This is really a classic issue that happens in any sales environment, so I felt the need to share it:
A client made a request for 1000 flyers, specifically sighting quality as their main motive. They wanted sales slicks that would represent them at a well-known trade show, so they wanted magazine quality work. The price quoted was around $200, to which they replied they wanted to see the price of a job quoted on a copier, which immediately contradicted their quality motive.
The price for the copier job turned out to be around $300. What??? The client couldn’t understand why the something of lower quality would be higher in price. We explained that while copier prices remain the same price per unit, the offset printing price per unit goes down as the quantity goes up. Not believing us, the client then bid us out on the job, only to find out that we were right on target.
Two weeks later, due to them waiting for their “cheap” graphic designer to complete the artwork, they came back asking for 100 units of the flyers. The price for printing was around $100, and the price for copy work was around $50. Again, the client was dismayed. “Why is the copy price lower than the print price this time?”. We had to reiterate that the price per unit for printing goes down as the quantity goes up, which would suggest that the price per unit goes up when the quantity goes down.
So the client wanted to see a sample of the copy work, but they were not satisfied with the quality. At the same time, they did not want to pay $40 more for the offset printing quality.
We asked them, out of curiousity, what they paid their graphic designer for the artwork, and they said $150. We told them we could have gotten that artwork done for them in one hour, and we charge around $70-$80 per hour. The math: $150 - $80 = $70 saved. That savings would have nearly paid for their print job.
ABOUT PROJECTCENTER:
ProjectCenter is a single-source service company providing marketing and document solutions to small, medium and large-sized businesses in the U.S. area. ProjectCenter is based in Phoenix, Arizona and its services include graphic design, web design, printing, copying, scanning and mailing. For more information, please call (602) 252-6655 or visit www.makepapereasy.com.
