Participate in our annual Pricing Survey to help give the industry a more realistic picture of pricing custom work.
Bedroom built-ins and mantle/cabinet project - This project featured an extensive array of built-ins, all done in a white paint finish. They included cabinets, drawers and shelves on adjoining walls of a bedroom plus a mantelpiece with space for a television plus cabinets and display area next to it.
All of the upheaval in the economy over the last few years has thrown a huge monkey wrench into the not-so-smooth-running machine that was the process of estimating, pricing, and bidding custom woodworking projects. If custom shops were confused and frustrated about pricing before the economy tanked, they were doubly so as they tried to keep above water in the depths of the recession. That makes participation in this year’s Pricing Survey especially important.
How do you make sure your prices are both competitive and profitable? How can you get some idea about what other shops charge for similar work? These are the kinds of questions that the Pricing Survey helps you to answer. And participation also helps inform your own estimating process.
How it works
Since 1997, the Pricing Survey has been the only tool in the industry to try to compare pricing for custom woodworking projects such as kitchens, built-ins, custom furniture, and commercial cabinetry. The survey uses real projects done by real shops and makes the bidding specifications available to professional woodworking businesses all across the country. They “bid” on the projects as if they were real jobs in their own shops. Then we print the itemized results in the magazine so you can compare.
Itemized categories in the survey include shop rates, construction hours, finishing rates, finishing hours, install rates, and install hours. We ask about materials costs and design fees. There’s also information about software and CNC use that helps you see what technology does to pricing. And all of this information is organized with state or province locations, so you can try to draw some regional conclusions if applicable.
Lighted bar cabinet - This nice bar cabinet project brings the new technology of LED lighting to the forefront to provide a distinctive custom look. The original shop made this for an existing customer and did not have to compete in a bidding process, so they anxious to hear what other shops would charge for such work.
Participation crucial
But all of that information is meaningless unless there is maximum participation from shops across North America. Certainly it takes some time to study the bid package, calculate your numbers and submit your bids, but virtually every shop that has participated in the past has reported it was a valuable exercise that further informed their own pricing process.
You can download the 2012 Pricing Survey Bid Package from www.cabinetmakerfdm.com or we are happy to mail a hard copy to you at your request. Just send an email to will.sampson@ccimedia.net or phone 203.207.0025. You can return your bids by email, standard mail or fax.
But don’t delay: The deadline for bids is August 24. And check out the six great projects in this year’s survey.
Updated: Jul 11, 2012