Charging for Stickers

Stickers, like anything else, have a value and a price. October 25, 2006

Question
Should I be charging for stickers? I have customers that air dry their lumber that I cut for them on their property. Of course, I use dry stickers, but I don't get them back as promised. Do you charge for stickers? And refund when you get them returned? Or do you just eat it? What is a good charge? I was thinking about 50 cents per sticker. That way, maybe they would think that they are valuable and return them for refund. Last job, the mountain of stickers turned into BTU fodder.

Forum Responses
(Sawing and Drying Forum)
From contributor S:
I cut stickers from edgings of the customer's flitches. I encourage customers to keep the stickers when the lumber piles come down for the next round of sawing. I explain the advantages of dry stickers, but would not consider loaning any of my dry stickers for the same reasons you cited. Renting or loaning with a deposit makes good sense. Good stickers ought to be worth $.50 each.

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From Professor Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor:
It would not be unusual to find that dry stickers are worth about 10 cents (minimum) per foot of length.

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From contributor B:
Offer the stickers for sale at a reasonable profit and the customers will either come up with their own stickers or buy yours. Charge at least twice your cost. Keep it simple and everyone will be happy.

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From contributor I:
California has the world's sixth largest economy in everything except sawmill stickers. We'll have to see what we can do about that since we are very sensitive about our standing in the world's marketplace and want to keep up with the rest of the nation on a commodity of such importance as sawmill stickers. I thought I was sticking (pun intended) them at 20 cents. Boy, a whole new profit center just opened up right before my eyes.

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From the original questioner:
I believe you're correct - on the NYSE and NASDAQ, I could have sworn I saw STKER. Must be stickers? I will start charging .50/stick and refund them when they return. I don't have lots of time just for cutting stickers, unless of course I do an IPO and take a bunch of California's wealthy in on my sticker business...

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From contributor L:
Here is my sticker business story. When I saw a customer's log, if they want sticks, I sell dry sticks at 30 cents each and offer to buy 'em back for 25 cents. In 12 years, probably bought back less than a hundred. Few months ago, I decided to make my fortune selling higher quality sticks. Cranked out a couple thousand like in the picture. Have yet to sell the first one. If I wasn’t planning on using them myself, you could get my whole inventory for few cents on the dollar.

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From contributor W:
Looks like you made those out of oak. What are they made of?

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From contributor L:
Looks like the one's in the picture are RO... but I made 'em out of all the low grade boards I had laying around. Might find just about any species.

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From contributor Z:
I really like those stickers. I think that all my stickers will be made now in a similar fashion!

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From contributor E:
If I have a customer that wants stickers, I cut them out of his wood for the same hourly rate as the rest of the sawing. If they want dry ones, it's up to them to make their own. If I were in this full time, I might think about making and selling dried ones. Just way too time consuming for me.