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Pole Banner Pricing

Stacey K

I like making signs
I had veteran come in looking for pole banners sized at 2'x3' double sided with a different veteran photo on each side. He told ME he wanted each veteran to pay no more than $25 each for a total of $50 per banner. I said I could not do that and gave him a ballpark of $35 per veteran for a total of $70 per banner and said when he had more information come in and I can give him a final price. He continued to argue with me about the price telling me that veterans can only afford $25 but I kept telling him I can't do it for that. Well, he put an ad in the paper stating $25 per veteran and drop off your photo! WTF???? He came in Monday and I told him I was shocked to see his ad, we hadn't even talked about details yet and I told him my price would be $75. He said that I told him $50 per banner and told me I'm a liar. I got mad and I told him to go downtown, maybe the other shop could do them for $50 each. The guy doesn't even have permission from the city to hang them and never told anyone else on the VFW he was putting an ad in or discussed this any further with anyone.

I don't print double sided in-house so my first go to was Signs365. They print them on 18oz and charge $39.90 each. I see I can get a 13oz double sided for just $17 from B2Signs. We do not know the quantity, could be 5 could be upwards of 400.

When I do the school banners, all the photos are on a disk and they are good quality. Remove a few zits and the background and they pop in the banner - but it's still enough labor. The veteran banners could be 2 or could be 400 and none of the photos will be on a disk, they will all be 3" high and many will be old black and white. and all need to be scanned and quality adjusted.

One of the other VFW members came in afterwards and said he wasn't worried about the price, they could get donations to cover the remaining $25 but this other guy is all mad at me now so I lost the job. The VFW was upset he did this and did not want to work with the girl downtown because she's a hardcore liberal. I explained to this second guy that there is going to be a lot of labor involved in these and if I charge only $50 and they have 400 banners, that's like not getting paid for a couple weeks considering the labor involved. I like veterans but I can't donate a week of pay to them (or whatever it would be). He completely understood and said this other guy was very difficult to deal with and had the club all upset now over this.

So, what do others charge for something like this? I'm not sure how I feel about this...I think this might be a blessing in disguise considering the sample photo he brought in was just a photocopy of a black and white photo of him from like 60 years ago. I blew it up and you could barely tell it was a person.
 

unclebun

Active Member
Last time we did pole banners they were 18"x48" double sided. They cost us $32.40 each and we charged $58 each. They were also all alike and we charged separately for designing them.

Despite the fact that they are claiming they might order 400 of them, this is not a quantity order. If they get 400 of them it's 400 orders of one piece. So there cannot be a quantity discount.
 

CanuckSigns

Active Member
Tell him to pound sand, what he did was completly 100% wrong, Putting an ad in the paper is a low move, I would tell him we are done now and he's lucky he doesn't hear from my lawyer.

On the plus side, no one reads the paper anymore so you might just be fine.
 

Billct2

Active Member
Wouldn't let it bother me. Sounds like the rest of the VFW knows what the guy is.
And I'd be way more without having to edit files
 

Stacey K

I like making signs
Well thanks guys! I had all I could do from actually telling him to pound sand so I feel much better about this now LOL If someone else wants to work for free they can, but it's not going to be me.
 

Stacey K

I like making signs
Well nobody except stacey and the other vfw members...
LMAO! Well once when my son was like four someone told me he was in the paper...turned out he was outside alone shoveling and they did a little interview with him and took his photo! Imagine my surprise to hear I'm not the most watchful parent LOL!!!
 

Evan Gillette

New Member
Telling me how much to charge or how much something should cost is like strike 1 and 2 for me to not work with a customer...

We charge much more than others for pole banners but will only outsource high quality hemmed and sewn pole banners. The rest just fall apart in less than 4 months. Stacey check out digital-print-solutions, they are a MN wholesaler (banners.com is their customer facing site).
 

Geneva Olson

Expert Storyteller
put an ad on craigslist for some PS5's at below market prices, he will get hundreds of calls an hour
or sign him up for healthcare insurance online. The phone calls start as soon as you hit enter on the website. And they sell the data..lol. he'll be haunted for months!
 

Stacey K

I like making signs
This right here ::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Geneva: "He is a con trying to force you to do something under the guise of a good cause" That's EXACTLY how I felt. I'm over it now, but I was really mad someone would do that to a local small business.
 
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