How to price printing/scanning service

[RedmenWelshman]

Hi, hope you're well. I work in the family's photography business and after a closure of the local library we've had a lot of people coming in asking for photocopies/scanning/printing return labels off emails (these can often take a while as they have no clue what to do). How would you suggest that we price these? We started charging 20p for a b/w single sided copy which is fine if you only account for the cost of the print. How would you price for this? Have thought about a fee of £3 + prints/scans etc. Cheers

 

[Mark T Jones]

t would depend very much on the level of disruption/availability of staff to readily do it.

However I would definitely have a minimum charge of a fiver.

 

[RedmenWelshman]

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly Mark! Yeah, I don't mind doing it to help people as it seems to get new customers for my business which means more sales. But yeah, minimum fee is something we should implement ASAP! Happy New Year!

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Hi, hope you're well. I work in the family's photography business and after a closure of the local library we've had a lot of people coming in asking for photocopies/scanning/printing return labels off emails (these can often take a while as they have no clue what to do). How would you suggest that we price these? We started charging 20p for a b/w single sided copy which is fine if you only account for the cost of the print. How would you price for this? Have thought about a fee of £3 + prints/scans etc. Cheers

Croeso!

personally I'd go for a really small minimum of say £1.50 because as you say, it is bringing in business. You could even look at handing out leaflets etc, or at the very least make sure your receipt is accompanied or built in to your website, email, phone number.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Fine line to tread that one - agree 100% there should be a minimum. But if you get into the realms of a fiver that could seem very expensive to someone to print a single postage label! I always think psychologically people don't like round numbers of fivers, tenners etc. £3.50 minimum or £4 seems a lot less to people than £5 does despite in the grand scheme of things being only a quid!

How about offering up to 10 copies for the initial fee? First 10 copies £4, each additional copy 20p, for example. That way it also appears to offer a bit better value - if they only need 1 label printing and not 10....well, you can't help that, you've offered them 10 if they want!

 

[RedmenWelshman]

Croeso!

personally I'd go for a really small minimum of say £1.50 because as you say, it is bringing in business. You could even look at handing out leaflets etc, or at the very least make sure your receipt is accompanied or built in to your website, email, phone number.

Thanks for getting back to me! Yeah that definitely sounds like a valid option, will have a word with the family! Diolch

 

[Kitsunae]

It was a while back but I remember Snappy Snaps in Canary Wharf were offering document printing for a price that I remember thinking was ludicrous - £1.50 a page?

 

[RedmenWelshman]

Fine line to tread that one - agree 100% there should be a minimum. But if you get into the realms of a fiver that could seem very expensive to someone to print a single postage label! I always think psychologically people don't like round numbers of fivers, tenners etc. £3.50 minimum or £4 seems a lot less to people than £5 does despite in the grand scheme of things being only a quid!

How about offering up to 10 copies for the initial fee? First 10 copies £4, each additional copy 20p, for example. That way it also appears to offer a bit better value - if they only need 1 label printing and not 10....well, you can't help that, you've offered them 10 if they want!

Yes 100%, £5 is expensive for on one hand if you only take the print into account, but with overheads not bad.

I think your suggestion with charging a fee say £3.50 (inc 10 copies) is the best way forward as it provides a decent profit for us) and if they have 10 it's affordable!

Will have a word with the family, cheers

 

[RedmenWelshman]

It was a while back but I remember Snappy Snaps in Canary Wharf were offering document printing for a price that I remember thinking was ludicrous - £1.50 a page?

Ahh okay, expensive per page as you say but I bet the majority of customers will only have one page, where it makes sense due to overheads. It's annoying with small transactions but you'll never know what it leads to as in other sales.
Cheers

 

[DavidWH]

We run a family printers.

We used to get walkins for photocopying, and it's a pain in backside.

£5 minimum, especially if they insist on paying on their card. Even at £1.00, it doesn't really warrant the inconvenience, especially if you've then got to account for the multitude of £1.00 transactions, VAT, or just bang it in the drawer and buy tea, coffee, biscuits and bacon butties with it.

