Dealing with getting price jacked on material costs

[gnubler]

This has been happening more often lately, where I'll quote a job based on costs and a week or two later go to order materials and the cost is through the roof. How are others handling this, and how long do you honor quotes for? I generally aim for 30 days but it's becoming a challenge, particularly on printed vinyl. Not to pick on Firesprint because they do a great job, but their pricing on die cut stickers jumped up by 30% in the past week and I had to tell my customer I could no longer honor the prices I gave him...one week ago. I checked with some other vendors and they're all even higher.

Beyond frustrated.

 

[Geneva Olson]

welcome to inflation.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Umm, where have you been for the past 18 months? This is an everyday thing since the End of 2020. I would build huge buffers on your quotes or be prepared to lose margin to make your clients happy.

 

[gnubler]

Dramatic uptick lately. How much of a buffer is appropriate? I've been adding 20-30% to most jobs, evidently it's not enough.

How long do you honor estimates?

 

[Solventinkjet]

As a supplier I get an email from FDC (our vinyl supplier) every other day apologizing for the cost increases and availability issues. They've been pretty good at preparing us for the issues. All of our printer manufacturers just raised parts pricing up by about 6% as well. Sign of the times. Gotta buy me some gold.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Dramatic uptick lately. How much of a buffer is appropriate? I've been adding 20-30% to most jobs, evidently it's not enough.

How long do you honor estimates?

Steel is 24hrs. Makes bidding a job tough

 

[rossmosh]

Be honest with them. Tell them what's going on. Set realistic expectations. At the end of the day, it is what it is.

 

[Zendavor Signs]

This has been happening more often lately, where I'll quote a job based on costs and a week or two later go to order materials and the cost is through the roof. How are others handling this, and how long do you honor quotes for? I generally aim for 30 days but it's becoming a challenge, particularly on printed vinyl. Not to pick on Firesprint because they do a great job, but their pricing on die cut stickers jumped up by 30% in the past week and I had to tell my customer I could no longer honor the prices I gave him...one week ago. I checked with some other vendors and they're all even higher.

Beyond frustrated.

It is good to know pricing from more than 1 of your suppliers. When outsourcing work (where margins are thinner), it is wise to get multiple quotes on projects. It is risky to sell at a thin margin from the cheapest source, especially now with pricing so volatile. In this case, you would have seen that other sources were higher, and not based your price on the lowest.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

We have a clause now that all quotes are good for 72 hours, some of our vendors have a "No Quote" policy now which means whatever they tell us is subject to change at any point.

We are starting to bid everything on the high side of our market now so we have as much buffer as possible, but it has a caught us a few times now.

 

[Scotchbrite]

We added a line on our proposals saying that prices are not guaranteed. I got the idea from a quote I had seen from a steel building contractor.

Another big lesson learned these days, order everything you think you're going to need as soon as you have a deposit from the customer. We had to do that with a stainless steel job. I know I ordered extra, but the vendor is fine with me returning what we don't use because now they're going to make even more margin on that same piece of material.

 

[John Miller]

Due to the volatility of material prices, this quote is correct today. Upon receipt of deposit, we will check current material prices and adjust the price of this project. Thank you for your understanding.