Pricing Glass

Kelly Thorson · Post by **Kelly Thorson** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:41 pm

This is a whole new world to me. Are there any guidelines, a place to start?
Here is a scenario....
Restaurant/Brewery chain is interested in having their in house brew labels made into glass pieces for their different locations. They are interested in a price quote for both a one of a kind piece and a run of 12 of a kind(one for each outlet). There is a possibility of 108 pieces in total.
There are 9 different labels in all. The approximate size would be 24" x 30". The job would include some redesign of the labels, (I'm estimating an average of 4-6 hours each to redesign and vectorize them) gold leaf or angel gilding, mirroring, possibly acid etching and/or glue chipping. Some would require framing as well.
Obviously there is going to be a considerable difference in price between a one of a kind piece and one of a run of 12. Ideally the balance between the initial cost of the first piece and the cost of multiple pieces would convince the client to go for the full quantity. My preference would be to steer the client into going for 2 or 3 of the most popular brands in sets of 12 to start with - hopefully the results will sell the rest.
I have absolutely no idea as how to price these. I have a rough idea of the costs involved in each piece, and the time it would take to make them.
I don't want to underprice these and undermine the market, I also don't want to scare the client away.
Because I am trying to get established in a higher end market, is there an hourly rate or per sq ft rate that I can guage my quotes against? If anyone is willing to email me with some feedback or better yet post it here so we all can learn, I would be very appreciative.
Also, what would some of you wholesale parts of this order for?

Billy Pickett · Post by **Billy Pickett** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 12:29 pm

...Wow, this sounds like a plum job. I'd tell the client that you can only guess how long it would take to do one piece, and that you will be charging them your by-the-hour shop rate. Give 'em a guess-timate for the time (and perhaps a high and low), including the time for the artwork. Once you have their deposit, you can execute the first one (make an extra piece for your shop art gallery), and you will know approx. how much time each one will require for the future work.

...When you get going on the rest of them, maybe you could have alot of the GL back up screened to save time.

...Good luck.I wish I had a neat project like this one to do. This will be a HUGE learning experience for you, and will certainly help establish you as a "high end" expert.

Kelly Thorson · Post by **Kelly Thorson** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 2:10 pm

Thanks Billy Bob,

I wish I had a neat project like this one to do. This will be a HUGE learning experience for you, and will certainly help establish you as a "high end" expert.

It would be wonderful if I could land it or even part of it, but I suspect that pricing will scare him off. They are just wondering what the costs involved would be and I initially approached them, so I suspect they will balk. I didn't expect the interest in so many pieces, but I guess if you have a chain you are used to doing things in bulk. I just realized that I had absolutely no idea how to price something of this magnitude, I'm not even too sure what the local market will bear for single items.

I was hoping someone experienced here found themselves in a similar situation and could guide me a little. I don't mind doing my homework, and I can probably figure out what would be profitable and what wouldn't, but I sure don't want to slash the market. I'd like to do "high end" work for "high end" dollars.

At the same time I'm new to this and the education is probably worth a fair amount to me too.

I just keep going around in circles.

Post by **Mike Jackson** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 2:23 pm

Kelly,
I wouldn't want to be involved in helping you price this group, but I can offer some hard earned advice. Don't be fooled into thinking doing 12 of the design will be easy. Actually, it is tough. You need to start with about 18-20 pieces and try to end up with 12 good ones. You'll likely scratch, crack, chip or damage one or two and you will get an out of registration print or two while screen printing on another two, and so forth. Having 18 pieces staring at you constantly is quite daunting. With a one-off piece, you can opt to add an extra outline or special effect without thinking much about it, but if you considered it on a larger production, that can translate into 18 more "extra" effort steps.

So, yes, you can cut labor costs some doing a group, but you also pay another price to tackle the project that way. They will be thinking the duplicates will be cheap(er), but be careful. Again, this is a "relative" issue. The more complicated the project, the more chances for things to go wrong midstream.

Mike Jackson

Kelly Thorson · Post by **Kelly Thorson** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 8:53 pm

Thanks Mike,
I'm glad you posted that. I have so much to learn.......
I think I need to suggest making a couple of samples and work things from there. Hopefully they will sell themselves and I will have the opportunity to figure out what I need to charge and still make this a worthwhile venture. If he doesn't bite at the price I give him then, they will have been good practice and make good showroom pieces. I need to work through a few of these to know the pitfalls. If they work out well we can move on to the idea of bigger runs. I really wasn't ready to be hit with something of that magnitude.