We've actually got our photocopier for sale, because it simply doesn't pay. We got 1 decent customer off the back of a photocopy, the rest were all one off, other than that anomaly we got no other, bigger, more profitable work from the photocopying side of things.

£5.00 minimum, or they can go and spend ££'s on their own printer, and do it themselves.

 

[RedmenWelshman]

We run a family printers.

We used to get walkins for photocopying, and it's a pain in backside.

£5 minimum, especially if they insist on paying on their card. Even at £1.00, it doesn't really warrant the inconvenience, especially if you've then got to account for the multitude of £1.00 transactions, VAT, or just bang it in the drawer and buy tea, coffee, biscuits and bacon butties with it.

We've actually got our photocopier for sale, because it simply doesn't pay. We got 1 decent customer off the back of a photocopy, the rest were all one off, other than that anomaly we got no other, bigger, more profitable work from the photocopying side of things.

£5.00 minimum, or they can go and spend ££'s on their own printer, and do it themselves.

Thanks for getting back to me! Yeah, majority of time especially when busy that's how we view it. Yeah, your point about card payments is very true, especially since covid! They don't think of the chunk the card payment company & VAT man wants!

Will implement a minimum charge once I've had a chat with the family! Cheers and all the best

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

I’ve used local printers* in the past, and a few pages (maybe 5 or 6) urgently needing printing off a USB (or sent by email), high quality B&W, I’d pay £3 for convenience, but would flinch at a minimum of £5.


As an aside, I realise this isn't your target market, but I recall a couple of years ago, I needed a ~500-page bundle printed (low to medium quality, hole-punched), maybe six or seven copies, one local printers were still quoting 10p per page, plus a fee to hole-punch the documents . Much more financially practical to go to Currys, buy a cheap (£30) printer, and a few reams of paper. (I also used to buy cheap laser printers from Amazon for that price, that could be disposed after the one job was done; they’re not so cheap anymore, but there are cheap options available if the volume of printing is more important than the quality.)

When urgency wasn’t necessary, for bulk printing, I used to use @ScubaPrint , and got very reasonable prices.

*I would never use a photoshop for printing, as if they ever offered the service, I always found their prices far too high. As the Internet cafes have all but disappeared now though, pitch a reasonable price, you can have a small side activity.


Karl Limpert

 

[DavidWH]

Personally, the best thing we did was just stop doing it

@Employment Law Clinic has a point.

We needed to charge £5 to make it worth doing, when you include the fee's. You can buy a cheap printer, and sit and print them yourself, but when approaching a business to do so. The person machine minding, and drilling the holes if there's no inline finisher, needs to be paid for their time.

Our printer, with the Fiery RIP, it wasn't just a case of plugging a USB in, and if you ended up with multiple files, different formats and sized documents... and heaven forbid they were word documents!

Again, the best thing we did was stop doing it, it's not adversely affected us, if anything being a great benefit as we sacked off 1/2 the workshop space, and don't stock the paper we used too.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

You could even look at handing out leaflets etc,

One of the best forms of marketing and people want to pay you for the pleasure of being marketed to.

Add a lead magnet or offer to the leaflet and you increase the opportunity of proper repeat business!

 

[DavidWH]

One of the best forms of marketing and people want to pay you for the pleasure of being marketed to.

Add a lead magnet or offer to the leaflet and you increase the opportunity of proper repeat business!

Won't work - These people are there to get -

Passports photocopies, boarding passes printed, benefit claims printed, literally 1 or 2 pages printed. THAT is why they are there, they've no interest in anything else.

Despite us being a 'printer' we very, very rarely got any follow on business from any of these customers with ONE exception. They're not likely to pop in and get a photocopy and decide they'll come back tomorrow with the family for a photoshoot.

It's not even a loss leader. If the business is busy enough without the interruptions just sack it off and concentrate on your main business.

It's not like taking your car to a garage, where whist it's there they can upsell something?

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

They're not likely to pop in and get a photocopy and decide they'll come back tomorrow with the family for a photoshoot.

It's not like taking your car to a garage, where whist it's there they can upsell something?

