the value you determined. That is proven out by the customer paying for it at that price.

So, to say "I have no clue" while your very own situation proves what I said was correct. Is just you being snarky based on the fact that I said it and not someone else.

 

[Locals Find!]

Had to come back and add this quote I found from Dan Antonelli. Fits this situation well, I believe.

You just always have to balance the type of company you want to be and what you want to be known for. And you have to balance the economics of what you can turn away, and what you need to do to survive.

 

[Joe Diaz]

Your missing the point. I guess you slept through that class in college or didn't take it. Market value is determined by the Market (the consumer)

The consumer is not the only factor involved in determining market value, otherwise a TV's market value would be $12 because wouldn't everyone rather pay $12 for a TV? Since TV manufactures cannot make a TV to sell for only $12 and still stay in business, one can assume that the market value is not ONLY determined by the consumer, but other factors as well. So your homework for tonight would be to find out what those other factors might be and report back here with your answer.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Quick! Everyone rush to take business advice from the guy who couldn't make his print brokering business profitable and went into real estate!

 

[skyhigh]

welcome to what has happened to a once-proud trade.

Jill summed it up pretty well.

 

[dypinc]

Don't forget this possibility.

We had a guy on here a few months ago bragging about his failing business getting a government grant.

After getting the grant how was his failing business going to be attracting more business? He won't need to make as much profit as those that are doing business honestly? Just stealing customers away by lowering the price because he can?

Market value my a$$? When the government is picking winners and losers?

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Your missing the point. I guess you slept through that class in college or didn't take it. Market value is determined by the Market (the consumer) if a majority of consumers agree to pay a certain price the value is determined by that majority. This is a basic economic principle. Your TV example shows that. The majority of Consumers will pay for the retail price of that 60" t.v. that is proven by the number of TVs sold at that price. If they weren't selling. Companies would be forced to either lower the price or quit making them.

Or, they lower the supply of TVs in order to get the price up.

Supply and demand are what fuel an "equilibrium" price. Supply in this case would be the amount of TVs produced, demand would be the customers. Now you always have people that will want to pay above or below the market price, but what you are striving for is that greatest point of efficiency that gets the majority of customers to pay at hopefully what is the equilibrium. There is always a little fluctuation around the equilibrium price.

This is not only determined by what people want to pay, but it also is determined by the supply out there. You lower the supply, price is going to go up, regardless if the customer wants it to or not. Now, this is a broad generalization. Once you start talking about the world stage, then that opens up another can of worms. Imagine three supply and demand curves reading left to right, you have Foreign Country (either importer or exporter), World Market in the center and then you have the domestic market (either importer or exporter). All those supply and demand charts affect the price within those respective charts, rather or not the people doing the demanding what them to or not. You start throwing in import/export tarifs or subsidies out there for certain goods, that's going to artificially change the price as well. After that, supply is worked out to generate that equilibrium point where producers can produce and buyers will buy.

 

[Dennis422]

OK, here is a comment from a home based business owner that has low overhead.

Why to sell it cheap? Low overhead does not mean that you need to sell it cheap. My plan is to get out of my basement one day, and how I would explain the price hike after i do that? h well, how you need to pay for my rent and because of that, I will charge you more?

I had a similar thing happened to me 2 days ago:
24x24" decals to be installed in the mall restrooms. To be installed by mall workers on the walls and on the inside of the restroom doors.
I quoted them $28/piec for 30 pieces on a MacTac WallNoodle vinyl.

She said that they found someone to do them for $12/piece, all they told her that will be done on removable vinyl (they were used by the mall management before). That is $360 for a 120 square feet of a printed vinyl.

How do they even make any money on that considering that you need quite some time to print that out and to cut it into 24x24" pieces.

 

[Locals Find!]

Quick! Everyone rush to take business advice from the guy who couldn't make his print brokering business profitable and went into real estate!

Actually the business was quite profitable. Just not enough to support the standard of living I choose to have.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Actually the business was quite profitable. Just not enough to support the standard of living I choose to have.

i see.....

 

[bob]

The consumer is not the only factor involved in determining market value, otherwise a TV's market value would be $12 because wouldn't everyone rather pay $12 for a TV? Since TV manufactures cannot make a TV to sell for only $12 and still stay in business, one can assume that the market value is not ONLY determined by the consumer, but other factors as well. So your homework for tonight would be to find out what those other factors might be and report back here with your answer.

Not so.

Using your $12 television fantasy, certainly a $12 set would be popular. So popular that there would be more demand than supply. Then, with everyone clamoring for the $12 model, someone jumps the line by offering $13. Then $14, and on and on. At each increment some number of buyers drop out of the market until a balance between supply and demand is achieved. If that balance should be less than the manufacturing cost of the item then there will be more demand than supply and precious few of them will be manufactured. Conversely, if an item is priced above what someone is willing top pay, few will be sold.

Market value, in other words just plain vanilla value, is solely and always determined by the marketplace. Whether or not an item can me made for what someone is willing to pay for it has little if anything to do with it. Something, anything, is worth only what someone is willing to pay for it.

In any market there are always singularities. Someone buying something at a ridiculously low price and someone selling something for an equally ridiculously high price. These exceptions are not the rule nor the model. The model is the norm and is as stated.

 

[Mosh]

I am NOT home based BUT...I own the building outright, all of my equipment it paid off, so I have pretty low overhead. I could match that price all day long, just to take the work away from the other shop, sometimes it is OK to not make a HUGE profit to keep a customer from going to another shop.

 

[dj_elite]

$375.00 to do this job is just ridiculous any way you put it, even if there is "minimal" profit. I googled the business and their website shows up as "under construction". Also their address is residential in the middle of the woods, so its definitely a home based business. Nothing against home based business. But this one sounds like fly by night. My business is home based and I own my equipment outright. There still isn't enough "profit" in that price to even be worth my time. Say for instance something goes bad during install or for some reason a print gets messed up while printing. There's literally no room for error. And I don't know about you, but I'm not perfect and things happen.

 

[Joe Diaz]

Not so.

Using your $12 television fantasy, certainly a $12 set would be popular. So popular that there would be more demand than supply. Then, with everyone clamoring for the $12 model, someone jumps the line by offering $13. Then $14, and on and on. At each increment some number of buyers drop out of the market until a balance between supply and demand is achieved. If that balance should be less than the manufacturing cost of the item then there will be more demand than supply and precious few of them will be manufactured. Conversely, if an item is priced above what someone is willing top pay, few will be sold.

Market value, in other words just plain vanilla value, is solely and always determined by the marketplace. Whether or not an item can me made for what someone is willing to pay for it has little if anything to do with it. Something, anything, is worth only what someone is willing to pay for it.

In any market there are always singularities. Someone buying something at a ridiculously low price and someone selling something for an equally ridiculously high price. These exceptions are not the rule nor the model. The model is the norm and is as stated.

You misunderstand. My point is that the market value of a product isn't only determined by what the buyer WANTS to pay and certainly not only what the least common denominator (in a non mathematical sense of the word) wants to pay. Market value is also effected by the highest amount some are WILLING to spend. Also Market Value is determined by the interaction of BOTH supply and demand, not just demand as some here have suggested. So yeah the market value is "solely and always determined by the marketplace", but the "marketplace" is not just the "consumer". In other words it would be quite difficult for the hypothetical electronics company to continue making TVs for $12, or for that matter everyone else competing and also making TVs to sell them for $12 and still be profitable supplying that demand. This is why you can buy a burger for $3 and a car for $25,000, but rarely will you see a burger cost $25,000 and a car cost $3.

 

[MikePro]

on the other hand,
sometimes things can just be plain ridiculous.