ewlsey
Diamond
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2009
- Location
- Peoria, IL
I'm wondering what you guys would do in this situation. It's kind of a first for me:
I had a job we ran pretty consistently for the last 3+ years. It was a pretty good job for us, and was basically enough to cover all of my basic overhead and was very regular. The material cost was significant so it was a pain for cash flow when it started, but by now it's not really an issue.
Anyway, I hadn't seen a PO for quite some time. I sent an inquiry and the PA informed me they switched vendors for a better price. And BTW, I was "welcome to requote". I'm not interested in a race to the bottom. Margins were tight enough on that job. I think we have to let it go. Someone was making them before me, so turnabout is certainly fair play.
Now, that leaves me with about a dozen or more kind of piddly jobs I run for them. I didn't really want those jobs, but took them to keep them happy. We make money on them but it's nothing outstanding.
So what do I do with these parts when another order comes in? Do I tell them the price is going up since the current pricing was based on much larger overall sales? Do I tell them to piss off and take all of their work somewhere else? I don't think I have a whole lot to lose with them.
And finally, did I do the wrong thing by pricing those parts favorably based on their total volume of work? Should I have priced every job independently and let the chip fall where they may? I never dealt with pricing directly as an employee, but we sure went through a lot of BS to keep the hand that fed us happy.
I had a job we ran pretty consistently for the last 3+ years. It was a pretty good job for us, and was basically enough to cover all of my basic overhead and was very regular. The material cost was significant so it was a pain for cash flow when it started, but by now it's not really an issue.
Anyway, I hadn't seen a PO for quite some time. I sent an inquiry and the PA informed me they switched vendors for a better price. And BTW, I was "welcome to requote". I'm not interested in a race to the bottom. Margins were tight enough on that job. I think we have to let it go. Someone was making them before me, so turnabout is certainly fair play.
Now, that leaves me with about a dozen or more kind of piddly jobs I run for them. I didn't really want those jobs, but took them to keep them happy. We make money on them but it's nothing outstanding.
So what do I do with these parts when another order comes in? Do I tell them the price is going up since the current pricing was based on much larger overall sales? Do I tell them to piss off and take all of their work somewhere else? I don't think I have a whole lot to lose with them.
And finally, did I do the wrong thing by pricing those parts favorably based on their total volume of work? Should I have priced every job independently and let the chip fall where they may? I never dealt with pricing directly as an employee, but we sure went through a lot of BS to keep the hand that fed us happy.