I have an appliance repair business. I charge for labor and parts. I mark up my parts a flat percentage. How do I respond when a customer wants me to breakdown the cost of labor vs parts? Because I know what they are really trying to do is see if they can find the part cheaper on the internet.
I’m in a totally different industry, but occasionally get this. Generally I call them and explain I don’t disclose sub prices, but also don’t mark them up more than X%.
In your industry, I would probably do the breakdown. Don’t tell them your markup costs. If they balk and want to buy their own part - that’s fine, but part of your markup is warrantying the part. Let them know there are tons of knockoff/bad parts for appliances and buying off ebay is a risk. If the part doesn’t work, you don’t refund labor, and they will have to pay you a second time to come back and fix it properly.
That said, dealing with the general public, if I were in your shoes I would probably decline the work.
Came here to say this exact thing…
A mechanic I used to use would say, “You don’t bring your own steak to the steakhouse and ask them to cook it.”
OP’s customer probably thinks that’s a great idea!
Part of the markup is identifying the correct part - the 1st time! I think it’s ok to say that
I will pay for that service. If I knew how to do something I wouldn’t call someone else to screw around with it.
I’d have this written up in legalese and have them SIGN it to ram the point home.