Price Matching

[Vivid Color Zack]

So we have had a lot of response with our most recent addition to our advertising. If you have one of my sample packs you've seen it, but it's something along these lines:

100% Price match guarantee! We'll beat anyones prices and send you a basket of muffins and wash your car and make you breakfast while we're at it! We'll even beat free pricing! How can we do this? Who cares! Take advantage of our insanity!

Minus the muffins and breakfast...

I am trying to evaluate the value in doing this.

While I have matched some very low prices and actually lost money on a few orders of business cards, it turned out that we gained some very large orders by doing this.

However, I am now locked in to this cheap business card price and realistically it doesn't make sense for me to keep losing money on every order they place. Especially now that there's talk of the whole company needing new cards! Ah!!!!

So I'm debating about pulling the price match guarantee out of my sample pack. If someone wants to search hard enough on the internet they are bound to find someone who can beat my prices. I live and work in southern california. My rent is higher than someone brokering jobs to china working out of their garage. These price shoppers really aren't my target market anyway. I usually find that they have no loyalty to their print provider and are just leaving their other printer because I offer a lower price, and the second someone else does that then I'm gone.

BUT that being said, I have had some larger orders come through and I know I only found these clients because of my PRICE MATCH GUARANTEE.

Should I evaluate it on a case by case basis? Let them match prices for a few months and see if anything develops, then cancel the promotion if they aren't coming through with anything worthwhile?

I'm also considering toning it down a little. Having something saying YES WE PRICE MATCH! but not making it such a huge attention grabber, as most people will price match these days and it isn't really that unusual.

Ideas/comments/thoughts are always appreciated.

[KristineS]

I think there is some value to saying yes we price match, but when you start losing money, then you need to reevaluate.

Personally, I think there's value in being the best, not the lowest priced. If it were me I would spend less time saying "we match the lowest price you can find" and more time telling potential customers why low priced printing isn't worth the savings. Emphasize what you do that the cheap printers don't do.

I source out a lot of printing, and we've fallen into the lowest priced trap a time or two. Inevitably we get one or two decent print jobs and then the quality goes to crap and we have to start searching for someone new. If you teach your customers that quality and service are worth paying for, and why those things matter when it comes to printing, you may have less need to rely on price matching.

[orion_joel]

I also don't think i would be making such a huge deal on the price matching thing. Many of the big chain stores make it a big deal, but have so many stipulations on it, that often it is almost beyond anyone to get it.

Maybe you could work on a theory of advertising one product as absolute guaranteed price match. Something that is often ordered by the clients that you have a lot of big orders from. Or maybe on a very basic product like. "We will guarantee to match any price you find on black and white business cards" or maybe a product that is not generally offered by online printers, such as "we guarantee to price match any competitor on comb binding."

Rather then price match everything make a huge deal on price matching one item, that it is difficult for you to loose money on unless you are almost giving it away.

[Vivid Color Zack]

Personally, I think there's value in being the best, not the lowest priced. If it were me I would spend less time saying "we match the lowest price you can find" and more time telling potential customers why low priced printing isn't worth the savings. Emphasize what you do that the cheap printers don't do.


I think that's brilliant. I always like trying to educate people wherever I can. Teaching someone even the most basic concept demonstrates a solid understanding of your industry and proves you are capable. Taking the "teach them why we are worth a little more" or "why you get what you pay for" approach might work out well.

I'm finding that a lot of graphic designers are easy to work with and I can easily get them to agree that extra money spent will pay off in the long run when your collateral looks amazing. The designers usually don't run the budget though and the most promising initial idea turns to a standard saddlestitched boring booklet. I need to find a way to get past that obstacle too.

[huggytree]

price, service, quality....which one are you being?

price = you lose

when customers ask me to match i always start talking about why im better...i usually win the customer....when comparing you its never apples to apples...there is always something different you do which makes you more expensive.

stress VALUE...everyone really wants the best Value, not the lowest price.

some say never to talk bad about the competition....i dont name them, but i talk about how they get their prices lower....they use cheap this and cheap that....mine cost $1 because of this, mine will last longer because of that.....

saying why your better is important, but also say whats wrong with the other guy...i think 50/50

by saying 'we match any price' your really saying ' we are the cheapest and we can prove it! we challenge you to find a cheaper/lower quality card maker...we know were the cheapest and were proud of it!'

