Marketing professionals understand the nuts and bolts of promoting and branding products and services. They grasp the nuances and details of the sweat and tears of building and maintaining an image or more specifically a brand. As a marketing specialist, graphic designer, photographer and publisher, I am privy to the behind-the-scenes look into the costs associated with conceptualizing, designing and dispensing marketing collateral materials; namely, print design. Why do you save money by buying more than you think you need?
The most recurring confusion among a few past clients stems from the fact that 1 item of print such as a brochure, poster, or book can cost as much as 50. They are confused as to why I encourage them to order more product than they initially want. The first reaction is that I’ll make more. The truth is, I make the same thing whether they order 50 or 1000 in most cases. I manage the design from start to finish and that often time includes printing. I’d much rather design it and manage the print process because I can control quality output. The last thing I want to do is design it and forget about it. My name and reputation is on it after all. I’ve seen too many great designs be ruined by budget printers. I earn my keep from conceptualizing, designing, launching, implementing, managing output, recording and disseminating ROI, and working with vendors if applicable. I seldom if ever mark up printing since that is often handled by a third party. The rare cases that I may, might be a very large job that may entail a great deal more financial risk should something go wrong in the printing process of which I may not have directly caused, but for which I may be held partly responsible. In any event, marking up printing and shipping is not a normal practice for me.
But why would anyone buy more print products than they need? Fixed cost in running a printing press or digital printer or other device or system is the same whether or not a customer orders 50 or 1,000 in most cases. Even as the designer, my fixed cost are the same in most instances. If all goes well I design it once. If you order 5 or 5,000 you still pay me the same for the design. Consequently, the minute price increase is only for paper media and toner, ink or die, which are all relatively small compared to the fixed costs up to a point. All smaller jobs, fixed costs can account for half or even three-quarters of the total bill.
The time it takes for the machine to startup is the same. Preparing the files for the press requires the same manpower. The staff hired to run the press gets paid the same regardless of how many are ordered. The same maintenance crew that works for $65 an hour to clean and prep a press works just as hard to produce your 1 business card as they do for 1,000 business cards. Additionally, there is waste that 1 card produces. Since that card may be cut from a standard roll of set paper width. The rest of that paper may no longer be practical to use for other jobs. Even if it were, it would require a huge press adjustment to setup for a special print run. The likelihood of the left over paper happening to match up perfectly to what the next 1,001 customer needs is highly unlikely and paper does have a shelf life not to mentioning the storage logistics of it all.
As it pertains to printing, producing more reduces the per unit price significantly. Furthermore, my experience has shown that customers seldom order as many or as much as they need. Therefore, reducing their unit price by ordering more is a fantastic idea and saves them money in the long run. If a customer were to order 5,000 brochures for a $1,000. That’s 0.20 per unit. Then the customer realizes they needed 10,000 brochures instead after the 5,000 units have been completed and delivered. Assuming there were no price increases since and all other things being equal, that customer would likely have to pay another $1,000 for another 5,000 brochures when they may have paid only $1,500 had they ordered all 10,000 in the beginning which would have been only 0.15 per unit. Why? Because over half the cost of the print job can be fixed cost from each individual press run. It doesn’t matter if it was the same design or the same printer. Their fixed costs are the same, and as such so is yours (the client or the customer).
There are a few exceptions but not many. There are gang options which may help (more on this later). You may not have to pay for the design again but you’re asking your designer to handle this for you all over again. That has to cost something. If the designer is an in-house employee then it’s still costing you. That designer has to go thru the steps of resending those files to the vendor, tracking the order and following thru. In other words, it’s costing you time and money to repeat the process. A few large scale press companies will keep files for you if they’re just repetitive prints with no adjustments or small adjustments. This is usually for extremely large clients that produce tens of thousands of units per month, per week or even per day.
Technology and presses are becoming more advanced all the time. Like everything else, these things are evolving and changing rapidly. I’m able to offer clients more products and services at fractions of the price I once had to charge due to presses being able to accommodate smaller jobs. Despite that, for right now, the price advantage is still on the side of volume.
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