Printed Color Change Wrap

[JPGraphicsMI]

To keep this short, I have a customer that I do roughly 12 full color change wraps for, per year. It is a commercial account requiring the wraps to be Pantone matched, printed and installed. This was a great account when I first got it, and did not have the customer basis I do now. Well being short staffed like most, I feel like the amount of work required on these are eating up potential higher profit margin jobs. We have a great relationship, and it's nice to know if I slow down.. there is usually one right around the corner for guaranteed work. But, we do these properly by taking off handles mirrors ect because they send us a range of colors to begin with, it's more time consuming to wrap a red vehicle compared to a black one. We do anything from minivans and half tons, up to box trucks and Promasters.

I guess I'm just wondering if and how much I should raise my prices to accommodate. I feel like with the amount of work they bring, they should get a little better price than someone doing a one off.

We will use a 2023 Promaster for reference, and I'm just curiously roughly how much you would charge for something like this to see if I am WAY off on my pricing, or close enough to just keep running with it. I am located in Central MI btw too..
385 SQ FT Printed & Laminated IJ180
57 SQ FT Printed & Laminated IJ680CR Reflective
9 SQ FT 680CR Colored Reflective

I have never added up actual labor hours, but with the prep, wrap, printing, cutting, weeding and applying second surface, I would be safe to say one would take all of 50 hours, if not more.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Raising your price won't make anything better, time is still an issue. You can hire help, weed out some of this new business you are getting or move on from the wrap people. Over the years we have moved away from anything that is too time consuming or tedious, it's just aggravating work and makes it more difficult to find help due to the extra skills involved.

 

[unclebun]

Raising price makes it realistically possible to hire someone to cover all the work that is making you busy. The comparison for this particular job is how much the color change would be if done at an autobody shop. Earl Scheib doesn't do color changes for $99.95 any more.

 

[TopFliteGraphics]

If you know each one takes about 50 hours, your shop rate should cover that time regardless of what is being done. If other jobs are more profitable, then you know you are not charging enough for this service. Time to raise your prices with this client. In this "post Covid" economy, everyone knows stuff costs more. Your customer knows that and by not raising your prices, you are in essence cutting yourself short. The grocery store doesn't care if you have been a loyal customer for decades. They raise their prices when their costs go up. You need to do the same.

 

[MrDav3C]

So it's great that you know roughly the time it takes to complete each vehicle, this should be one of the factors you use to work out how much you charge for a vehicle wrap or pretty much anything you do that takes up your time.

Yes, you should raise your prices if vehicle wraps are currently not as profitable as they should be when you take all the factors into consideration (design time / printing time / material costs / wrapping time / additional overheads).

I'm sure we have all been in a situation where we have not allowed enough time for us to complete a wrap when things have took longer than expected.

The thing with running a sign making business is that we all do a lot more than just wrap vehicles.

There are a lot of freelance vehicle wrap installers out there who literally just wrap all day long every day.

On occasion for some of the more "challenging" wraps, we use a freelance wrap installer who can often complete the job twice as quick than if we were to do it ourselves. This is usually more cost effective when you factor in how valuable your time is and the additional profit you can make in the time saved.

 

[DL Signs]

There are a lot of freelance vehicle wrap installers out there who literally just wrap all day long every day.

On occasion for some of the more "challenging" wraps, we use a freelance wrap installer who can often complete the job twice as quick than if we were to do it ourselves. This is usually more cost effective when you factor in how valuable your time is and the additional profit you can make in the time saved.

We're more into the sign end than wraps, can't always free up enough time/ personnel, so this is what we do too. We have an extremely talented wrap guy in town who's always happy to have the work when we're too swamped.

 

[Precision]

Wraps are hard to make any money on. Especially with the amount of time it takes, and shortage of wrap installers.

We prefer to sell signage.

 

[White Haus]

Without knowing what you're actually charging for these, if you think you're not making enough and wondering if you should raise prices, you probably should.

Factor in all material costs then multiply by 2.5
Factor in your 50 hours of labor etc and multiply by your hourly rate

If that total is less than what you're charging, increase your rates. If they don't like it, they're welcome to shop around and chances are they'll find someone else that will low-ball it and inherit the unprofitable repeat orders.

I know what you mean about it being somewhat predictable repeat business and not wanting to turn it away, but losing money on a regular basis just isn't a good business decision.