Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Thoughts About Pricing Handcrafted Items

Hi. Pam here. Anyone out there who sees this care to comment on pricing in handcrafted items?
I've been told 2 -3 x the cost of material to make up for time put in...any agreements, disagreements? Successful pricing stories wanted now!

2 comments:

  1. Pricing ...should be a 4 letter word!! That's my story and I'm stick'n too it!!

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  2. Stay affordable- pricing with the idea that -


    "big name desingers get so much more won't others think my stuff is as good as theirs" thinking is not only self defeating it is financial suicide.

    I know that people will buy 100 earrings that are affordable and only 5 that are expensive equals=

    $1500.00 verses $250.00

    I sell over 10,000 items a year BECAUSE of affordability along with style, marketing, blah blah...

    almost 20 years in the business.
    I find a price point that it needs to retail at. Store will do a 2.2 min. that means if I want it to retail for 20 I need to sell it for 9. I then I make sure I can either find super findings at a great price or good findings and more time facter.
    I will make sure that a $9.00 earring that takes less than 5 minutes to make costs about $4 to $4.50 of raw material. An earring that takes 10 minutes to make needs to cost under $2.00.
    NEVER make the mistake of pricing less than retail when you go direct to a customer. Or, if you have only done direct to a consumer, take into account that you can not sell it to a store for more than 50% of what you just sold it directly to your consumer. When you start selling to stores, they will not be happy at all if they find out that you sell to the general public for less they can retail it for.

    One of a kinds are a different beast. designing need to be taken into account. I stay away from making too many items a year that take over an hour to make. why?
    one hour of your time at a cheep salary; $10.00
    times two to wholesale times 2.2 to retail means an item that could have less than $7.00 in raw materials in it will have to retail for $75.00. If you do beadwork, a person can see that it would cost less to buy the beads retail and even pay the beadshops owner $25.00 an hour to make it and it would cost them less!!!
    Thats confusing for even me, I guess I am in such a hurry to feed my family that I am not being to clear.. well, anyways , I have much more to say on the pricing thing, but I gotta go!!! But keep it low and you will also help America's economy healthy by keeping debt low. If there is an affordable option to something, people will choose it and not put so much on credit cards.

    My two cents worth

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