A commercial printing companyalready knows what goes into most of their printing jobs, such as the paper, labor costs, ink, and the like.
A commercial printing companyalready knows what goes into most of their printing jobs, such as the paper, labor costs, ink, and the like. Now, when a client comes to you and asks for a quote, probably 75% of them have the same requirements. So if you are a commercial printer, it would be good for you to prepare a price list for the most common printing jobs that are asked in your company. This will save your account executives a lot of effort and time in doing computations for each and every single client. Whenever a client would call, they can just flip the pages of their price list and give out the cost immediately. Or if it is a written proposal, they can just copy and paste the prices from your template.
Additionally, preparing the price list beforehand for most of your products reduces the risk of computation error. Let’s face it, we are all humans and prone to error. Sometimes in the busyness of every day office life in a printing office, tempers flare because of deadlines. Add to that the computations for a quotation and something just might go amiss. Preparing a ready price list for most of your printing products will save you three-fourths of your computing efforts and lot of stress in the office. Here are some of the things that are usually asked from a printing press.
1. Receipts and invoices. You need to have a standard layout for these. You have to have different sizes and quotes for a number of pages. For example, some companies are fine with two copies for their receipts while others would need four copies. So you have to make provision for that and include that in your price list.
2. The Tri-fold Brochures. Most of the time, the brochure is printed on a paper stock called C2S. You can prepare a quote for different grades of C2S and for different number of copies. A lot of printers quote per ream so that makes 500 copies of folded brochures.
3. Flyers. The flyers could be the same price as the brochures if you will not charge for the cutting. For a one ream of paper, the client can choose to have two, three, or four outs and you can give it to them without extra cost.
4. Posters. Make a quote for different sizes of posters like 12” x 18” or 18” x 24” using Kromkote #189. Since this is a poster, this means that the printing is only on side. You can prepare quotes for 1-color, 2-color, 3-color, and four-color printing as well as for different number of copies.
5. Business cards. In quoting this, use the standard white paper and colored printing as the basis for your quote. Of course, the minimum order is 100 pieces and the client will have to add by the 100s as well because the calling card box can fit 100 pieces only.
6. Magazines, newsletters and tabloids. These are usually required by companies and schools that produce regular publications. You can have a standard format for them to choose from.
7. Calendars. These products are just ordered once a year during November and December from a commercial printer. But it pays to be ready with the price list for your commercial printing company because when the season before the holidays come, you will be swamped with orders and if you don’t have a price list, you will be repeating yourself over and over again to different clients.