[Aaron Hats]

We occasionally have a customer that will ask if we'll match the price from another store. We ask all the details about which hat style, brand, etc. Then we ask what the price is they want us to match. Our response is usually "That's a great price. I'm sorry we can't match that so you should buy it from the other store." Even before we finish we know what their response will be...they don't have the size/color I want. If at this point, we think we can joke with the customer a little we'll say "I can offer you some really unbelievable prices on inventory I don't have too." It usually gets a chuckle from the customer. We go on to explain that we have a retail store, not online only, and that we do our best to keep prices fair and ship quickly. Probably nine times out of 10 we get the sale.

It's not all about price.

[orion_joel]

Huggy, actually really thinking about it, advertising as We will match any price, is not really saying we are the cheapest and we can prove it. What it is more saying is that you want to be the cheapest but dont want to do the leg work to find out who may be cheaper then you.

I think it is kind of taking a we want to be the best price but dont really want to find out what that actually means. End of day that usually means working below your cost especially if you are generally used to selling higher quality or value. Most low cost providers can provide the lower cost because of lesser quality or less value.

One example that may suit here is that of Vista Print, i am constantly getting emails offering free everything. I have taken to ignoring these, because to me i do not believe i will get the quality i want for the cost of the postage even.

[Vivid Color Zack]

price, service, quality....which one are you being?

price = you lose

when customers ask me to match i always start talking about why im better...i usually win the customer....when comparing you its never apples to apples...there is always something different you do which makes you more expensive.

stress VALUE...everyone really wants the best Value, not the lowest price.

some say never to talk bad about the competition....i dont name them, but i talk about how they get their prices lower....they use cheap this and cheap that....mine cost $1 because of this, mine will last longer because of that.....

saying why your better is important, but also say whats wrong with the other guy...i think 50/50

by saying 'we match any price' your really saying ' we are the cheapest and we can prove it! we challenge you to find a cheaper/lower quality card maker...we know were the cheapest and were proud of it!'

I've actually requested a sample pack from their company they want me to match. I'm can say with almost complete certainty that I will have better products and as long as I keep my customer service in check I can promise NOBODY will be more pleasurable to work with.

I'll keep some of these ideas/concepts in mind with my next flyer and hopefully drift away from the price matching.

[huggytree]

hope i wasnt too harsh on you!...it took me 6 months to get it in my head when i started....fighting to be the cheapest at what you do is the best way to lose money and fail...

ask your customers...'do you want the cheapest product? 'and then ask 'or do you want the best value in what you buy?'

which one will most people answer yes to?

[Vivid Color Zack]

hope i wasnt too harsh on you!...it took me 6 months to get it in my head when i started....fighting to be the cheapest at what you do is the best way to lose money and fail...

ask your customers...'do you want the cheapest product? 'and then ask 'or do you want the best value in what you buy?'

which one will most people answer yes to?

Absolutely not too hard on me at all. I've got thick skin, and you made some good points. I can't be upset about the truth, especially when realizing it is going to help make my life easier when I stop having to price match all the time.

[KristineS]

I think that's brilliant. I always like trying to educate people wherever I can. Teaching someone even the most basic concept demonstrates a solid understanding of your industry and proves you are capable. Taking the "teach them why we are worth a little more" or "why you get what you pay for" approach might work out well.

Thanks! :D Educating people takes time and effort, but the payoff can be huge. Of course not everyone will want to learn, but it does make life easier when you work with people who understand why you're doing what you do.


I'm finding that a lot of graphic designers are easy to work with and I can easily get them to agree that extra money spent will pay off in the long run when your collateral looks amazing. The designers usually don't run the budget though and the most promising initial idea turns to a standard saddlestitched boring booklet. I need to find a way to get past that obstacle too.

I don't think you will ever entirely get past that obstacle. One way you might do it is my illustrating the cost of poorly printed materials in some way. Do you have to send the material back for reprint? Do you have to sort through your print job to find the least objectionable prints? That all takes time and effort too, which translates into dollars. If you have to fight with snarky customer service people you've wasted even more time. When you add up the cost of dealing with a bad print job it might be less expensive to pay a little more up front.

[orion_joel]

I would expect, and of course this is dependent on the job size i would imageine, but as soon as you have to look for what the quality is like beyond the first 2 or 3 you have spent more time then you should want to checking the work. For example if you get a 32 page catalog printed, and you needed 1000, i doubt you would want to have to go for a look through all 1000 prints to make sure the pages are in order.