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| User | Thread poster: María Eugenia Wachtendorff Have translation agencies lowered the fees they charge end clients? |
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agoreux 
Chile
 Member (2005)
Spanish to English
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| | No they have not - and I have not lowered my fees, recession or no recession. | Jul 17 |
When there is a recession on, people need to publish more and advertise their products. They also go through lawsuits more often and ask for more estimates. Therefore, I have not lowered my fees and the agencies have not lowered their rates.
There are agencies and agencies. Since it is so easy to set up shop, you only need your computer and six square meters of office space "agencies" are coming up like mushrooms; but the only thing some do is go soliciting work from companies, and from other agencies too.
On the other hand, we all have busy days, not so busy days, and periods of drought.
And that's what the hole-in-the-wall agencies bank on, they know that, no matter what, at any time some translators are not busy, need the money badly or are simply deeply addicted workaholics who will work and work no matter what.
I am a workaholic but not THAT crazy, if there is no work, I take care of things around the garden and the house, brush the cats, go visiting, to the movies, read, listen to music, whatever, but I do NOT fall into the trap of working for work's sake.
Begginers are another prey for these "agencies". Now, if an agency does not pay very well and even rather badly, but does make the effort of careful editing, telling the translator what its wrong and acting in fact as a "finishing school" that's OK. Once you are fully confident about your work, ask for a raise. It does happen.
 
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Tadzio Carvallo
Mexico
Member (2006)
English to Spanish
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María Eugenia Wachtendorff wrote:
Is it not apparent that rates have gone drastically down since the site started having "corporate members"? Is it just my idea, or is ProZ.com actually becoming a translation auction site? |
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While I never got a job by means of a Job posting on Proz.com, I DO HAVE GOTTEN A LOT OF CLIENTS (agencies) through the former Translation Agency Directory, and that WAS worthwhile!
Regretfully, I can't find this great Proz.com section anymore. All I find is my OWN COLLEAGUES announcing themselves as "corporate members & outsourcers". 
I think I agree with María Eugenia...
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Niraja Nanjundan
India
Member (2005)
German to English
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| | Freelancers becoming "corporates"....... | Jul 17 |
Tadzio Carvallo wrote:
All I find is my OWN COLLEAGUES announcing themselves as "corporate members & outsourcers".
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....is part of the problem, I think. Colleagues with good marketing and business skills, who get an excessive amount of work now seem to outsource whatever they can't manage themselves to other translators, and naturally, the rates at which they do so will be lower and possibly colleagues who don't get that much work sometimes see no other option than to accept. This also leads to an uneven distribution of work, with some colleagues apparently "hogging" all the work and others not getting an opportunity to work directly with clients, and having to accept work from these new "corporate members" instead.
It seems that apart from the KudoZ "points grabbing," we now have some serious cases of "jobs grabbing" as well.
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Ralf Lemster
Germany
 Member (2003)
English to German
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Moderator of this forum |
Hi Viktoria,
I do have a website, and it is in no way associated with my ProZ.com profile. If it were, people would find ProZ.com easily through my own website - do I want that? |
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Take it the other way around - link to your website from your ProZ.com profile. This way you will benefit from ProZ.com's search engine optimisation, directing traffic to your site.
Cheers, Ralf
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dgmaga
Germany
English to Spanish
| | They do charge lower rates if they have to | Jul 17 |
On the whole, I believe that translation agencies don't ever charge lower rates to their end clients. What I believe is that they may pay lower rates to translators in order to keep their profit levels. |
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Just to clarify: This is not true.
I have worked in a couple of translation companies and there are occasions when they do have to lower their rates.
A client might be working with a given translation company for a number of years and then they find out that another translation company offers similar services for a lower price.
They will just ask their first translation company to either lower their rates or they will take their business to their cheaper agency.
Some other customers (and big ones) some times use the auction system to issue large contracts and then translation companies have to outbid each other with lower prices.
The relationship between translation companies and big clients (who know a lot about translation) is quite similar to the relationship between freelance translators and translation companies. The market is tough for translation companies too.
Daniel
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Kevin Lossner
Germany
Member (2003)
German to English
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Viktoria Gimbe wrote:
Would you set up shop across the street from your main competitor, whose business model is selling the worst quality at the cheapest price? That would be plain stupid! |
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Strange as it may sound, this is an effective retail strategy. This is why you'll often find shops of a particular type clustering on a given street. If someone is looking for quality translation services, "browses" and compares the offerings at a public site like this, a good profile will pull in a lot of business as you probably know.
At the same time I agree that it is important to maintain your own web site and that it isn't productive to link from there to here (though I would do so from here to there!). My site was put together quickly before a business reorganization, is years overdue for updating and isn't even available in my local language, and it still draws a significant amount of good direct customer business. (I must ad, though, that it is hosted here - I find the hosting rates very reasonable compared to what I pay elsewhere for another domain.)
