I hate it when customers hover. They dont need to know how much we mark up glass and who our supplier is. Secrets of the trade man, quit leaning over my damn desk. Its for the customers satisfaction that we keep these things secret.
Sorta like the old addage about the butcher and the cow. You just wanna eat the meat you dont wanna know where it came from.
Speaking of such things im quite curious, here is a question to all the entrpeneuers out there. What percentage is your mark up?
This plagues me. Too high, they go elsewhere, too low you lose money. Its important to research your competitors as best you can without turning into one of the nosy customers.
The home depot type of business absolutly kill us. They make their money on lumber and hardware and cut glass and do screens on the side for practically FREE. Seriously, I dont know who there supplier is but we think we get a damn good price from our wholesalers and I cant imagine them getting a much better deal than we do. Yet they insist on doing screens and cutting single strength flat glass for practically pennies.
We cover our overhead with screens and flat glass and noticed its taken a dip these past few years. We called around and got estimates from other retailers and damn! We charge somewhere around $7-10 to replace a screen in a storm window, depends on a lot of things. Sometimes people bring it a skelaton of a frame and we need parts and need to rebuild the damn thing so those are higher but other times its as easy as just runnin the new screen in and those are cheap. Those Home Depot type places do it for a flat rate of $5.00 no matter the condition. Assholes...How? Im convinced its probono, I dont see how they could make a profit from it.
Here at our shop, we charge by the square foot and our mark up is only 30%, we dont even charge any labor. Thats right, our labor is free on flat and specialty glass.
To my knowledge most all business of all kinds that sell anything mark up is never less than 50% some 100%.
But our competitors practically work for free and it drives me crazy.
Thats just a small problem in our business, but it still bothers me.
We also recently started to charge for waste materials. If our stock sheet of glass comes in a 4'x8' chunk and someone orders a piece 12''x12'' piece we need to cut a twelve inch strip 4' long. So we automatically waste 3 feet of a stock sheet. Sometimes we can reuse it and sometimes we cant. Usually we end up with a ton of scrap that if all pieced together could prolly go all the way around the world. Most ends up in a dumnpster bc its just too much to store and then when someone does order something we could cut from the scrap it takes an hour to find the right piece....anyway, so if we need to cut a stock sheet and waste some of it we charge them a lil more for the waste.
Im so getting off of my point.
This woman came in with a shard of broken 3/16'' plate glass with a 3/4'' bevel and needed a new piece for her coffee table. You cant cut a beveled edge, it needs to be ordered. Its specialty glass. I had to call my supplier and get an estimate...She was hovering. I didnt want her to know that we could get her glass for $48.00 but I was gonna charge her $62.00...But there I sit pecking at my calculater as she clearly sees me click in the cost times 30%. She seemed unphased, she happily accepted my price but its still bothers me that she now knows...
It also bugs me that our suppliers waste time, money and energy sending us promotional items like pens and desk clocks and rulers with their logo smeared all over it. Thats stupid. We already owe them a ton of money and they have us by the balls, we arnt going anywhere and we cant use any of that stuff bc we dont want our customers to know about our supplier. Sure in theory its a wholesale contract and joe blow cant get the same price as us...but people are sneaky...I know I am. Its totally possible for Joe Blow to walk in and order a piece of glass and say they are with such and such company that already uses them as a supplier.
Cuz when I call and order they just ask what company im with and I give our name and they say alright itll be there next week...I could easily be joe blow and could easily request a different shipping address and poof BGlass lost a customer...
