“The printer today who is reducing prices to meet the persistent demands of the vast buyers’ market is making a mistake of his life. There was a time not so long ago when he could reduce a price on a job and make up his loss on “another one,” but these “other ones” are few and far between today, and the wise printer knows it”.

The price for printing is something that cannot successfully be tampered with.  If a buyer suggests that a printer must lower his price to secure an order, the following questions should be considered first:

Has the price of paper been lowered?
Has the price of ink been lowered?
Has the price of photo-engravings and electrotypes been lowered?
Has the price of trade composition been lowered?
Have wage scales been lowered?
Has the rent been lowered?
Has the rate of depreciation been lowered?
Has the overhead been lowered?
Has the cost of power, telephone, etc, been lowered?  

The answer to these questions is “NO!”  Therefore, the only reduction a printer can make is to his profit, and the man who knows his costs and knows the margin of profit he is operating on, soon realizes that he cannot afford to cut his price”.

79 years ago this appeared in Canada’s flagship printing magazine The Printing Review. Before television and before the world-wide-web, our industry faced constant pressure to maintain profitability. Yes - it can be said that there are similarities with today even when one realizes that there is even more challenges in today’s print medium.  When I listen to members of our industry, some still recite the same mantra of downward pressures on pricing, seemingly unfair competition with wild and crazy prices that don’t seem to make any sense.  

Perhaps going back further into history one would also read about challenges facing the industry all the way to the Washington press.  In 1931, there were plenty of opportunities to be profitable. Most establishments were running letterpress and had not the efficiencies of today’s plants and machinery. The search for margins has been around forever and will continue to be.    More »»