This site illustrates what's going on in the engraving industry. You have "real businesses", "home businesses", and "hobbiest businesses". As a result, you see different thinking, different situations, and different pricing practices. It's very easy for a home business to charge less. They don't have any real additional fixed costs. As a result, they can easily afford to charge less. Imagine if rent, utlities, ect all went away or went down to essentially 0. It makes bidding lower on certain jobs easier because you have that flexibility. Home businesses often have to charge less, unless people don't know you operate out of your home. Home businesses, in general, have a horrible reputation for being unreliable. How many B&M stores get customers coming in with a job because their guy dropped the ball or couldn't handle the job?
The other thing that's going on in the awards industry is there are a few big companies that have really dropped the price on everything. They have low cost employees ($10-15/hr) and are making their money on numbers. They don't want 10 plaques where they make good money. They want 100 plaques and they'll make okay money on each. I contacted one of the companies last month out of curiosity if they could do a very rush job. Their answer was no problem and the price was the same. Who am I to tell them how to run their business? I don't know if they're actually making a profit but I do know they've expanded their business 3 times over the last 10 years. They could be in huge debt with their fingers crossed that they'll keep growing and pay off their debt in a few years.
Equipment: IS400, IS6000, VLS 6.60, LS100, HP4550, Ricoh GX e3300n, Hotronix STX20
Software: Adobe Suite & Gravostyle 5
Business: Trophy, Awards and Engraving