vinyl wording

[accdave]

There's no such thing as a standard charge. Apart from working out your own costs, the next biggest factor is what competition is in your area. It's okay saying £10 or £15 but if somebody a mile up the road is doing it for a fiver then you aren't going to get any of the business. Okay if you don't want the business then charge high, but remember the person they go to will possibly also get any future business which may be more lucrative. We charge £5 for one side and £6 for 2 sides, simply because we have a competitor who also charges that. At the end of the day we can't afford to let him take the business.

Have to say 95% of our 'print' only stuff is for ladies t-shirts, there's no way we can provide a range big enough and more importantly consistently sized to please them all

[della-rose]

I work on my market stall but people round here expect everything dead cheap and must admit I don't make much.
Been trying to get ideas about price.

[John G]

£6.00 for 2 sides

I've just worked out some costings - if they wanted an A4 size print front and back you'll get 6 shirts out of 1m of flex. Flex is around £5.50 per metre but has vat to be added so that turns it into £6.60 - if that's all you buy, then delivery costs would have an effect too.

So your material costs for 1 shirt, front and back would be around £2.20. You need to cut this on a plotter, weed it, then heat press it on two sides. You need to add electric for your plotter and heat press, depreciation on your equipment and also you want an hourly rate + profit. Your doing all this for £3.80 per shirt.

Competiton or not, thats crazy!

[della-rose]

Going to have to work out prices I think, most of the wording I do is A3

[John G]

A3 for women's hen shirts - must be big lasses. The majority of the ones I do are all small sizes so A4 portrait normally fits.

[accdave]

£6.00 for 2 sides

I've just worked out some costings - if they wanted an A4 size print front and back you'll get 6 shirts out of 1m of flex. Flex is around £5.50 per metre but has vat to be added so that turns it into £6.60 - if that's all you buy, then delivery costs would have an effect too.

So your material costs for 1 shirt, front and back would be around £2.20. You need to cut this on a plotter, weed it, then heat press it on two sides. You need to add electric for your plotter and heat press, depreciation on your equipment and also you want an hourly rate + profit. Your doing all this for £3.80 per shirt.

Competiton or not, thats crazy!

It's crazy if you isolate it as a sale that is pushing another sale out of the door, or it's what you're doing day in day out,but it doesn't work like that for us. We probably get about 2 or 3 of these jobs per month, the majoirty of which are double figure orders, our biggest one so far was for 57 hens.

Our flex prices are £4.79 plus vat per metre and we rarely have delivery charges because we order most of it off MDF and make sure the order value is over £100. The way we price it our material costs for each shirt would be no more than £1.44. ( each side of the shirt is no more than half a craft robo sheet size, if they want more than our 'normal' material coverage we charge extra ) add your £1.60 other costs on top that makes £3.04. That makes us £2.96 per shirt, if it's a 5 shirt order ( our minimum order for these ) then the order makes £14.80. I would do them easily in an hour, so I take the view I'd rather be making that £14.80 than sitting there for an hour making nothing. It might be a lot less than some people make in an hour but it all adds up. We know from experience we get many other orders from these 'hen do' orders for our other products, and as I said previously I'd rather we get that business than our competitor.

[della-rose]

Thanks accdave that has helped me a lot, there is nobody near me doing these only names & numbers on football shirts, they charge 50p a letter.

[pitkin2020]

out of curiosity if matey up the road was to drop his price to £4 for two side would you also drop your price?? Having a low price on the hope of more lucrative business in the future is a big gamble, you are effectively working for the carrot being dangled in front of your nose, which may always be there dangling!!. Personally I don't work for free I could do volunteer work if I was that way inclined lol.

Irrespective of what others charge first and foremost your costs have to be covered. Someone up the road may have very little overheads whilst yours may be high so trying to undercut/price match them and their bargain basement prices could be business suicide if your not covering your costs.

This is one of the main reasons I have avoided T-shirt work as too many people are at it with their stupidly low prices, whilst £5 a side isn't too bad if you have a run of say 20+ shirts all with the same design doing the odd one or two at that price is just pointless by the time you have prepped the artwork, cut and weeded the vinyl then applied it its not exactly an attractive hourly rate after costs.

[accdave]

out of curiosity if matey up the road was to drop his price to £4 for two side would you also drop your price?? Having a low price on the hope of more lucrative business in the future is a big gamble, you are effectively working for the carrot being dangled in front of your nose, which may always be there dangling!!. Personally I don't work for free I could do volunteer work if I was that way inclined lol.

Irrespective of what others charge first and foremost your costs have to be covered. Someone up the road may have very little overheads whilst yours may be high so trying to undercut/price match them and their bargain basement prices could be business suicide if your not covering your costs.

This is one of the main reasons I have avoided T-shirt work as too many people are at it with their stupidly low prices, whilst £5 a side isn't too bad if you have a run of say 20+ shirts all with the same design doing the odd one or two at that price is just pointless by the time you have prepped the artwork, cut and weeded the vinyl then applied it its not exactly an attractive hourly rate after costs.

Good luck to anyone who can can choose to avoid the cut throat jobs, the more established your business is the easier that is. We can't and we either compete or ship out, it's as simple as that. Of course there's a limit to how far others drop their prices as to how far we compete, I did point out our costs were covered. Personally I'd rather ship out, there isn't a decent living in this game for small retailers unless you sweat your wotsits off. You may counteract that by saying if we made more profit then we would make more of a living, but round here price is king until you get the custom, so until you get the custom in the first place the level or quality of service you provide is irrelevant.

As it is I have nothing else to go to so there's no point shipping out, I'd rather work for next to nothing than become a jobcentre statistic.

[pitkin2020]

LOL, price is never king i'm afraid people only say that as they believe they have to compete with other local businesses. If price was always the most important factor in any buying process then companies like costa coffee, nike, reebok etc would never survive. Their products in reality are no more superior than your local independent coffee shop or other clothing brands, the difference is they are selling you an image which people buy into. I'm not saying a small business should create a brand so they can sell for more as a small business would never afford the marketing required just making a point. Also what ever t-shirt you print I could no doubt get even cheaper from ebay seller in the far east!

Personally i'm not a big business (theres only little old me) but my work is based on word of mouth, I have no advertising but i'm not renowned for low prices, that is an image I don't want. I want my business to be known for quality and great service. I have no interest in working for people who want to pay ford focus money for a porshce!! just for me to cover my costs, I need to ensure my cash flow is good because if something goes wrong like my cutter breaks or a computer dies I need to ensure I have funds to replace them straight away. Making a couple of quid per order means I have to do a lot of orders just to be able to replace my cutter. Covering just your costs can kill a business overnight when something goes wrong.

Just to add getting customers with a low price point very rarely means you can charge a higher price at a later date, say you do 50 shirts at £5 each for a customer, they come back the following week for another 50 you'll still only be able to charge £5 each as the were brought in on a low price thats why they are there nothing more, if you decide to now charge £7 each do you really think they will stay or just go and find someone else to do them at £5 each!

Everyone has a different business model and what works for one won't work for another but people shouldn't always believe they have to compete on price to stay in business.