There must be some serious markup in sign materials!

[threeputt]

Quick story. Just this week the winning bid was announced for a job we had bid on. It was a large quantity of signs for the municipality in which I live.

We had previously been the winning bidder on another project three months ago for this same municipality. Graphics on 28 busses.

Well, you guessed it, our bid was not accepted. (they have to accept the lowest qualified bid) Our bid was four times what the winning bid was. I was dumbfounded. We poured over the spec sheets like crazy. Shopped for good deals on the materials. The .080" aluminum alone (they even spec'd the alloy number) was $2K. The job required 2.6 rolls of 54" Printable Reflective vinyl at 2K a roll.

The signs were irregular shape requiring cutting, drilling, etc. blah, blah, blah. Bid packet 29 pages long.

When I was shown the winning bid (it wouldn't even cover the cost of the Reflective vinyl - at cost) I realized that there must be some serious markup when they sell through distributors and those distributors then "step" on it, finally selling it to us users. (who in turn then sell to the client)

The company that won the bid is a big outfit that does pretty much only street signs for cities and towns. So they must get the material at a much, much lower cost than we are able to. Same goes for the aluminum too.

 

[SightLine]

I guarantee they are not running the job on 3M 680 / Avery 6200 / Oracal 5650...... those are nice materials but ridiculously overpriced. Some alternates like 3M IJ5000, 3M 3200, Nikkalite, and others 1/4 to half the cost and for many applications work every bit as well. Some are not even specified as being solvent printable, but very much are and work great. We use a ton of engineer grade reflective on emergency vehicles and non-critical signs (non-diamond grade) and 48" x 50yd rolls are far less than half of what you are talking about.

 

[Marlene]

we just lost a bid for two large carved redwood signs for a local town to someone who bid $500 for both. wonder what wood they are using...

 

[Gino]

If I had a dime for every time I've said that lately, I'd have a nice little bundle.

We don't lose many bids, but in the last year or so.... I've said so many times... we can't even get the materials for that..... how the f*ck are they doing this ??


If you ever go back and look at the workmanship or the kinda materials used...... there are far too many people bidding on stuff with no clue as to using the actual materials specked for the jobs. And the end user usually just says, yeah, oh well. :Oops:

 

[gnemmas]

You are right about material mark up, but not by sign distributors, but by 3M.

They sell to these traffic sign company either direct or through different channels at such low prices. I buy engineer grade from one of this company to get better deal than Fellers or sign material distributors. (They are not suppose to resell these materials).

 

[threeputt]

Yeah, I'm batting 1 for 3 with this city. Probably the only reason we won the graphics bid for the busses business was that we were local and had no travel expenses. (the City only had one to two busses per week available) The out-of-town bidders would have had too much travel back and forth 28 times.

But the one that I should have learned my lesson on was the 40,000 decals for the dumpsters bid. That one went to the State Prison System which has it's own signshop.

Pretty hard to beat free prison labor, no overhead, and all printing, laminating and cutting equipment paid for by the taxpayes of Washington state.

I'm pretty much done with public bidding projects unless we have reason to believe we've got an advantage somewhere.

 

[Gino]

Yeah, I'm batting 1 for 3 with this city. Probably the only reason we won the graphics bid for the busses business was that we were local and had no travel expenses. (the City only had one to two busses per week available) The out-of-town bidders would have had too much travel back and forth 28 times.

But the one that I should have learned my lesson on was the 40,000 decals for the dumpsters bid. That one went to the State Prison System which has it's own signshop.

Pretty hard to beat free prison labor, no overhead, and all printing, laminating and cutting equipment paid for by the taxpayes of Washington state.

I'm pretty much done with public bidding projects unless we have reason to believe we've got an advantage somewhere.

He-e-e-ey..............

Watch how you talk about the Prison help. They're on my payroll.... well, at least the ones in my state. I pay dearly for their comfort and rehabilitation.

 

[fmg]

we just lost a bid for two large carved redwood signs for a local town to someone who bid $500 for both. wonder what wood they are using...

Plastic!

 

[anotherdog]

Don't forget the 120 days to pay for some of the municipalities.

 

[chopper]

this what I was talking about in my thread the other day,
maufacture's selling direct to my competition,
and they are selling the jobs at less than I can by the materials for...

//chopper

 

[signage]

The MUTCD sign making side of the industry is huge market and without having the proper equipment and money for supplies runs the small sign shops out of the competition. They buy the Aluminum by weight (tons) and/or container amounts. Some of these companies also supply the sign distributors with blanks! These companies are not buying sheets but rolls!