opinions needed

[Dennis Kotlowski]

I respect and am very thankful that this forum and the people are here and has been here since I have started engraving. I am looking for a few opinions of the photo I have attached. I need pricing advice. I have neven been very good at pricing in quantities. The cost of this box is $7.50 and it took 1:23 to engrave. One thing I will have to do to this box is hot glue the cd holder inside because the glue that was used at the manufacturer was very poor and don't want these to fall apart on the customer. I am going to contact the vendor to see if they will give me a price break for this problem. I am looking for pricing in the ranges of 1-20, 21-50, 51-75 and 75-100. Thank you for your help.


Dennis
JD Laser Gifts

[Joe Pelonio]

I respect and am very thankful that this forum and the people are here and has been here since I have started engraving. I am looking for a few opinions of the photo I have attached. I need pricing advice. I have neven been very good at pricing in quantities. The cost of this box is $7.50 and it took 1:23 to engrave. One thing I will have to do to this box is hot glue the cd holder inside because the glue that was used at the manufacturer was very poor and don't want these to fall apart on the customer. I am going to contact the vendor to see if they will give me a price break for this problem. I am looking for pricing in the ranges of 1-20, 21-50, 51-75 and 75-100. Thank you for your help.


Dennis
JD Laser Gifts
I'll take a shot. For small quantities I charge $10 setup for something easy, I'll double the material cost then charge $1/minute laser time.
That makes it $27 for one. I have to consider my time/material savings to determine quantity discounts. If the supplier gives a quantity discount I can pass that on. If every box is identical, then there is some time savings in not having to re-do the artwork, you can run it "mass production" style.
Generally I'll do price breaks of 5% for 10-24, 10% for 25-49, 15% for 50+.
You can adjust that for the quantities he's asking for. People have a hard time understanding it but if they are each getting a different name, such as on a large name badge order, you have no savings to pass on.

[Rodne Gold]

I would add 200% to the box (which includes your glueing time), IE $22.50 for the box and $3.50 for the marking.
$26.00 -20
$24.50 -50
$23.00 -100
$22.00 -250
I wouldnt charge a setup fee myself , but thats up to you.

[Joe Pelonio]

I wouldnt charge a setup fee myself , but thats up to you.
Rodney,

I'm glad to see our amounts were close. As for the setup, I recently had to pass on a job when the tube was out. The guy came in Monday to have me do another job. The place he went to, a competitor about 6 miles away, charged him double what I would have, plus a $50 setup! That was for a simple engraving of text on acrylic. I'm not about to rip people off just becuse someone else does it, but then again I'm not going to give it away either.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Setup costs can be a sliding scale based on number of units. The fee can be waived after a minimum throughput has been reached on recurring orders. Setup can be waived on the first 2 orders if you're out to cultivate a new client.

I'd rather see that the setup has value to both parties even if it is waived. It should be on the invoice as a 'no charge' item. Failure to do this early in an on-going relationship makes it difficult to institute later on when doing short runs with difficult setups.

Mitch

[Rodne Gold]

I used to charge for logo conversion , setup etc , but found customers resent it and it just added to confusion when pricing , we nowdays just build it in when doing small qtys or onesies.

I have specialised designers and programmers on staff and we find that more and more we get logos etc in a useable format without having to do a clean up. Even if we do have to digitise a logo , its really pretty much a snap with the tools availale , so no longer charge for it. We just treat it as a cost of doing business in the sector we do.

The fact we don't charge also counts in our favour when competing against others or other ways of branding etc.

However I'm not so sure if I would be so cavalier about setup charges if I were man alone or this took a substantial amount of my or my designers time.

We have even got to a stage where we do full production samples prior to quoting on bigger runs , and don't charge for these. The customer sees what they get and we get to see if there are any problems or niggles with the job, exactly what time it takes and what it involves and cost accordingly.
I often DO get p'd off when we have spent a lot of time doing development work and samples for a client and dont get work out of it
I write this off to school fees and often what happens is that we add a process or a product line and use the discarded design for another client and so forth.

[James Stokes]

My thoughts on samples and set-ups. I do not charge set-up fee. Nor do I do free samples. If someone wants me to spend my time on their product they pay for it. PERIOD