Your Custom Transfer Pricing is Too High!

By Jason Ziga
Manager of Sales & Service for Transfer Express

“Your price is too high!” These are the five words that you likely hear the most when quoting products or services for your t-shirt business.  All too often we lower the price in hopes of winning the job and the future business of the customer. This in turn leads to more work for less profit (if any).

One of my favorite motivational speakers is Zig Ziglar. He offers great advice on how to respond to the statement of “Your price is too high!” Ask the customer a very simple question, “Is it the cost or the price that you are concerned about?” Most of the time the customer will ask what is the difference between cost and price. Price is what is paid up front; cost is the overall amount you pay for an item or service.
At this time you will need to give a real world example to further illustrate. I like to use a story when I was purchasing jeans for my six year old son. My son needed two pair of jeans so we headed the local department store. As I was at the store I looked at the expensive jeans and was taken aback by the $30 price tag. Immediately to the left of the $30 jeans were the $10 jeans. I opted on purchasing two pair of the $10 jeans in order to save money. Unfortunately, within 3 weeks the knees of the jeans were starting to wear out and by week 4 both pair were completely worn in the knees. I felt it was likely the fault of my son playing too much on the floor and purchased another two pair of $10 jeans. Needless to say, the same issue of worn out knees occurred within a month. I decided that I would not purchase the $10 jeans again and went back to the store and purchased 2 pair of the $30 jeans. My son has had those jeans for 8 mos. with no sign of wear at all. When you put it into perspective I would have paid $20 per mos. for 8 mos. to replace the less expensive jeans; this is a whopping total cost of $160. For the two pair of $30 jeans the total cost was $60 for the total 8 mos. period. This is a cost savings of $100! Then you can say, “Now Mr. Customer, I ask you again, is it the cost or price in which you are concerned? You see Mr. Customer a lot of people can beat us on price but no one can beat us on cost and since price is a one-time thing and cost is a lifetime thing, don’t you really want the lowest possible cost?”
Here at Transfer Express we know we are not the cheapest when it comes to custom screen printed transfers but we also know we are not the most expensive. We offer world class service, best in class quality, superior production speed and turnaround, cutting edge web based technology, and more educational opportunities for our customers compared to any of our competitors. Our senior leadership team made a decision long ago that we would only have to explain price once so we never have to apologize for quality.
So the next time a customer says the price is too high; ask them about cost or price, illustrate the difference, and explain what you offer that differentiates you from the competition, and as Zig Ziglar would say, I’ll see you at the top!