Jan-san margins get squeezed from every side. Paper and liner costs swing with pulp and resin markets. Bid contracts with schools and governments lock in prices for a year. National distributors and club stores set buyer expectations on commodity items. And many distributors respond the same way: hold prices as long as possible, absorb cost increases, and match any low quote. Margin drains away a little at a time.
The app helps you stop the drain and keep prices fair.
Micro price increases
Micro price increases are small increases every few months, too small to call about, that add up over two or three years. A small rise on a case of gloves or a gallon of glass cleaner rarely gets noticed. Spread across the many steady items a building service contractor buys, it adds up.
Compare that to holding prices until costs force a big increase. Big increases send buyers out for quotes. Small, regular ones keep pace with your costs without starting that conversation. For contract customers with locked pricing, you can apply small increases at each renewal, rather than letting a multi-year gap build up.
Priced below market and margin leaks
Priced below market shows accounts priced below the large national distributors, with a suggested increase and a note to the rep. Many jan-san distributors have a few long-time accounts on prices from years ago, below what the customer could get anywhere else. Those are often loyal customers, which makes them good places to bring pricing back to fair.
Margin leaks shows lines sold below cost or below your floor margin, and vendor cost increases that weren't passed on. In jan-san, leaks tend to show up in familiar places:
- A paper or liner cost increase hit, but contract pricing still carries last year's numbers.
- A startup discount for a new contractor became their permanent price.
- Heavy or bulky items, like cases of towels or floor finish in pails, are priced without enough room for freight.
- Equipment parts or special-order chemicals were quoted on an old cost.
Each leak is small on its own. Together they can explain why a busy year didn't produce the profit you expected.
Competitor pricing intel
Competitor pricing intel shows what national distributors give off list on public bids, plus photos and PDFs of competitor quotes and bid sheets your reps find. Public school and government bids are a rich source of this information in jan-san. When a buyer says a national competitor is cheaper, you can check what that competitor actually bids in public. Sometimes they're right and you sharpen a price. Often the gap is smaller than claimed, or the competitor is quoting a lighter liner or a lower-grade tissue.
The goal isn't to squeeze customers. It's to stop giving away margin by accident and keep prices fair with steady, small moves. Combined with easy ordering, accurate counts, approvals and reports, fair pricing holds up well. Make the margin screens part of a monthly routine with your sales manager, and you'll fix leaks while they're small instead of finding them at year end.
The reps matter here too. When a rep gets a note about an account priced below market, the best approach is usually a plain conversation at the next visit: costs have moved, here's what's changing, and here's what we're doing to keep your total cleaning cost down. Customers who value your program tend to accept a fair adjustment that comes with that kind of explanation.
Want to see your own jan-san catalog in it? See how it works.