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Local competitor with WAY LOW pricing

F

fresh

New Member
SOoooo. For the third time in as many months, I've seen a quote from a franchise shop a few miles away from us. Their pricing is insanely low. I'm talking $450 for two new 3x5 acrylic faces INSTALLED, 18 feet up! The cost on the acrylic alone (forget about waste, I'll just go with the sqft cost on the material) is almost $100. Yes, I know, there are bigger shops out there that have the ability to purchase these things in big quantities and save. This place is the same size, maybe even smaller, than us.

On the other hand, this client is shopping around and had another quote that they shared with me that was about 40% higher on the total job from the budget sign shop, and those prices seamed much closer to what we would quote, but still slightly low on part of the job.

Is anyone else experiencing this disconnect? I'm actually fairly confident I can win this job, even if my pricing is higher than the other two. I actually explained the benefits of different materials, and am attempting to upsell part of the job... The other two sign companies were content with only doing vinyl signs, where its fairly obvious some cut acrylic lettering will be appropriate in a few locations. Please confirm to me that $450 for TWO new lightbox faces, installed, is nuts.

I'm pulling my hair out.
 
Mosh

Mosh

New Member
First off, I use Lexan NEVER acylic. Not used that stuff since the 80's.
Second, I would be at $500 so I don't think they are too far off unless it is a detalied design....

Helps to own everything out-right, so low overhead is passed on as savings to
my customers.

These are flat faces not pans correct...
 
F

fresh

New Member
Mosh said:
First off, I use Lexan NEVER acylic. Not used that stuff since the 80's.
Second, I would be at $500 so I don't think they are too far off unless it is a detalied design....

Helps to own everything out-right, so low overhead is passed on as savings to
my customers.

These are flat faces not pans correct...
Click to expand...

Yeah, he quoted acrylic, but we would use polycarb, and they are flat faces.

So you own a bucket truck... how much does it cost to start it up and drive it 10 miles each way? Even if you own the truck outright, its costs money to maintain, fuel up, insure. Its as if you are paying for the honor of doing someone's signs. If we feel like being crazy, we can use our awesome 17ft Little Giant A frame ladder, but I think this one is just a hair to high to manage with the little giant. So a proper installation charge is a reasonable line item.

Honestly, the $450 for the faces is low, but whatever... Its $450 including install that drives me crazy.
 
FireSprint.com

FireSprint.com

Trade Only Screen & Digital Sign Printing
They're hungry. Seems a little low to me, but if you're paying the guys anyway....

If this (or any) business we're easy, everyone would be doing it :banghead:
 
HulkSmash

HulkSmash

New Member
fresh said:
SOoooo. For the third time in as many months, I've seen a quote from a franchise shop a few miles away from us. Their pricing is insanely low. I'm talking $450 for two new 3x5 acrylic faces INSTALLED, 18 feet up! The cost on the acrylic alone (forget about waste, I'll just go with the sqft cost on the material) is almost $100. Yes, I know, there are bigger shops out there that have the ability to purchase these things in big quantities and save. This place is the same size, maybe even smaller, than us.

On the other hand, this client is shopping around and had another quote that they shared with me that was about 40% higher on the total job from the budget sign shop, and those prices seamed much closer to what we would quote, but still slightly low on part of the job.

Is anyone else experiencing this disconnect? I'm actually fairly confident I can win this job, even if my pricing is higher than the other two. I actually explained the benefits of different materials, and am attempting to upsell part of the job... The other two sign companies were content with only doing vinyl signs, where its fairly obvious some cut acrylic lettering will be appropriate in a few locations. Please confirm to me that $450 for TWO new lightbox faces, installed, is nuts.

I'm pulling my hair out.
Click to expand...

just sweat it out for long, at that price they won't be in business for long.
 
Pat Whatley

Pat Whatley

New Member
Coloradosigns said:
just sweat it out for long, at that price they won't be in business for long.
Click to expand...

....but by the time they finally close the shop they'll have already driven the expected market price down so that every time you quote a job you'll be dealing with people who think your honest prices are really a rip off.

Then one of them will get frustrated, buy the equipment, open their own shop and undersell everybody in town.

Repeat.
 
HulkSmash

HulkSmash

New Member
Pat Whatley said:
....but by the time they finally close the shop they'll have already driven the expected market price down so that every time you quote a job you'll be dealing with people who think your honest prices are really a rip off.

Then one of them will get frustrated, buy the equipment, open their own shop and undersell everybody in town.

Repeat.
Click to expand...

It's all about how you market yourself i guess.
There are so many low ballers around me, I just take their crap product and use it to my advantage. I lost a bid last month to a guy around the corner who does 5x10 MDO's for 270 bucks.. printed 2 sides and 2 posts.

lol?
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
fresh said:
Yeah, he quoted acrylic, but we would use polycarb, and they are flat faces.

