bulk orders

[ryankelley]

I was asked for a price on 30 slimline pens and 30 slimline pencils all engraved with the company logo. I searched for the best prices for kits and blanks, prices I can't change. My question is what should I charge for labor, should I do per piece? If so how much, this is the first bulk order that I have recieved. I could really use the extra money right now. Also is there an someone who will engrave custom font and logo?

 

[Russianwolf]

for the engraving, we have several members that can work with you on that.

On the labor. for now, take how much time it takes you to make a pen from start to finish and price one pen. Multiply it by 30. You may be able to shave some time off (especially if you have specialized equipment), but you are also likely to get bored doing the same pen 30 times.

The way I've started pricing my pieces is to take
kit replacement cost + blank material cost + (labor rate * avg. time) = wholesale.

Wholesale * 2 = Retail

then I look at the price and ask myself if the price feels right compared to the other types of pens I offer. I may adjust up or down slightly, but not down by much.

 

[gketell]

When I had my bulk order they wanted "per piece pricing" and "pricing for 100". Since I (and I presume you) don't have any automated tools to make pens it takes us ~100 times as long to make 100 pens as 1 pen so I told them there were no discounts.

And, honestly, I'm really glad I did because by the time I was done with the order I was seriously burnt out on making pens. I've only made 3 pens since then and it has been 15 months. And my order was about 1/2 what yours is.

For laser engraving, if they truly use a "custom font" it is unlikely that you will find someone that already has it and buying a font is anywhere from $50 to $300 per font. Now, if it is the same thing over and over maybe you can have them print out a jpg or tiff of the graphic with its associated font and your engraver can just laser-cut the image. If not, price the font before giving them a price.

GK

 

[Sylvanite]

Before you commit, make sure the logo is something that will look good small. A slimline pen doesn't have much surface area to engrave. Then ask the company for "camera-ready black-and-white art". If possible get it in "vector" format. If not, then get it in as high a resolution as you can. It's tough to get good output without good input.

I often spend a lot of time cleaning up customers' art before I can engrave it - which costs extra.

Regards,
Eric