How to Approach Pricing without Losing Customers 

Heads up: If you need help improving your margins and profits, grab a free copy of the Inktavo Guide to Profitable Print Shop Pricing here. After you’ve picked up your copy, read on to learn more about how you can improve your pricing strategy. 

Pricing has always been a common issue for shops and remains a tricky balance. 

Whether it’s tariffs, inflation, labor costs, or other fluctuating factors, business owners’ costs typically go up every year, which means they need to raise prices to turn a profit.

Before you raise all your prices, it’s worth stepping back and evaluating your pricing and what you’re charging for. It’s also a good idea to reassess what might not work with your current strategy. 

Building a pricing strategy with a plan can help you protect your margins, retain customers, and weather the storm when bigger economic factors impact your business.

Read on for more tips on how to approach some of the most common hurdles with print shop pricing and how to plan around them. 

Why Your Pricing Isn’t Working

Typically, pricing issues aren’t about math; they’re about mindsets and patterns that shop owners adopt.

Here are some of the most common issues we see in custom shops:

  • Prices don’t reflect cost.
    Many shops undercharge because they haven’t adequately accounted for everything that goes into a job cost. Labor, time, overhead, spoilage, and job complexity can all impact how you price something.
  • Absorbing supplier price increases
    While blanks might increase in price a few cents here and there, if you add those price increases across a few thousand shirts over a year, margins start getting tighter, and you’re paying for the price increase instead of passing that increase on to customers in a sustainable way.
  • Fear of losing customers
    It’s understandable to be concerned about losing business, especially as print-on-demand mega printers continue to dominate parts of the market. But typically, if you offer real value, you’ll retain loyal customers.
  • Using outdated pricing structures
    If you’re still using the same pricing structure that’s more than 3 years old, it’s out of date. If everything else around you changes, you should have a framework that evolves with the times.
  • Competing/comparing with bigger sellers
    Comparing your pricing to larger companies like Amazon Merch or Custom Ink isn’t a strong strategy. They’re playing the volume and turnaround game. You can offer value in several other ways. More on that soon.
  • Using the exact pricing for everyone
    Not all jobs are the same, and you should price accordingly. Having categories of different products, customers, and job types can help you map out better pricing.
  • Offering heavy discounts
    Discounts are great if they are an added perk for loyal customers, but they shouldn’t be so frequent that you’re digging into profits.
  • Not charging for premium services
    Whether it’s custom art creation, branding consultations, or product-bundle planning, you’re providing high-value services, so you should consider factoring in the cost of those services.
  • Not giving customers clear choices
    Without simple tiering or thoughtful bundles, your customers will not know how to decide which products best suit their needs.
  • Focusing on volume over profitability
    If you reward your sales team solely based on product margin. Adding other incentives can help solve this issue. 

If you’re dealing with any or all of these issues, now’s the perfect time to revamp your pricing strategy to set your team up for a profitable routine for years to come. 

Grab a free copy of the Inktavo Guide to Profitable Print Shop Pricing and get started! You’ll get tips on tackling all these challenges and more.