oh I agree about the “free” labour. But then it was mum’s “free” labour that did the washing by hand, traipsed around the grocer’s, butcher’s etc.
yep - I remember a child watching me almost with her mouth open, astounded at what I was doing.
“Look mum, that lady is doing that knitting!”
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If we do not value our hard work and creativity then no one will.
Think how the big stores are now jumping on the hand made and hand finished banded wagon and charging more for it.
What we do is a skill to produce our items. Not something thrown together in sweat shop with inferior materials that falls apart after the first wash.
We really should be careful that we are not turning ourselves into individual sweat shops.
What we are doing is top end merchandise not bargin basement rubbish.
If we can’t afford our items does that matter, it simply means we are not are target market.
I still think some of my own prices can do with a bit of an increase even though I raised most of them ealier this month.
We really need to have a wee bit more confidence in our abilities.
I do believe most of us underprice our work.
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I have recently set up a Folksy shop, although I have my own website from which I sell as well. For two reasons I think I have to start off by under pricing. These are:
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My murder mystery puzzle books are a new concept. Therefore people will be more wary of trying them out
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However good your photographs and text, they can’t replace seeing the object in person, picking it up and interacting with it.
Therefore my aim is to cover my costs while getting my books in the hands of the public, and hopefully people taking a liking to them and wanting more! Then it will be time to think about increasing prices!
Regards, Tim
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Your costs include your labour ie your time so I would hope you take that into consideration.
After all you can’t go into the local garage and tell the mechanic you’ll only pay for the parts he use’s and not his time/labour or whatever other business costs he has to factor into every invoice.
So why should we run our businesses any other way to the rest of the business world.
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Since I have been involved in a local gallery/shop I have come to realise what people are prepared to pay if it is something they want so a realistic price should be achievable if the item appeals to someone.
I used to sell at a local gallery. I had a ‘wholesale’ price for the shop, which was the minimum I needed to cover materials. They would sell the jewellery at a price they thought was reasonable and pay me my ‘wholesale’ price. It wasn’t until I went to the shop, by chance, that I saw how much they were selling my jewellery for. One pair of earrings that asked £18.00 for to cover my costs, they had up for sale at…wait for it… £115!!! No wonder they were keen to keep stocking my jewellery.
I don’t have enough confidence to ask that sort of money for sterling silver, but they didn’t seem to have trouble doing it or selling it. Sadly, the love affair ended when I had to raise the prices of some of my items as the materials had become more expensive. They said they were now not able to make enough profit on the sales… Ho Hum!
Jacqueline x
Why don’t you have the confidence to charge a higher price? What’s the worst that could happen? You never know whether it will work unless you try! For an item retailing at £115 I would normally expect the wholesale price to be £45-£50. Would that cover your material costs, time, overheads and an element of profit? More than cover it? Maybe £115 was a bit over the top for a pair of earrings but it does show that there is scope for you to charge a fairer-to-you price.
One of the hardest things to do! I am useless at prices. I tend to do several things.
- Make sure I cover cost of raw materials
- Add a bit for time
- Have a look at similar items on selling sites
- Ignore all that and pluck a figure out of the ether!
Seriously though I don’t think there is a set formula particularly where time is involved as some things that sell well for relatively high profit may only take seconds to make whilst others may be very fiddly and time consuming but impossible to sell at much more than the cost of materials, at which point you have to ask yourself whether you are crafting to make money or for the love of it.
In regards to raising prices over time, I am a self employed chiropodist and was advised (too late) that I should raise my prices by a regular amount at set intervals (eg. £1 per year) so people would expect it. Needless to say I didn’t heed the advise and in 15 years have only raised my prices 3 times. The last rise was about 3 years ago and I always hate doing it. I worry I will lose custom although realisticly if I raise prices by say 5% I can afford to lose 5% of my custom without losing money but gaining more time for crafting. Win win…perhaps I’ll raise my prices tomorrow!
Sorry for the waffle!
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Jacqueline, look at this from a different angle; there were people paying £115 for the earrings, what the shop did was facilitate getting your goods in front of those people. People want to pay quality prices for quality goods, it’s what they expect and you give the consumer confidence if you have realistically priced goods to reflect their quality. If they see it as cheap they’ll think something is wrong with it or there’s some sort of catch.
As you say it is about confidence, I understand because I feel the same but I gulped down a large amount of doubt when I doubled my prices to pay myself a wage. I had to understand that if I wanted to stay as a hobby then maybe I should just give my items away if all I wanted from it was the enjoyment of making. But as soon as I started selling to others, having to read the DSRs, pay for marketing, insurance, then I became a business and no longer just a hobby. I needed to respect that things had changed, respect myself by paying myself a wage. I’ve now got to go out and sell where my ideal customer lives/visits, advertise in the publications they use, and let go and learn to say no politely to the events where I sell very little if at all. And that is scary LOL, I’m definitely out of my comfort zone!
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Increase those prices Jacqueline!!
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What a wonderful article, thank you! xx
Eeek! Thanks so much for all your advice. I will be having a good, hard look at the pricing as I am trying to run a business and I obviously need a re-think with a new business mind set. Off to have a look at the Pricing for Failure link.
Jacqueline x
PS @bojanglies Just read the article - WOW! I am really fired up to get tough on pricing now. J x
Yes, £45 to £50 would have more than covered the costs and time on the £115 earrings. Thanks so much for talking so much sense!
Jacqueline x
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I agree I find pricing hard and always under price (according to my sister) I worry people won’t buy it if the price seems to high. I recently sold some Tea and Egg Cosy sets to a lady who was doing an exhibition at a Homes & Garden Show (she was exhibiting furniture and wanted them to dress her exhibit). I sold the sets to her for £18 and she sold them on for £36 each and got repeat orders!
You can always give a discount price to repeat customers who have supported you at the beginning of your journey.
Jan x
I don’t have a formula for my prices, I do take into account materials and average time, other than that I tend to charge what I think is a fair price.
Jan x
@HandcraftedbyPicto - great idea! Might just do that!
@hopscotchlane I see I am not the only one! I have started to edit my listings, so hope to raise my prices a little to start with to see if it makes any difference to sales. It might take a while as I have about 270 items in my shop!
Jacqueline x
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I struggle with pricing because most of my jewellery is made from aluminium, so not a precious metal. However, after I have dyed it, I treat the aluminium exactly the same way as I would a piece of silver. I hand saw pierce, file, emery and wire wool the edges, therefore although it’s intrinsic value is not the same as silver, to me aesthetically, it’s just as valuable as silver, I just don’t feel that I could justify higher prices because at the end of the day it’s not a precious metal.
It’s not all about the cost of materials it’s more about what you do with them, your shop is lovely and the materials you use are different. It looks like a lot of hard work goes into your jewellery and that should be reflected in the price.
Jan x
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