"How much for building work / taxi run / hedge trim"

[andygardener]

There are lots of threads where people ask how much something will cost.

 

These are usually met with tradespeople posting that they will provide a quote, or that they have sent a PM, but very rarely does anyone give a price or even a rough estimate.

 

I know the vagaries of pricing for work, but would customers trust somebody more who was up front about a price, even if it was just an indication?

 

Which trader would you be more inclined to use? One who didn't want to talk about money in public, or one who did?

 

I can only coment on my own trade but I think there are too many prices given out in public on here rather than too few. The OP wants a price for a job doing, sending a price to the person by PM is a perfectly reasonable way of doing it. That way the customer gets best offer from those interested in the work and can choose from them according to their personal criteria.

 

When prices for a professional job get quoted on the open forum you get two effects.

 

First the doleys working on the side immediately turn up and halve the price straight away then have a race to the bottom among themselves so you end up with a low bid of a four pack of stella and a pouch of baccy from bazza4chazza4eva (ps. not a real username) to turn up on the bus with a pair of blunt shears and make a total hash of the job. Now even though they rarely if ever actually get the job it just gives the forum a reputation as a place where cheap is the be all and end all and a lot of professionals end up not bothering even bidding for work on here which means less choice for the customer.

 

Second you get a skewed market as the first professional to quote is at a disadvantage. If a fair price is say around £150-£170 and somone quotes £170 then their competitors instantly have a marker to bid against and can go in slightly cheaper by PM. You may say well that means the customer saves money which in some cases will be true. However that is only the case where the first quote is around the fair price. Workload will often skew the prices for jobs so if the marker is from someone who can just squeeze the job in on Sunday when they'd actually rather be taking a bit of time out then the price at which they would be willing to do it might be £250. If the OP then gets a load of quotes by PM at around £220 they think they've saved £30 but they're actually paying £50-£70 over the odds than they would have been in a sealed bid via PM.

 

I agree that whenever sufficient information is given to provide at least a rough quote subject to any necessary caveats that it's always best to do so rather than demand a site visit before discussing even rough pricing but I don't think the open forum is the best place to do it.

[Tony]

So, is it the SF medium that's the problem rather than the message?

[andygardener]

So, is it the SF medium that's the problem rather than the message?

 

I don't think the medium is a problem, I just think the best part of of that medium is via the private message facility provided by SF. For the reasons outlined above I don't think open bidding works in anyones best interests outside of a defined pre-qualified auction setting which SF isn't.