Had a customer this week ask for a fully custom order.
specific size, specific material, their own artwork, low quantity, fast turnaround. Then baulk at the price because they'd seen something similar on a mass production site for a third of what we quoted.
I've been in this industry long enough to know this conversation isn't going away. But it still gets me every time.
The comparison isn't apples to apples and never has been. Commodity pricing works because somebody upstream absorbed the setup cost across tens of thousands of identical units. Custom work doesn't have that. Every job is its own setup, its own file check, its own material configuration. The moment a customer wants something that isn't a standard size, standard material, or standard quantity, the economics are completely different.
What makes it harder is that the internet has made the commodity side so visible. Customers see the cheap option first, assume it's the baseline, and then treat anything above it as a markup rather than a different product category entirely.
I don't have a clean answer to this one. We've gotten better at explaining the cost structure upfront, and it helps some customers understand. Others just want the cheap version and no explanation is going to change that, and honestly, that's fine, they're not our customer.
But I'm curious how others handle this conversation. Do you explain the cost breakdown, hold firm on price, or just let those customers walk?