It is a difficult one, recently when I have introduced something new I have made a note of the time as I go along to help me calculate the costs, It’s still impossible to charge an hourly rate but it guves me an idea how ling the first few of a new line take to make. My bears and dolls are the most difficult, also my most popular but least profitable items. I am a long way off being at the high end of charging as I am realistic in what I think people will pay. Would be lovely if we could charge by the hour but often impossible when creating handmade items.
I agree if your items are completey handmade they deserve a higher price than those that are machined.
I hand embroider my items whoch takes a lot of time, so I can’t even begin to compete with those that use machine embroidery.
Good luck with your shop, you have lovely items
There will always be those that will complain about others peoples prices Brenda, do what is right for you, that’s what i do. I never compare my prices to other sellers as it’s not important to me what or how many they are selling.
Brenda your work was one of those talents I noticed selling for very competitive prices, as others have said that’s entirely your choice and yours alone, your work is beautiful and I’m honestly in awe that you can make something so pretty in such a short space of time, keep on doing what you love, it clearly works well for you 
@PaintedHorseArt …bless you for that xx
I am also finding it very hard to price my jewellery! I have just looked at what others sell which are similar and gone middle ground really. It has been a hobby for the last couple of years and I have been happy with any sales at all. Each and every one gave me such a thrill! Like a lot of sellers, my sales have really dropped recently on Etsy and I haven’t done very well here on Folksy either. I’m very bad at social media and promoting myself. I don’t know if my pricing is too high but I don’t make much out of it as it is. By the time you account for all the time it takes not only making, but sourcing materials, including packaging, listing items etc etc etc. I am about to be made redundant from work (just didn’t make it till my retirement in November! So disappointed!) so I will have more time to get more business like perhaps. 
Brenda, I have thought the same as you and other artists here, regarding what people will pay for a card. If you are able to paint large amounts and sell them for lower cost, I think that’s fair enough. I would do the same if I was able to but I’m a bit slow! Some of my hand painted cards have sold on Folksy for approx £5 but they are in a mount on a card, ready to frame, but smaller cards painted on watercolour paper mounted on card are £2.50. I don’t get many online sales but when I do a craft fair or gallery exhibition, they sell very well. My point is, the customer/ audience is different in each place we sell. I am lucky enough to be in a gallery with my hand painted cards and they sell for a higher price than I get on Folksy. I have agreed with the gallery to keep my online prices the same as gallery prices, which is normal practice, but at the moment I’m not offering that style of card in my shop. If I do, the price will be higher than my other cards and might not sell because people who buy from galleries expect to pay a higher price, and I feel that some Folksy shoppers expect prices more in line with the high street. But I could be wrong, I won’t know until I try it!
I have an opportunity to sell in a new local shop and am tempted But .
There is a monthly fee to pay ( like Folksy fee) And a 20% commission.
No idea how well I would sell in this area out of festive season as it were . I could though get round the 20% commission by increasing my prices to cover that… As, though prices would then be higher than online there would be no £4 .45 postage to pay so many things would be cheaper. Still thinking about it.
It’s difficult. As a knitter/crocheter my time is my biggest ‘cost’. I don’t generally time myself but I did once on a ladies cabled cardigan knitted in 100% wool. Charging whatever minimum wage was at the time plus the wool and buttons would have seen me pricing at £1700!
I see a lot of knitters say that they charge 3 x the cost of the yarn but I don’t see how that works either.
Say I crochet a child’s jumper and use 3 balls of yarn from poundland at £1 each. My jumper will be costed at £9.
Then I make the SAME jumper but in a lovely good quality wool that is multicoloured and that yarn costs £4.50/ball. This jumper now costs £40.50.
Of course the jumper with better quality yarn should cost more but £31.50 more when it’s taken me the same amount of time to make it? I don’t think that would wash with customers 
The shop would want you to sell the item for the same price as online, if it’s cheaper on folksy people won’t buy from the shop. So would be best to maybe have a different range of items specifically for retail if you don’t want to increase your online prices to match.
Well I for one would prefer the high quality yarn version at the corresponding higher price to a cheaper acrylic one. I bet if you did one of each version priced like that, with a great description of the luxurious special qualities of the expensive one you would sell them. Maybe you would sell 1 for every 3 of the others but you’d make the same amount of money and spend a third of the time making.
So an item that would cost me a £10.50 more to make you would be prepared to pay an extra £31.50?
I do obviously charge more when I use multicoloured yarn or wool instead of acrylic but not that much difference!
I also don’t use poundland yarn, I use good quality premium acrylic. I just used that as an example on how different the pricing would be.
But it won’t be cheaper on Folksy if they have to pay an extra £4.45 for postage. It will be more not less and most people, especially face to face understand that postage is Never free. This shop may well be different. It is a crafters shop more than a commercial enterprise. I will see.
I rhink it’s the basic retail price the shop would be bothered about, if it looks like you are undercutting them. Of course we all realise about postage but people will just buy a book from amazon rather than a bookshop if its a little lower priced and forget about the postage.
One way round would be to have one set of designs you only sell in the shop and price them up.
Yes.
As a buyer I dont care how long it took you to make. It’s what the item is worth to me that counts. If you sell it as a luxury item made from the softest most beautiful yarn from happy sheep living in delightful pastures which will make me feel special every time i wear it and enhance every outfit… you get the drift. Photograph it accordingly, and what’s £40 to buy the dream?
Give it a try. I’ll almost bet you the £40 you’ll make more over 6 months for that than the cheaper ones!
That’s really interesting. I would never dream of charging that much of a difference but you’ve made me think now.
I do tend to use wool for my adult makes but acrylic for the baby/kids because it will withstand a lot of machine washing.
The people who shop at the fancy boutiques in London on Sea on the east Kent coast wouldn’t bat an eyelid if a beautiful hand made child’s cardi was £40+ 
Yes, this is what I am now doing - making slightly different pieces for a gallery, as I couldn’t raise my online prices to match the gallery retail price (which, in turn, I couldn’t reduce, as they need to take their 50%). Although, having said that, now this has forced me to carefully time each stage of the process, it’s amazing what a time sap the packaging/buying postage/printing labels/going to the postbox/admin side of fulfilling orders is! Selling via galleries is actually more cost-effective (in terms of time) than I thought when I first considered it, so hoping to expand on that this year (if it proves popular)
I’m a “yes” too. Hand-knitted with beautiful wool is definitely premium to me
I wouldn’t expect to buy your beautiful jumpers and cardigans at £9 Carol… A jumper from a shop that has been made through mass production yes, I wouldn’t probably give more than that, especially if it was for a little since they grow so quickly. But I would come to your shop for a present or something more special if it was for my own children, and probably with the intension to keep it for when they get older, so automatically prepared to pay a lot more than £9. The extra amount seems to represent your work and your time better, and it’s also fits my purpose of buying it better. Plus the actual quality of the materials does matter in cases like that. Of course, there will be people who want to grab the handmade jumper at the bargain price of £9.00, and that’s absolutely fine, so quality should be a great factor of the pricing in my opinion. For adult items, I personally keep my clothes forever, so the higher end seems to be closer to my need of not to have to replace the items every couple of months, or not getting rushes every time I wear something 