So you own a bucket truck... how much does it cost to start it up and drive it 10 miles each way? Even if you own the truck outright, its costs money to maintain, fuel up, insure. Its as if you are paying for the honor of doing someone's signs. If we feel like being crazy, we can use our awesome 17ft Little Giant A frame ladder, but I think this one is just a hair to high to manage with the little giant. So a proper installation charge is a reasonable line item.

Honestly, the $450 for the faces is low, but whatever... Its $450 including install that drives me crazy.
Click to expand...



The quote from the other guy is horribly low, but as for owning your equipment outright..... think about this and then try your answer again.

Whether it's our flatbed, bucket truck or employees, they are all bought and paid for and on the worst day, not making any money, but when something comes along, again.... it's all bought and paid for and other than gas or a little electricity, how much do I really have invested ?? The same..... working or not working. So, it pays me to keep them busy, but since everything I have, other than the building is paid for, what's it matter ?? In mush's case, his buildings are also paid for, so he has literally no out of pocket costs. Just taxes and he probably lies about that, too.

If I had 20 jobs a week go out and only managed an extra $100 on each.... everything is still paid for and still I make $100,000 a year. Again, that's on the bad day. Start mixing good ones and great ones and I can forget about making the extra $100, but until then, it ain't all that bad.

It's not a good way to do business, but it will work as long as you have a basis from which to pull. If you never do anything big and never make any money and continue to barely squeak by, you'll be selling this stuff, but every now & then..... it's Okay. :rock-n-roll:
 
kstompaint

kstompaint

New Member
If it weren't 18 feet up, I'd say $450 would be fair. Especially with acrylic. I'm not a fan of using it, but anymore it's pretty much what we have to do to remain competitive on price. Given that it's at 18' we would most likely be $600-650. Any more than that and we would never get the job.
 
F

fresh

New Member
Gino said:
Whether it's our flatbed, bucket truck or employees, they are all bought and paid for and on the worst day, not making any money, but when something comes along, again.... it's all bought and paid for and other than gas or a little electricity, how much do I really have invested ?? The same..... working or not working. So, it pays me to keep them busy, but since everything I have, other than the building is paid for, what's it matter ?? In mush's case, his buildings are also paid for, so he has literally no out of pocket costs. Just taxes and he probably lies about that, too.
Click to expand...

Your statement makes little to no sense. Every time you turn the key in the ignition, it costs more than having the vehicle sit in the lot. Every time you use your equipment, you are nicking away at its value. This may be a small amount in the grand scheme of things, but why in the world do put zero value in it? How much will it cost if your van gets a blow-out on the way to a job that you didn't charge for installation? How many hours labor do you have to pay, how much will it be to pay for the repair? OR what happens if something goes wrong on the install, and you need to re-do half the job?

These are rare occurrences, I'm sure, and obviously you know more than anyone else here, but I still don't understand why you are so fast to undervalue your services for no apparent reason. This was their starting-line quote. Do you regularly throw things in for free, for no reason?
 
J

john1

Guest
Dang, I got last November $377.50 each for same size acrylic faces installed with full color prints. Look good as new still.
 
thinksigns

thinksigns

SnowFlake
Until a few years ago, I did all the commercial real estate signs for a company here. Someone came along and offered to do their signs (2-sided 4' x 8' 13mm digitally printed coroplast installed on 8' painted posts) for $300

My contact called me out of the blue a few weeks ago. She wanted me to quote another job. V-shaped 8' x 12' using max metal panels on steel posts. The kicker is the sign is in the middle of a field off the interstate and they want the top of the sign 16' from the ground. The other guy quoted her $1,300 installed. They thought it was too much. I told her she needed to buy two of them since they were so cheap.
 
F

fresh

New Member
thinksigns said:
Until a few years ago, I did all the commercial real estate signs for a company here. Someone came along and offered to do their signs (2-sided 4' x 8' 13mm digitally printed coroplast installed on 8' painted posts) for $300

My contact called me out of the blue a few weeks ago. She wanted me to quote another job. V-shaped 8' x 12' using max metal panels on steel posts. The kicker is the sign is in the middle of a field off the interstate and they want the top of the sign 16' from the ground. The other guy quoted her $1,300 installed. They thought it was too much. I told her she needed to buy two of them since they were so cheap.
Click to expand...

We should all just start subbing jobs out to these people. If they are willing to retail stuff for half of what we will do it for, why not? We make all the profit by doing office work, they struggle to get the work done and make no money. Win / Win?
 
Craig Sjoquist

Craig Sjoquist

New Member
Yes it is low $100 material... $100 install leaves $125 each face lettered

I would be 20 sq ft- 36 sq ft plus 50 % more on material & scaffold is more then 2 sections $50 each to 4 then crane / bucket truck cost & profit.

Which is why I not doing this work anymore profit is gone. .
 
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