misdirected anger at lowballers

[binki]

Just reading a thread on some of the price shock some customers have and the complaints about low ball prices from some who have entered the sign business but whose fault is it really?

My number one complaint is that our vendors will sell to just about anyone. Anyone can buy a cutter, printer, supplies and start up without proving they are in the business. Our customers can just buy the stuff and produce their own. Not the race car driver that wants some decals, no, I am talking about big clients like studios (movie and tv sets are printed on vinyl rather than painted in a lot of cases now), fortune 500 companys (the local electric co. has their own printing shop for signs). This is not their core business but they just cut out the middle guy and do their own. I guess they don't think about those that can no longer buy their product because they put us out of work.

Second on my list is our government bodies that require a license to cut hair or toe nails but get in the sign business, bah, just start up. No special training or investment required to be certified or otherwise qualified.

The barrier to entry is so low that there is no barrier and that is what brings people into the business.

So when you are p.o.'d over the next lowballer ask how did he get this stuff? Well, he had to get it somewhere. The sign gods just didn't drop it in his living room.

 

[omgsideburns]

Quit pouting.

 

[Fred Weiss]

While I agree with you that there is a problem with sign supply distributors selling outside the industry, I would make two points:

1. There's nothing new going on in that regard. I recall back in 1988 when we began advertising in the trade journals. One of the first reader service leads we received was from a car wash chain in Pennsylvania.

2. There is no organized or widely supported movement in the craft to identify and support suppliers who actually do qualify their customers and turn away end users. The majority of sign companies are interested in low prices, service and selection and make no demand of their suppliers that they support the craft by turning away business.

 

[Techman]

All of that is because most of us prefer to be free spirits with no one, I mean no one looking over our shoulders.

No governing body, no simple rules of business management, no ethical guidelines, nothing.

The suppliers look at us as individual accounts. The more the better. They do not see us as an industry that wants to abide by certain standards. They just see a bunch of pouting un educated raskals who would cut each others throat before they letting a job go to the next shop.

That is why the franchise shops do so well. They are raising the standard for business management. They have that which we do not.

This post is not directed at any one person because many are wonderful and ethical. But there are more than our fair measure of the lesser gang in our midst.

 

[SignManiac]

As much as it sucks that anybody can get in this easy get rich quick business, this is America and everyone has a right to do what they want. It's never gonna change so why complain about it. Build a better mouse trap or find a different line of work. Sell commodities and get commodity prices or sell one off customs and get custom prices. That's all you can do really.

Those with no talent can only sell on price. The few talented artisans out there, still get paid pretty well.

 

[binki]

And the moral of the story is what???

...
Or was it just meant to be an all around rant about the industry??

more of an observation of a bunch of pissing and moaning in this forum about customers that want lower prices and competitors that are priced lower. if you want reform then our vendors have to respect the channels and market segments. that is all....

on the bright side, those are the posts i read the most of because they are entertaining.

 

[Gino]

Anything... and I mean anything I can bring in-house to have better 'Quality Control' over... I will do. I wasn't always a silk screener, but I am today because I got hosed too many times by the people I depended on. If my subs or vendors can't do the job, I will look for a better source or try to bring it in-house and if that means cutting out a middleman.... too bad if the middleman couldn't do his job.

As for vendors selling to our customers.... that's been an ever on-going problem with that and that just plain sucks.

If its any consolation.... a local, very large beer distributing place here in Reading is going out of business June 30th. Yes, they're closing their doors and we used to do all of their signs by hand back in the day and throughout the early days of the computer. Then the big guys made a deal with some of the big printer vendors and they took all of their business in house. Not only that, but then they made perfectly made ugly banners for all of their distributors, thus cutting us completely out of the picture. Well, we've been approached by some of them already to start making their signs again after about 15 years.


This should be very interesting................

 

[CES020]

No different than any other business. Full blown machine shops are undercut by "garage" shops that have little investment and little overhead. Screen printers have to worry about every person sitting in a basement making t-shirts for extra money, car dealers deal with shade tree mechanics that will work for beer, etc, etc, etc.

