Comments on: Volume discounts

By: Ryan Ginstrom

Ryan Ginstrom — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:40:31 +0000

It depends a lot on the nature of the job. If you’re translating something like a novel or a huge stack of newspaper articles, then it won’t get much faster as you translate.

But as another example, last year I translated a huge specification (several thousand pages). At the beginning of the project, I was translating 4,000 to 6,000 words a day. At the end of the project, I was translating 20,000 words a day. I provided a volume discount on that job, and still earned a lot more than I would have normally.

By: Paul Bouvier

Paul Bouvier — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:06:42 +0000

¿Are translation agencies willing to pay interests for late payments to the translators? Of course, no.

So, I am not willing to agree any to discounts to agencies or LSPs neither. A job has a price. That’s it. If they accept to pay it, ok. If not, I am not interested in bad payers and I loss no more time with them. There isn’t any logic in more work for less money.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:28:40 +0000

Tend to agree with Michael’s comment that big jobs can make it more difficult to keep cache of regular clients happy. As a matter of fact I know translators (at least two) who sometimes turn down large jobs for that reason and would never think of giving volume discounts.

If you try to make unreasonable demands on your local car mechanic, he’ll laugh right in your face. How many translators have that much chutzpah? Of course bargaining power is contingent on having a solid client base to fall back on, and we are not all in that situation all of the time.

By: Kevin Lossner

Kevin Lossner — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:10:52 +0000

Aside from the fact that PMs promising “more work” in exchange for a volume discount are blowing bubbles out their backsides, I have never understood the point of offering a lower rate for a big job when I already term down a significant multiple of what I am physically capable of handling.
I also do not believe that large jobs go faster in any way. QA is a lot more challenging, and in many ways I suspect that the effort invested is greater per word. Large jobs are also potential cash flow killers depending on the payment arrangements, and they make it more difficult to handle daily requests from a large clientele. I do in fact take on many large projects, but I schedule them to avoid taking up more than an average of 50% of my capacity for the period in which I work on them, and I never, never, never agree to any silly volume discounts.

By: MT

MT — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:04:00 +0000

It turns out that every time I have personally offered a volume discount, the advertised volume did not materialize. Every time. So, I don’t offer volume discounts at all any more, ever. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense for some folks at some times, but I’ve simply come to the conclusion that it (literally) doesn’t pay.

By: Ryan Ginstrom

Ryan Ginstrom — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:32:47 +0000

@Judy

Yeah, the “we can expect a lot more work in the future” line is a pretty old trick. I’ve learned the hard way not to put too much stock in that.

My standard policy is that I won’t set aside time in my schedule unless I have a solid offer of work, so these pie-in-the-sky promises are non-starters. If the client doesn’t have the work in hand, it’s not on the table for negotiations.

By the way, although they usually don’t work at the terminology level, you can use a CAT tool to pre-analyze a document and find out how much repetition there is. I have a free one called Analyze Assist if you’re on Windows.

By: Judy Jenner

Judy Jenner — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:33:01 +0000

Very interesting post, and it discusses an issue that is clearly important to many of us. In general, I am opposed to significant volume discounts, because as I am not producing widgets, there’s really no substantial economies of scale. Sure, I do get a bit faster when I am in the groove with the terminology, etc., but I am certainly not 25% faster, which is what I hear many agencies ask for. I agree with Michael that I (well, we, as my twin Dagy edits my work) also get pickier and more perfection-driven with longer jobs, which of course doesn’t help time-wise.

So far, we have said that we might consider volume discounts, but have not specified. One problem that Dagy has run into is that client promises “more work” if he/she only receives the special volume discount up front. Unfortunately, several of those clients were given a good-will (very marginal) volume discount and — you guessed it, were never heard from again. Now, if we offer any volume discount, it would have to be on a large project or, for repeat smaller ones, after a certain amount of words.

I do like your idea of a higher rate for smaller jobs; innovative!

Here’s another side to volume discounts: A few months ago, I quoted on a huge project for my favorite direct client, and I voluntarily included a substantial volume discount. It’s still pending, and from what I hear, they were totally not expecting the discount, and I might have shot myself in the foot if there’s no recurring terminology (honestly, it was 400 pages, so I didn’t take the time to read the whole thing). Might be another business lesson learned!

By: Ryan Ginstrom

Ryan Ginstrom — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:34:05 +0000

@Michael

I try to avoid the scheduling problem by negotiating a delivery date that allows me to take other work in between.

Lots of five-page, due “right away” jobs kill that strategy, but I try to avoid those types of jobs for other reasons.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:35:39 +0000

There is not doubt that productivity increases after you are more familiar with a job. But the longer a job, the more I tend to look at already translated segments with the eyes of an editor and I want to improve – which then again increases the time required. Another factor why I am not so keen on high-volume jobs is that, as a one-man show, it forces me to say no to too many of my other clients. So in a way I’m reluctant to work on jobs that would bring up the subject of volume discounts.

By: Ryan Ginstrom

Ryan Ginstrom — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:11:15 +0000

@Adam

I definitely agree that there are diminishing returns. Pages 51 to 100 will tend to go a lot more quickly than pages 1 to 50, but not too much more slowly than pages 101 to 150.

As for the need to go back and make corrections, that’s the other side of the coin to improved quality. With the shorter job, you would have delivered a mistranslation; the longer job provides more opportunities to recognize and correct errors. And of course, CAT tools can help greatly with maintaining consistency over big jobs.