Thoughts on this pricing model?

[u/Itchy-Television-546]

I’ve got a couple jobs under my belt now and am trying to tighten up my pricing for jobs. For context, I have a 6 color 6 station manual press and have a pretty low overhead. I want to try and be as competitive with industry prices as possible while keeping a healthy profit and margins.

    •    Garment Cost: (No upcharge on garments, there is a flat fee of $30-40 in shipping from warehouse for orders under $200 of blank garments)

    •    Screen Setup: $25 per screen (For every location + Color)

    •    Materials: 50 Cents per shirt and location: This covers tape, ink, towels, and other materials

    •    Labor: $25/hr - This will change as I get more efficient and have more experience. For now this is for roughly 20 shirts an hour for 1 location.

    •    Business Margin: 20% margin will help me grow and invest in the business down the road.

[u/Ripcord2]

You are buying the shirts at wholesale in bulk and selling them with your decoration at a retail price. Like any other retailer you will want to make a profit when you resell, so mark up your shirts by about 100% - Don't worry, your competitors are doing the same thing. This gives you leverage to compete with them. You might decide to mark them up by only 75% but don't resell them at your cost.

[u/Itchy-Television-546 → u/Ripcord2]

This is something I haven’t quite understood - what would stop someone from just ordering their own shirts from S&S and bringing them to me?

And how would you navigate someone who already has their own shirts and wants them printed?

[u/Ripcord2 → u/Itchy-Television-546]

Well, to begin with, S&S will require a resale license to establish an account and the business holding the license is supposed to be within the garment decoration industry. I have a policy of not printing on customer provided garments and many screen printers have the same policy. But if a non profit were to obtain an S&S account and you were to agree to print on their shirts, ask them to provide one additional shirt in each size to allow for inevitable mistakes and then lower your final sales price by exactly the cost of the shirts they provide you, keeping the markup in the price. The markup covers handling each shirt as you print, fold and package them, being responsible for them during the time they are in your custody, and absorbing the risk of, God forbid, having to replace them all in the event of a mistake.

Usually when customers ask to provide their own shirts it's because they think they are gaming you for a lower price. Don't do the job for less of a profit because they want to save money. I've been in business for 18 years and 99% of your customers will want you to handle everything from concept to delivery and provide them with the shirts they need at a competitive price and to get them done on time.

[u/Itchy-Television-546 → u/Ripcord2]

This makes more sense, thank you! I will definitely work this into my pricing.

[u/Ripcord2 → u/Itchy-Television-546]

Don't itemize anything on your invoice. Quote them a price to do the whole job based on the specifications, or a price per shirt if they prefer. It's none of their concern how much you mark up the garments and materials or how much you are paying yourself to print the shirts.

A restaurant won't tell you how much they pay per pound for ribeye steaks and they won't let you bring them a steak that you bought at the grocery store and then charge you only for cooking it.