Shop Minimums??? Do you have one??

[Gino]

Ours is posted at $185.00 on the wall.

If I need it, I point to it. If I want to do someone a favor, I ignore it. It's my decision, not theirs.

On the other hand, for those who say about it costing you $50 or $100 just to fire up the machine or whatever your reason may be...... isn't your machine up and running consistently already ?? Ours go on and are running almost 10 hours straight on most days. Therefore, that excuse won't hold water.

Our minimum is really just a backup in case I don't want to do something.

It's also hard to get someone to understand your time equates to dollars. I've had people come in and talk my ears off and still only spend $100. However, I enjoyed the talk. Again, it's up to me to direct whatever activity goes on in our shop.

There's a girl coming in later this afternoon who about three months ago first wanted a 24" x 36" Cor-X sign 1-sided. I told her it would cost about $65. and she stared at me in disbelief. I told her I could do 5 of them for her if she wanted to go the route of of our shop minimum. She couldn't believe it was $185. Well, I made the sign for $45 and everyone was happy. When she picked up the sign, she gave me another order for a whole bunch of signs and spent about $600 on that order. Since then she has had several orders. Today she's picking up 2 15' banners and some printed PVC. She always making sure she gets her minimum's worth.

 

[threeputt]

Here's a snap I took 5 minutes ago. I think to have a minimum clearly posted is one thing. But...to really help cement the idea into people's heads, put your hourly next to it.

That way $40.00 sounds pretty reasonable if you end up having to explain to someone that almost any sign is going to take a half hour to produce, plus you've got some material in there also.

We were being plagued with "sticker" people. I cannot afford them!

They want to discuss their little project for too long. I can't afford my people standing there why they tell us that the little sticker they need for their grandsons model car will make him so delighted. (or whatever, I've seen it all)

 

[Hicalibersigns]

I used to work for a guy that always said "nothing takes less than an hour." Think about it. Everything that goes into it. Paper work, accounting for taxes, accounting for employee time, art work, set up, etc. Of course Murphy lurks around every corner. So at the very least your minimum should be 1 hour at your standard shop rate.

 

[Mosh]

plus the hours spent on here each day, that has to be calculated in the rate....

 

[petepaz]

On the other hand, for those who say about it costing you $50 or $100 just to fire up the machine or whatever your reason may be...... isn't your machine up and running consistently already ?? Ours go on and are running almost 10 hours straight on most days. Therefore, that excuse won't hold water.

ours run pretty much all day also but if someone comes in, calls or what ever and they need 10 decals or a small 5" x 15" cut vinyl for a door. now i have to interupt a job or push something back. you might only be using $5 worth of material and 30-45 minutes of your time but then add that to the what you already doing and it becomes worth $75 or $100 for you to do it. the other thing is usually on a small minimum order they don't come in and say i need 2 decals for my office doors but i don't need them for 3 weeks.

 

[Gino]

On the other hand, for those who say about it costing you $50 or $100 just to fire up the machine or whatever your reason may be...... isn't your machine up and running consistently already ?? Ours go on and are running almost 10 hours straight on most days. Therefore, that excuse won't hold water.

ours run pretty much all day also but if someone comes in, calls or what ever and they need 10 decals or a small 5" x 15" cut vinyl for a door. now i have to interupt a job or push something back. you might only be using $5 worth of material and 30-45 minutes of your time but then add that to the what you already doing and it becomes worth $75 or $100 for you to do it. the other thing is usually on a small minimum order they don't come in and say i need 2 decals for my office doors but i don't need them for 3 weeks.

To me, those kinds fall under another category. Rush or PITA. You can usually find an extra few minutes to run a short job and gang it in with another. Generally, we discuss what order things need to be run, in case anything happened over night with emergency phone calls or needs. Throughout the day, if someone comes in having a royal conniption..... we have fun with them and then save their *ss and charge accordingly.

 

[Jackpine]

$40 minimum and I only deviate for good customers. I recently changed a 6" number on two signs for a very good, long term customer (real estate sign) at my convenience. When she asked for a bill I said "no charge"..... she handed me 2 $20's.

 

[JustInSigns]

We have a min. $80 in house charge, and $120 if called out locally. Rush orders attract a 30% loading for the inconvenience of having to stop the current work and load up for the rush order.

 

[binki]

We don't have a shop minimum but we do price one-offs and smaller orders higher than if there was volume with the order. Kind of a back door way to have a minimum. This has helped us with some of our smaller customers who have slowing increased their order size over the last few years.

It really depends on the size of your shop though and how much your average order is and how busy you are. We know our larger competition that had larger minimums has dropped those over the last few years because of economic reasons but we see that changing as things are picking back up. Several larger shops in the area refer business to us because they have a higher minimum than us.

So I guess it just depends on your situation.

 

[TopFliteGraphics]

I am in the process of doing the same thing. I don't have much walk-in traffic but I think I need to let people know that my time is valuable.

 

[TheSnowman]

Mine is $25, but sometimes it goes up for the "sticker people"...or I will just quote it accordingly and dodge the minimum speech. If a job comes in I really don't want, that minimum has been known to skyrocket.