Marking Up Signs

We often get asked how much our products should be marked up when reselling them to your customer. This is a constantly debated question, and one small part of the “Secret Sauce” that makes your business a success. Markup is what you add to the sale price so you can profit from your wholesale purchase. Add too much markup and you’ll scare customers away; add too little and you won’t be able to cover your own expenses.

With that said, here at FireSprint we are very sensitive to both wholesale and retail pricing of our products. We work very hard to keep our wholesale pricing in line with what you need to be competitive while maintaining a healthy profit margin. Here are a few tips to help you decide what your markup should be:

• Size Matters: Is the total order $10, $100, $1000? The lower the total size of the order, the higher your margin should be to help cover fixed costs like artwork prep, generating a PO, or billing.
• Service Is Value: Are you simply reselling our product and require your customer to provide print ready artwork or are you handling design as well? Customers that order a simple product through your website would expect to pay less than a customer that asks you to visit them onsite for a consultation. These additional value added services can be built into the pricing, or in some cases like artwork or installation, can be separate line items on a sales order.
• Do The Math: Your business expenses should factor into your markup. Do you work out of a home and run very lean? You may be able to offer a lower price to earn more business. Alternatively, you might promote and brand yourself as a premium solution in your area. In that case, you may find that you can strengthen your margin. 
• What Are The Options: Finally, you have competition. We all do. It’s a good idea to have a few competitors secretly quote similar products so you can understand the market price of that particular product. Just be careful when doing this. Comparing your pricing to a competitor that doesn’t offer the same level of value and service can quickly become a race to the bottom.

If you skip any of these four ideas, skip checking your competition. Focus on the first three and keep searching for ways to improve your value to your customers. A true focus on creating value is the only way to keep good customers coming back time and time again.

Thanks for all that info, can you just give me a rule of thumb… 😋

Sure. Here they are:

• $1 to $50: Figure at least a 66% margin. Multiply the wholesale price by 3x
• $50 to $500: Aim for a 35%-50% margin. Roughly double the wholesale price
• $500 to $2000: Aim for 25%-35% margin.
• $2000+: 20-30% margin.

Once you have the wholesale price and all costs like shipping, labor, and other overhead,you can decide on a margin. If you need help with the calculations, we have a handy calculator to help you here: FireSprint Wholesale to Retail Letter Code Calculator

On a related note, we also put together an article and calculator to help you understand your “Shop Rate” when calculating pricing for work that will take a significant amount of time, like production or design.

As always, if you have any more questions, please feel free to reach out. Questions not directly related to an order can be sent to [email protected]. Thanks!