It's not new and it's not even remotely close to be isolated to this industry.

It's called the free market system. Most all trades deal with the exact same thing. They will always take a part of the market and there's always a part of the market they will never get.

When the customer needs something right away or needs the info right away, at 9:00am in the morning, and they can't get that "vendor" on the phone until lunch time when they check their voice mails from their car on their lunch break from their real job, they'll call the vendor, the vendor will be at lunch, the vendor will get back, call again, and get voice mail again......

Some people will always follow the lowest bidder, some will always know where it makes sense to pay a little more and get more service.

That's life in business.

 

[petrosgraphics]

there will always be a price out there you can not compete with.... they are 1 person
with very little overhead, no insurance,works out of his home or garage, etc, etc, etc....

we can put out the best product we can and over the long run people will come to
realize we do put out a good product, offer great service, even on a friday nite...

sign companies large and very small have come and gone in our area, and still we are
are here even after 60 years.... old customers are like family, treat them fairly and you will be treated the same......

 

[anotherdog]

I remember when computers first came into graphic design. All of sudden anyone who could afford a mac classic and quark express became graphic designers. What was a skilled and expensive profession became cheap, easy and quick.

Damn progress for making things easier and cheaper. I much prefer living in caves and using leaves to wipe my... etc. etc.

(this is typed from my basement sitting next to my printer)

 

[sjm]

more of an observation of a bunch of pissing and moaning in this forum about customers that want lower prices and competitors that are priced lower. if you want reform then our vendors have to respect the channels and market segments. that is all....

on the bright side, those are the posts i read the most of because they are entertaining.

Stop bitching, sell your value or buy from a wholesaler.

 

[pointjockey]

I've been involved in a few different industries, and its always them same, someone will always have a better price. You can not surrive in any market simply based on price. I sell service and service. My bank balance is pretty darn healthy as a result.

A few times a month I will have people come in and say "Wow, Thats a high Price!! Shop XYZ is only $. I always respond that its great to have choices!

 

[Typestries]

suppliers/distributors sell to anyone! They dont give a fk about us. Today, on a delivery truck, I noticed a bunch of gator under my stuff. I asked the driver who that was for (we're usually the only ones on the route with a board like that), and he said, oh yeah, that reminds me, I gotta ask you where this DANCE place is?! Yup, the dance studio bought gator straight from the SIGN supply distributor. Didnt even "fake" a shop name, right there on the ticket was their studio name! Shell prolly call me monday to print her material, lol. It's a changing world. Change and keep up or be eaten up.

 

[sjm]

suppliers/distributors sell to anyone! They dont give a fk about us. Today, on a delivery truck, I noticed a bunch of gator under my stuff. I asked the driver who that was for (we're usually the only ones on the route with a board like that), and he said, oh yeah, that reminds me, I gotta ask you where this DANCE place is?! Yup, the dance studio bought gator straight from the SIGN supply distributor. Didnt even "fake" a shop name, right there on the ticket was their studio name! Shell prolly call me monday to print her material, lol. It's a changing world. Change and keep up or be eaten up.

Come on be fair. Would you spend the same effort in a client that brings you the odd job now and again or one that brings you big bucks on a regular basis?

 

[G-Artist]

We used to do a lot of banners and such for convenience stores. Like Gino and others
related along came Pepsi, followed by Coke, followed by the beer guys who would
provide free banners (and eventually window signs) as long as their logo was on
the banner. That hurt. We survived.

When I bitched to a guy who worked at the Pepsi plant who was also a member at our inventors
club he told me he was the guy who did the printing. They got into it doing the graphics for
their dispensing machines and he was the lead guy for that dept.

A local supplier had a rule of not selling to folks off the street and would refer those coming
in to several local and nearby sign shops. That was rare for the industry. Back then I was
doing simple and mostly hand-painted dimensional signs and screen printing (pre computer plotters).
We became quite good at restoring and repainting interior neon signs to compensate for the
loss of our banner business. Should that supply house have denied me access to neon transformers
and other electrics because I didn't have an electrical sign license? If we have outside installs
I use one of several good electrical sign contractors who are reliable. No sense posting a
bond, carrying expensive insurance and paying yearly license fees...I don't need to reinvent
the wheel when I have better folks who are more suited and better equipped to do that job for me.

