Comments on: Translation clients and the reverse auction

By: Nelida Kreer

Nelida Kreer — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:18:04 +0000

Totally agree with Ryan’s and Judy’s comments. Especially with Judy’s “call to arms” to linguists to stop trying to undercut each other. Just a couple of days ago a colleague at LinkedIn made a comment about seeing a quote from a peer for us.d 0.02!!!!! per source word. I myself saw this kind of rate from another so-called translator of my local community. This, besides evidencing a total lack of self-respect, is a very harmful and destructive practice. If we, as linguist professionals, were to put up a united front, even big business would find it hard to apply their price-cutting tactics. If you treat yourself as a door-mat, you will surely be tread upon…..

By: Judy Jenner

Judy Jenner — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:41:24 +0000

This is, of course, a very sad development. Couldn’t agree with you more, Ryan. One doesn’t need to have an MBA in operations to understand that with translation there are no economies of scale, hence you can’t produce the 1,000th word (or widget) cheaper than the first one. It’s a service, not a product. Interesting insight about the translations you helped evaluate, Ryan. The only solution, if there is one, is for us professionals to start working together and to stop undercutting each other by accepting lower rates, which makes this reverse bidding system work in the first place. I’m all for us being Entpreneurial Linguists and following the lawyer example: sure, some of them compete on price, but in general it’s understood that you don’t get a capable attorney for peanuts. Same is true in our profession. If you pay peanuts, most of the time, you get….

By: Adam Rice

Adam Rice — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:10:29 +0000

Competitive bidding is not exactly new, although a one-hour cycle sounds pretty brutal. And rate-chiseling in general is hardly new. I recall vividly a job from one of my best clients who asked me to accept a rate cut after I had started the job—this was more than ten years ago.

By: Ryan Ginstrom

Ryan Ginstrom — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:02:55 +0000

“No idea how on earth they can offer the translation, editing, layout, and printing these projects require at those prices. ”

An agency I used to do work for jumped on the economic crisis bandwagon by unilaterally announcing that all translation rates would be cut in half. I no longer translate for them, but they recently asked me to evaluate some trial translations, and “native check” the best three. The pay was good, and I was curious about the quality of their translators at those rates, so I agreed.

Then I understood why those translators were settling for half the market rate.

By: Durf

Durf — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:13:39 +0000

Our company regularly bids on .go.jp projects. In recent cycles there have been lots of new (to the translation field, anyway; printing houses and the like) companies that place bids around 30–50% of ours. No idea how on earth they can offer the translation, editing, layout, and printing these projects require at those prices.

It’s sad for the people in the ministries that actually do the work on these projects. They would prefer to work with a company like ours, which knows the stuff and can respond to their demands appropriately, but the bean-counters call the shots. Even when they state up front that a track record in the field and actual ability to do the translation will count in the selection process, it’s always the lowest price that takes the job.