Price leakage
The tooling was free. The order never repeated.
Packaging margin leaks through absorbed tooling: dies, plates and setup given free against promised volume. Price those separately in the book, with a recorded approval whenever they are waived, and the gamble becomes a decision somebody owns.
In short
Packaging margin leaks through absorbed tooling: dies, plates and setup given free against promised volume. Price those separately in the book, with a recorded approval whenever they are waived, and the gamble becomes a decision somebody owns.
The cost
What the gap takes every month.
₹8,000 to ₹40,000
Typical absorbed setup per new design
Plates, dies, trials and machine time before the first saleable box.
1 in 3
New designs that never reach promised volume
The waiver was granted against volume nobody tracked afterwards.
One ordinary week
How it actually happens.
A buyer promises 50,000 boxes a month if you waive the plate cost. Your team agrees on the phone, because the volume sounds certain.
They order 6,000 and then change the artwork. The waived plate is scrap, and no record connects the waiver to the volume that justified it.
Recording the waiver as an approval against a volume commitment means the next conversation with that buyer starts from a fact rather than a memory.
The fix
Three steps, in this order.
01
Publish one approved price book
Rates by product, customer class, region, quantity slab and delivery basis, in one place everyone quotes from.
02
Make below-book rates an approval, not a habit
A quotation under the book cannot be issued until a named approver says yes, with the reason recorded.
03
Review deviations monthly
The pattern of approvals shows which products are mispriced and which customers always push.
Straight answers
What owners ask us here.
Everyone in our market waives tooling.
Then waive it deliberately, against a recorded commitment, so you know which accounts have repaid it and which have not.
Can we recover tooling across the first orders instead?
Yes, amortised setup can be built into the slab rate, which is often easier for the buyer to accept than a separate line.
How do we handle artwork changes mid-run?
As a priced revision, the same as any other change, with the new artwork version attached to the order.
Questions people ask
Straight answers, no sales talk.
System of Marketing & Sales
Put enquiry to dispatch on one governed line.
Tell us how your plant sells today. We'll show you where the line breaks and what it takes to close it.