At shopVOX, we’re not just dedicated to creating the best print and sign software on the market today, but also to providing business owners with the support and guidance needed to take their companies to the next level.
In previous blogs, we walked you through understanding the basics of sign pricing, then we told you about some advanced pricing methods, including metric pricing and valuing pricing. At the end of the latter post, we promised that we’d tell you about an additional pricing method soon.
True to our word, today we’re going to be looking at book pricing. Specifically, we’ll be answering two very important questions: What is book pricing? And, more importantly, how can it benefit you?
What is Book Pricing?
If you haven’t already checked out our posts about cost pricing, value pricing, and metric pricing (linked in the intro paragraphs above), do that now.
Book pricing may not be a method of pricing you use as much as those other methods, but it is beneficial for print shops (more so than sign shops). Whether you’re doing t-shirt printing, wide format printing, dye sublimation printing, offset printing or other types of custom printing, book pricing can help simplify what would otherwise be a very complicated sales process.
Book pricing is short for “price book pricing.” It requires you to actually create your own price book. Book pricing is exactly what it sounds like: a book that you can refer to that tells you in black-and-white the price for every individual product or service you offer, from business cards to brochures to print collateral to trade show signage, and so on.
Your price book will also break down each product by price point based on quantity, colors, add-ons, finishing, and the like. You’re going to have a lot of different variables here that affect your pricing, so being diligent is important when creating a price book. The result, however, will greatly simplify the sales process for your team.
The best way to get started is up the pricing of whatever vendor you’re using, whether Signs365, Printograph, B2Sign, 4over, or someone else entirely. Any printer will likely offer their wholesale pricing information online, making it easy for you to quickly look that information up and use it to extrapolate your own prices via markup.
How Does Book Pricing Benefit You?
Building your price book will take a lot of time and effort, but it pays off in the long run. Simply put, it takes much of the “X factor” out of the sales process, allowing you greater control and efficiency.
First of all, having a price book means your team will now have a central resource where all your company’s pricing information is quantified, calculated, and compiled for quick reference. Print products often have dozens if not hundreds of different options and variables. Instead of forcing your staff to memorize all that data plus a complex pricing formula, you can give them a book that contains all the information they need.
Even better, among the many useful features of shopVOX is an option to import your price book, which not only makes your price book easy to access anytime, anywhere but can also be used as an effective training tool for new employees.
Additionally, because this is your price book for your print shop you can update and add to it as needed. You can provide customers with the most current, accurate pricing information. This also makes it easier for you to upsell. For example, 250 business cards might cost a certain amount per unit, but if 500 cards cost less per unit, that might be enough to sway a client to make a larger order. People love getting bulk discounts.
Another key benefit of having a price book is that once you’ve set your retail value and know your vendor's cost, you could actually get into wholesaling. It’s not difficult to marginally mark up your prices for wholesale, then distribute copies of your price book to businesses within your local market.
This will enable your price book to double as a sales tool in order to attract customers who frequently use custom-print products, such as real estate offices and car dealerships. You can even make your price book downloadable right from your website, saving both you and your clients the time of having to generate a new quote for every potential job.
Start Building Your Price Book Inside shopVOX Today
Book pricing isn’t an ideal method for every print or sign shop business. If you don’t offer a wide range of products or add-ons or aren’t interested in selling in bulk, book pricing might not be for you. However, for companies who do those things, switching to the price book method can revolutionize your entire business structure.
Want to learn more about shopVOX print shop software and how it can help you grow your sales, increase your revenues, streamline your efficiency, and improve your workflow? Try it today and see for yourself!