Let’s consider all the things you may need to price. You have the products you purchase from your suppliers and various sheet goods to make plates, signs, name badges, and many other smaller products. You may even sell products personalized from a supplier or another source that you outsource to. The real complex part comes when you consider all the different services you provide and the various circumstances.
To begin working with a customer, you have your sales time, which can be substantial, consulting on the selection of various products. You’ll often assist with personalization wording at this point. And if not now, many customers leave it up to us for wording or editing during the layout process.
Selling a personalized product takes much more time than a customer selecting a product off the shelf and simply paying for it. Consider time spent on pricing out products and projects, searching through catalogs for customers, taking photos or finding photos of products to send them, and making sure what they want personalized will fit on a product.
Substantial time is also spent on graphics, ordering products, and unboxing both the shipping box and individual products for personalization. Consider time spent cleaning and repackaging. You may also have assembly services. Not charging for this time tells your customer that your time is not valuable.
Sometimes you have customers like non-profits and the military that you may consider waiving certain charges for. Always list the service on the invoice and mark the fee “waived” or “donation.” It lets the customer know that what you offer is far more than taking a product off the shelf and preparing an invoice, and our time has a value to it.
Learn more: How to price custom lasered products