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Neil Allen
France
Member
French to English
| | It is not representative of the wider market | Jul 17 |
To be honest, I turned off job notification on ProZ.com a couple of months after joining the site because I didn't want to waste my time getting e-mails offering derisory rates.
However, I feel that ProZ.com membership is valuable because the site is often consulted by serious agencies, some of whom have become valued long-term clients after contacting me directly; as well as for other services that it provides, such as the blue board.
I don't think you should take the jobs offered on ProZ.com as being in any way representative of the wider market.
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Oleg Rudavin
Ukraine
Member (2003)
English to Russian
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MODERATOR | | In support of Neil | Jul 17 |
Jobs posted at ProZ.com are indeed only a percentage (and a tiny one!) of the entire job traffic.
The best clients wouldn't want to be buried under an avalanche of bids from work-hungry translators and do prefer contacting selected translators directly.
Cheers,
Oleg
[Edited at 2008-07-18 04:18]
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Viktoria Gimbe
Canada
Member (2005)
English to French
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| | This is precisely a big part of the problem | Jul 17 |
Neil Allen wrote:
I don't think you should take the jobs offered on ProZ.com as being in any way representative of the wider market. |
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I totally agree with you - but in reality, many of us actually do think that ProZ.com job posts are representative of what's out there. Therein lies the problem.
This is why I was saying that, while it can be useful and profitable to have a profile or membership on sites like this one, people have to realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that they need to have more sources than just this one.
As a sidenote, I don't think that ProZ.com had any intention of favoring job grabbing - but I am afraid they play a big part in that despite themselves. This site has become so popular... I believe that ProZ.com can and should do some things to help even out this segment of the market. Nothing costly or complicated - just simple things like for example allowing freelancers to browse only legitimate agencies and exclude kitchen table agencies from the search (it would be easy to find out which category each belongs to - ask them how many employees they have, whether the head office address corresponds to the individual's address), making profile completeness mandatory for outsourcers just as it is for freelancers for certain operations like sending ProZ.com mail (and maybe allow freelancers to filter out mail that is not sent personally to them), etc. ProZ.com could help iron things out, even without displeasing corporate members.
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Jeff Whittaker
United States
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
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María Eugenia Wachtendorff
Chile
Member (2004)
English to Spanish
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| | Hope you work for them, Jeff! | Jul 18 |
This reminds me of an anecdote a teacher told in a marketing course many years ago: Make your competitors believe your prices are much higher than theirs; wait until they raise their own, and you will see what competitiveness is all about. 
[Edited at 2008-07-18 03:20]
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Viktoria Gimbe
Canada
Member (2005)
English to French
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| | Laughing out loud!!! | Jul 18 |
Jeff, do you think they would mind if I borrowed their advertizing tagline and put it in my ProZ.com profile? 
| We will translate any document for only 50 cents a word. I assure you it is the most affordable price you will find. |
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Valosh
Australia
 English to French
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| | Student translators | Jul 18 |
I have a student profile on Proz.com because I am a part-time student training to gain the NAATI French=>English.
I am also a qualified NAATI Eng=>French translator.
Because of this student profile I have been contacted directly either by agencies or other translators with the most ridiculous rates...I have turned every single one down so far. I was being offered 1/5 of what I am paid by regular clients.
Unfortunately I do agree that most translators, and especially students are probably working for extremely low rates. What a shame!!
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Edward L. Crosby III
United States
German to English
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| | Eight cents per word? Are you kidding? | Jul 20 |
Juan Jacob wrote:
Let's all be an agency.
Hire each other.
Minimum rate: USD 0.08
Done! |
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Juan,
I haven't worked for 8 cents per word since the early 1980s -- when gas was less than $2 a gallon!
Ed
Crosby@odessaoffice.com
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Edward L. Crosby III
United States
German to English
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| | Rates offered by agencies have plummeted | Jul 20 |
Andy Lemminger wrote:
No, I cannot see that the fees went down considerably, the amount of work did though. But that's not really surprising considering the current recession... |
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Andy, I don't know how long you've been a translator, but I can tell you that my minimum rate in the late 1970s was 5 cents per word, and prices of goods and services have gone up enormously in the intervening 30 years. Stuff costs much more now than it did then.
Agencies insist on quality (and often impose strict penalties for errors, omissions, etc.), but they are generally unwilling to pay for it. I can make more cooking burgers at McDonalds than I would make at a rate of 8 cents per word for translation. You tell me which job requires more expertise, intelligence and responsibility.
You don't get Mercedes quality at a Fiat price.
Cheers,
Ed
Crosby@odessaoffice.com
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The translation workplace 