David, it sounds like you are taking a very traditional/old fashioned view on this opportunity. Whilst they may not want what you have to offer when they walk through the door, you have the chance to plant seeds in their mind, make them an offer, etc, which many businesses would relish!

 

[DavidWH]

11 years, and dragged the company from old fashioned to a more modern business.

Its personal experience.

People are wincing at paying £3.50 to £5 minimum, handing over a leaflet selling a photography service, or a different unrelated service, its an uphill battle.

The ROI, will be minimal, and simply not worth the effort, in both time and money.

If it was such a good marketing technique every man and his dog would get a photocopier.

Happy to be proven wrong.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

If it was such a good marketing technique every man and his dog would get a photocopier.

No, because there are only a few places that people may think about to get a copy made...

It is great that you have moved a business on, but I would still be working out how to capitalise on the opportunity.

 

[DavidWH]

I'm sorry but it isn't an opportunity hence why we've got shut of the entire small format print set up.

The OP is a photography business, I would imagine their average sale is much greater than £2.50.

If they're charging £50 an hour, they'd need 20 £2.50 photocopy jobs, for the same £50, no accounting for the additional cost.

If you're going to start dishing leaflets out, target the higher spending customers - the new born baby families, who probably have friends who are expecting, will share their photos on social media, tag them etc.

Much easier than trying to sell a photoshoot to a random stranger wouldn't you agree?

Try it, if it works, keep doing it, but of you find they're constantly interrupted, for £2.50 jobs, with zero follow on business, I'd reconsider it.

Staples are no more, I don't know if Ryman still do photocopies? Hobbs do, but target the commercial/legal sector, and charge accordingly but offer a collection and delivery service in most cities.

I know one printer who still does photocopying, because they "have too" but would rather they didn't!

 

[Nico Albrecht]

Why not charge a fiver and provide a voucher that can be redeemed against your core services at a later stage. From a marketing point you got now something to measure against that and see if people come back.

 

[DavidWH]

Why not charge a fiver and provide a voucher that can be redeemed against your core services at a later stage. From a marketing point you got now something to measure against that and see if people come back.

Try it, at least see how many vouchers are redeemed.

Why reduce the core service if people are paying full price now for it?

Spend £2.50, and get £xx off?

Or target existing customers of the core service with a voucher scheme, spent £xxx, refer a friend and get a free print?

Assuming existing customers will know similar people, more likely to purchase?

If you're going to increase marketing, I think the OP has better opportunities than the photocopying?

£2.50 minimum and see how much a month you do, decide from there.

Also depending what machinery you've got, you might find the larger runs of photocopies takes AGES, eats ink. Also going to a pence per sheet doesn't really work in the real world. If you've an automatic document feeder, and the sheets are perfect, no staples etc it does, but when you need to unstaple, manually feed, collate, its a tedious process.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Best customer: One who walks in off the street, wants Happy Birthday Mum printed onto an off the shelf medium size white or black shirt in Arial Font, will hand over a tenner and call back in an hour.

Worst customer: One who wants a colour print of their black cat peering out from under a cupboard in a darkened room on a black T with a 20 word message in an unknown 'must have' font. Expects to pay a fiver and on lunch hour so will pop back in 20 minutes.

No guesses as to which example is closest to a typical walk in customer and why we stopped doing single item orders!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you must do it, I'd set a £3 charge per print/scan and a £1 for each additional one. If the jobs a quick one you can always adopt the 'just give us £3' stance. If it takes time, you'll not be out of pocket.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Won't work - These people are there to get -

Passports photocopies, boarding passes printed, benefit claims printed, literally 1 or 2 pages printed. THAT is why they are there, they've no interest in anything else.

I hate to burst your bubble but it works if done right and marketed to the right people.

This isn't an upsell at all. it's a numbers game, and despite what you claim (because it didn't work for your B2B business), it works amazingly well for B2C.

In your case, the general public were coming in to your business for copies, but your prospective customers were businesses and not the general public so I agree 100% that you can market to the wrong people all day.

We are comparing apples with oranges.

