Wholesale printing, charging for waste?

[bob]

I'm curious - Do you give your customer everything they paid for?

They paid for a sign and that's what they get. How they get it is my concern, not theirs. The vast majority of waste goes to the dump. Life is too short to be constantly wrangling odd sized pieces of material.

Meaning, if you charge them for 11' of 36" banner material do you hand that over with their 1x10 banner? That's like having a substrate cut down and your supplier not giving you the drop but being charged for the entire sheet. Also why would your customer have to pay for 36" material instead of 24" or 30" which is readily available? They shouldn't have to pay because you don't stock the right size.

I just don't see how that is right. I'm not harping on your process I just don't agree with it. If it works for you then have at it.

Your concept of right and my own seem to vary considerably. Actually, my lack of interest in what might be right for anyone other than myself approaches total.

I stock what I use 90% of the time. The other 10% just has to fit in somehow.

Moreover, except for certain exotic substrates, the incremental cost to the client is minuscule relative to the total cost of the job, as is most all material cost, whether it's used or tossed on the burn pile. They pay for what I unroll and/or whatever I cut out of. If someone finds that unreasonable, they're welcome to hie themselves to some other shop.

Perhaps after decades of schlepping the same bunch of scraps back and forth around the shop you might come to feel pretty much the same way.

 

[sjm]

I'm curious - Do you give your customer everything they paid for? Meaning, if you charge them for 11' of 36" banner material do you hand that over with their 1x10 banner? That's like having a substrate cut down and your supplier not giving you the drop but being charged for the entire sheet. Also why would your customer have to pay for 36" material instead of 24" or 30" which is readily available? They shouldn't have to pay because you don't stock the right size.

I just don't see how that is right. I'm not harping on your process I just don't agree with it. If it works for you then have at it.

As my suppliers return off cuts to us, we too offer the off cuts to our clients.

 

[gbarker]

They paid for a sign and that's what they get. How they get it is my concern, not theirs.

Never mind Bob, I don't realize it was you or I would have never considered replying to your original comment. Based on previous threads you have posted to I know that you are only in it for yourself and you don't give a crap about others. What is right or wrong in your eyes is vastly different than most others.

 

[sjm]

Never mind Bob, I don't realize it was you or I would have never considered replying to your original comment. Based on previous threads you have posted to I know that you are only in it for yourself and you don't give a crap about others. What is right or wrong in your eyes is vastly different than most others.

Man o man, there is no right or wrong. Do what works for you, for heavens sake.

 

[Techman]

I'm curious - Do you give your customer everything they paid for?

hells yes!

They paid for a finished product. They don't care what is left over. All they want is the finished product.
Who cares about some 1 foot x 8 ft drop. Just lay it in the corner and use it when the chance happens by. You are not supposed to be charging someone by the foot anyway. You are supposed to be charging a lot for the value they are given. Worrying over $5 bux of left over material is about the last thing a bizz owner would think about. The client paid for it. Thats what it took to do the job. The left overs are just that.

 

[Eforcer]

Is it common practice to charge for waste on a wholesale printing? Just curious, i was a little surprised when i was charged for waste on a wholesale print.

I've had pricing on my wall for everything I do. I break it down from 17" x 22" up to 48" x 96" I purchase large size rolls and have them cut down to different sizes. I get charged $5 per cut but I have many sizes to use so I don't waste too much media. But I use to charge for the size of the media, not anymore.

 

[Bradley Signs]

If you buy a 48" x 72" sign from me, and the material comes in 4x8 sheets, your paying for the whole sheet. Then I can make a couple extra duckies by selling the cut off for something else, unless the customer wants it...

 

[Print1]

In

Is it common practice to charge for waste on a wholesale printing? Just curious, i was a little surprised when i was charged for waste on a wholesale print.

Happy Graphics Making!
Spencer

In my opinion, no. The yield these days is high enough that the time and labor involved in tracking and charging for waste does not justify. However if you are using high end products like acrylic and such I’d recommend rounding up. A person used 70% of a piece I’d charge for a full sheet.
Coroplast and any other cheap material, let it go

 

[Eforcer]

If you buy a 48" x 72" sign from me, and the material comes in 4x8 sheets, your paying for the whole sheet. Then I can make a couple extra duckies by selling the cut off for something else, unless the customer wants it...

: ) Great analogy!

I charge 48" x 72" $136 to print $42.00 to mount Full sheet $178 to print $46.00 to mount
There is plenty of $$ to just throw out waste.

 

[Jester1167]

: ) Great analogy!

I charge 48" x 72" $136 to print $42.00 to mount Full sheet $178 to print $46.00 to mount
There is plenty of $$ to just throw out waste.

Don't forget to add the time it takes you to cut the sheet down and clean off all the shavings. In my world, both of those would be the same price and I would try and talk them into the full sheet.

 

[SightLine]

Wow..... old thread that was dead for over 10 years!!!

Well..... for us for the most part we do charge for waste but we figure it into the cost that we quote a customer. If a customer asks we explain it to them though. You are not paying just for the amount of material you get, you are paying for the amount of material we use. Yes in some scenarios drops are usable like with substrates but for any roll stock, in general, cut offs are not worth the time and effort to properly store them for use later.

 

[Jeremiah]

Wholesale or Retail. It does not matter . A person who is in the professional sign business must understand that they must pay for the amount of material that is used to create an order. Why not ?

 

[FireSprint.com]

I'm kind of surprised at how much emotion is in this thread. It's very pragmatic to me. It depends on your business model. We have two ways of pricing.

1. If you go to our website and quote out a job, you get a price that includes:
   1. Time on equipment (I calculate profit into our time on equipment/labor as it is the most finite resource we have)
   2. Labor
   3. True Material Usage + Average waste of this material over the last 6 months. (If we purchased 12,000sqft to sell 10,000sqft, we add 20% for waste)
   4. Market multiplier (Some products get a lower price due to market factors)
   5. We win some and we lose some for sake of offering easy, instant pricing. We are continuously improving on our waste numbers and pricing metrics.
2. If you email us and request a quote on a larger order (Say $2500 or more) we will factor in what we expect to be the actual waste on the job based on the sheet/roll yield, ink costs, etc. We'll only not charge for that waste if we are 100% certain we can sell the rest of that sheet or roll while we are printing the first job.

In either case, we estimate waste and bid the job. Once the job is bid, our price doesn't change if we can help it. We have had plenty of jobs use up 3 times as much material as they should, we just eat those, learn from them, and move on.