The OP opined about anyone being able to buy printers, cutters and the like. Manufacturers
are in the business of product sales. No one gets paid until the units go out the door.
And w/o those sales there would never be more R & D to improve on what was previously built.
Like it or not, that's the way of the world. Sales have to be made to survive.

Another way of looking at the OP is that sign shops should only sell to qualified
legitimate merchants. The guy or gal who wants some great signage for their basement
rec room/bar or patio is S.O L.

 

[CentralSigns]

No different than any other business. Full blown machine shops are undercut by "garage" shops that have little investment and little overhead.
It's not new and it's not even remotely close to be isolated to this industry.

My neighbor has a machine shop in his garage. When he first started business was crazy. Now it's like a hobby for him.

 

[jiarby]

The original lowballer was Gutenberg... the printing press guy. Hand calligraphers had to hate him! It has been a logical progression since then. Faster, Cheaper, Easier.

In the late part of the century the digital digital folks "Gutenberg'd" the manual press guys.

Now it is the "YuDu-ification" of the technology. Consumer grade sign equipment.

It is happening in every industry.

Adapt or Die.

 

[cdiesel]

There will always be someone willing to do what you do for less. There will always be customers that shop ONLY on price. It's up to you to find the ones who care about more than that. It's not as hard as it sounds.

 

[Rojo]

I think the suppliers are missing the boat. Where I buy paper for the print side of my business they will sell to anyone off the street. They have a trade price for legitimate printers who have an account there and a higher price for the rest.

My local chain hardware store sells to legitimate contractors who open an account at a lower cost than I pay off the street. Gives the contractor a slight edge on material cost as it should be IMO.

The suppliers could make more money and keep their business clients happy with a similar process.

 

[knifemaker3]

Competition is good. It makes you a better business owner. Makes you think outside the box and do things you might otherwise not do.

Don't get upset over it. Embrace it, learn from it, and move on to bigger and better things. If you don't survive in this business because of it then it's time to rethink what you want to do with your life and do something else for a change. Businesses come and go, sometimes due to surrounding circumstances, sometimes due to business owner's unwillingness to adapt to changes around themselves and therefore driving themselves out of the business.

Business is all about changing and adapting to the ever changing things around us. You either learn to adapt and move your business forward, or you close the doors and go get a job flipping hamburgers.

Sitting around complaining about it isn't going to move your company forward. Adapt, and move on!

 

[scarface]

I called a customer today who wanted a set of doors done in 1 color on his semi. I told him $180 and he said "HOLY SH*T" real loud on the phone. He said a shop up the road did another truck he had 6 years ago for $60 which was a lie im sure.

I'm really sick of hearing customers complain and say this guy does it for this. I want to just work behind the scenes instead of doing it all

 

[SurfaceSigns]

I think the most entertaining thing about the OP, and this thread, is that you live in a country built on free market capitalism, complaining about the effects of capitalism! Sometimes I think us "Socialist" Canadians are more capitalist.

What you appear to be asking is that the equipment and supplies vendors dictate who can and can't be in the business, effectively controlling the market at their whim. I do wonder how you would have reacted if, when you were first opening your business, the suppliers said "Sorry, we are currently at our quota for sign shops, find another industry". I have no doubt you would have gone ape?@%! if they told you that.

Considering this industry has so many facets to it, and companies that vary in size from mom and pop shops to international chains, what is supposed to be the "minimum standard" for a sign shop? Also consider that the type and cost of equipment available to this industry varies for hundreds of dollars to millions. Are you willing to buy both the hundred dollar cutter and million dollar printer to be allowed to be a sign company?

The bottom line is, if someone is willing to invest in purchasing all the equipment and supplies needed to run a sign shop, either for their internal use or for resale, all the more power to them. That is Free Market Capitalism at work, enjoy accordingly.