Going by your numbers, let's say the average spend is £50, the copying takes 2 minutes. and then they get a job from it (£50) the total spend will be £52.50 (over the two sessions).

People are constantly asking for recommendations on facebook, where can I get a passport photo done, where can I get some baby pics done and so on.

The most commonly held belief is that word of mouth is the best form of marketing, a good marketer will know how to generate word of mouth marketing

 

[DavidWH]

I hate to burst your bubble but it works if done right and marketed to the right people.

This isn't an upsell at all. it's a numbers game, and despite what you claim (because it didn't work for your B2B business), it works amazingly well for B2C.

In your case, the general public were coming in to your business for copies, but your prospective customers were businesses and not the general public so I agree 100% that you can market to the wrong people all day.

We are comparing apples with oranges.

Going by your numbers, let's say the average spend is £50, the copying takes 2 minutes. and then they get a job from it (£50) the total spend will be £52.50 (over the two sessions).

People are constantly asking for recommendations on facebook, where can I get a passport photo done, where can I get some baby pics done and so on.

The most commonly held belief is that word of mouth is the best form of marketing, a good marketer will know how to generate word of mouth marketing

I don't disagree with you, and you make a good point. I know sometimes I can come across a bit blunt, I'm trying to work on that.

It's fine saying it's £2.50 for 2mins work, until you end up spending 10 minutes trying to understand what they want, it in colour, enlarged 200%, then they want it darker, lighter, or can you do it on a shiny paper, double sided.

Printing off from emails is a nightmare too, they either can't do it, want to use your computer, or you're stood for 5 minutes waiting for it to arrive when they forward it. Add to that the risk of viruses, what data do you have on that machine, do you have a separate machine?

From experience they'll always walk in when the phones ringing and your in the middle of something else.

Depends on the numbers the OP can achieve, what do the class as "a lot of people?" and what kind of photography business they're operating.

Ultimately is the interruption is worth it, and if the possible leads they may get are worthwhile?

I hope we get an update on this ?

 

[Deleted member 335660]

Hi, hope you're well. I work in the family's photography business and after a closure of the local library we've had a lot of people coming in asking for photocopies/scanning/printing return labels off emails (these can often take a while as they have no clue what to do). How would you suggest that we price these? We started charging 20p for a b/w single sided copy which is fine if you only account for the cost of the print. How would you price for this? Have thought about a fee of £3 + prints/scans etc. Cheers

How ironic, we have just done the same thing in our shop in Spain.

Firstly I costed paper, ink and then added profit to come up with 20cents for a single sided black and white.

Secondly you have to think of why you are doing this.

In our case we have the printer, staff are there anyway and we wanted to attract people in to our shop to see our range of Gifts and Lifestyle products.

So we had a Marketing cause for the service.

If you do not need to attract people in then you may want to up the price to cover equipment etc. This may impact on uptake but if you are not worried about volume then no problem.

 

[Ryan Paul]

This thread has become an interesting read. So many different takes and points for the OP to consider.
I personally like the £3.50 fee.
And also like the option to buy printing credits in advance.

 

[Financial-Modeller]

I would take heed of @DavidWH experience on this and suggest that unless there is a very good reason to offer the service, don't do so, because the many opportunities for aggravation are likely to exceed the benefits on a standalone basis.

Waiting in a post office recently watching a customer take up 20 minutes of staff time to print something from a USB stick that ended up in colour in landscape, having printed various versions in b&w in over several pages in portrait, for 25p...

However, if the OP genuinely sees this as a way to drive traffic & upsell etc then it would make sense to charge for a pre-paid card/voucher e.g. £5 for 10 sheets.

Some of your customers will return for nine more single sheets and buy other products or services. Some will not, so the OP effectively makes £5 for one sheet.

 

[Gecko001]

Why not have a printer/scanner only for copying and then have another for printing out emails and things from a memory stick. The photocopier printer/scanner can be self-service and thus the price can be kept low. I would have thought a maximum of 50p per black and white copy. The emails and memory stick jobs will take up an assistant's time and can be charged at a higher rate.