[RE-wrenches] Prices on PV

[Joel Davidson]

I admire your idealism, but local contractors play a zero-sum game; one guy gets the job that the other guy loses. Pricing strategy is an important part of a business' competitive advantage. If you are operating a profitable business and disclose your costs, then competitors will use that information to meet and beat your price. If your work is outstanding like original artists or high quality or you are so well liked for other reasons that people will only buy from you, then you have no competition - until someone comes along who is better, faster, cheaper than you.

--- On Wed, 2/4/09, Richard L Ratico <Richard.L.Ratico at VALLEY.NET> wrote:

From: Richard L Ratico <Richard.L.Ratico at VALLEY.NET>
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Prices on PV
To: re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org
Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 4:23 PM

Gentle men and women,

I don't quite understand the seemingly nearly universal aversion to FULL
DISCLOSURE of all prices: components, markup, overhead, travel, labor,
whatever.

This is the good old US of A, where apparently, we're still afraid of
saying the
taxpayers "own" the banks, even though we've paid for them. If
we're embracing
capitalism and profit and the whole shebang, let's at least be honest about
it.
It's not easy to run a small business, or a large one successfully. I feel
I
earn what I charge. I tell customers what my costs are, and what my markup is,
and don't feel guilty about it. Sometimes the markup varies depending on
who I'm
working for or the nature of the job. Regardless, I feel the customer has a
right to know.

A customer also has the right to get bids from as many contractors as they
wish,
or to purchase directly from Cheapo Depot at about what I pay for components
anyway. If a customer really wants to find the price of something, they will.
I'm amused when a customer wishes to purchase materials themselves, to
avoid
paying my markup. If I can afford it, and I want the job, and I like them,
sometimes they get to do that. Many times they don't. They either decide
it's
worth it to work with me, find another contractor, do it themselves, or
don't
get it done. 

Someone once said to me, "Its not rocket science". No, it's not,
but it is by no
means easy to do it right either. There's a long learning curve, and often
it's
plain hard work. There are also many hours spent doing design or any number of
other things that don't get directly billed. If someone asks, "How can
you
justify that 30% (or whatever) markup?", I can answer any number of ways.
It is
enough to say, "I've found that it's required, in order to stay in
business." 

A lot of my time doing solar work is taken up educating customers about solar.
Why their array is wired for 48 volts, while their battery is 24 volts, for
instance. Education sometimes includes, "This is how business works".


Rant off.

Dick
Solarwind Electric
Bradford, VT



--- You wrote:
Hey guys,

Is this a list that can be viewed by the public or what?  If it is - why 
are we advertising the lowest prices we can buy PV for?  Would you 
intentionally tell a potential client - "I'm buying PV for 2.95/watt
but 
I'll sell it to you for 3.95 - how do you like that?"

I spoke to Michael about this a month ago regarding posts about battery 
pricing and he said it CAN be viewed by the public although it isn't 
advertised.  He also said that he found a link to a post from this list 
on GOOGLE although it's not supposed to be there.  Google is about as 
public as it gets!

I don't know about your customers but if mine knew there was 2.95/watt 
pv out there they'd want to pay 2.95 /watt and not a penny more.  Same 
thing for batteries and everything else we sell.  Especially in this 
economy.

Understand - I have the utmost respect for all the posters on this list 
and recognize that some of you have decades more business experience 
than I do.  However, I strongly suggest if you want to talk pricing with 
people - contact them off list.  I don't see where publishing your 
wholesale discount pricing on the web is good for your business, my 
business, or the RE industry as a whole. 

Best,

Greg Egan
Remote Power Inc.

--- end of quote ---
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