Spyros

I do a lot of woodworking and I have a permanent backlog of chisels, lathe tools, marking knives, blades, routers bits, you name it, all needing sharpening. That's a lot humming. You can't cut wood with disposable blades, but you can cut leather, and I really don't know why I'd miss that opportunity.

The world invented replaceable blades, no reason to go back to the 19th century. Utility knife, X-acto, rotary blade, strap cutter, safety skiver, anything I can do to eliminate sharpening I will absolutely do Round knives look really cool but I wouldn't take one for free.

I hate sharpening.

Yeah it's boring, I get it. I do it all day for work and even the thought of doing it in my free time to turn my hobby into a business is just exhausting. I can barely deal with one job, the last thing I need is another one. I am envious of people who have a smart partner/wife/husband who looks after the business side of things while they focus on the creative and technical stuff, that's the perfect combo

Sorry Gulrok, I didn't quite understand what you disagree with. Everything you said makes sense to me. My main point is to avoid becoming a cost accountant as much as possible (you still have to do it a little bit) and focus on becoming a market expert instead. I mentioned a simple way of testing your market and your price as an example, but there are many more. It looks like you already doing it and know a lot about this. If you have the ability to A/B test your product and your size justifies it, then absolutely go ahead. Great stuff.

Whichever methodology someone follows, mine or someone else's, if they do stay in business for a while eventually they will arrive to the same result: the market will force them to price their products realistically, or they just won't sell, and if their cost calculations were off and they're losing money they will know just by looking at their back account at the end of the month. Or they'll go bust. I guess the point I am trying to make is how to avoid typical mistakes that I see everyday, which can add up and make all the difference in the end. Don't waste your time and money on loss making products, don't try to compete on price with people who have been building their brand for years and are charging a premium for it (but do observe and learn from them, see if you can easily incorporate something that they do), learn to read the market prices, understand how the customer sees and values a product and why they're paying what they're paying, do some basic calcs and keep an eye on your cost but don't get too bogged down on spreadsheets (soon you will know from experience anyway what is profitable, it's not that hard, it's mostly just leather and time), and don't make the mistake of selling your products short compared to the market. When you say those things like that I know they sound like hollow advice and cheap marketing catch phrases, which is why I started this topic, to explain bit more with specific and relevant examples.

Ι like the colour combinations, stitching looks great too

I'm not even gonna tell you the weight of my maul because I'm 6'5" and, ehhhm, heavy, so it's probably a lot heavier than most people would like. But why don't you make them variable weight? I made mine hollow and kept adding steel washers until i got exactly the weight I wanted. You can offer them with a bag of steel and a bag of nylon washers so people can make the combinations they want. They can also change the balance like that until it's right for their hand.

Hi all. Before you start reading keep in mind: this is only my opinion, please feel free to reject it if sounds wrong. Chances are if you've been in business a while that I'm not telling you anything new anyway I came across a couple of articles on pricing written by excellent leather workers, and then I kept digging and found more from more crafts people and small business owners, and they all seemed to have a very similar logic. I want to offer my opinion because I've been a finance manager for a couple of decades now and I've had that same discussion with sales and product managers a thousand times (feels like). And it was the exact same discussion over and over again whether we were talking mobile phones or potato chips. Because when it comes to selling they're all the same. And although not everyone agreed with me most of them eventually did. So, every article I read says roughly the same thing: to price your item, calculate the cost to make it and then price it based on that cost. Well here's the thing: don't do that. First of all you don't know your cost, nobody really does because even for professionals it's so damn hard to calculate. I can guarantee you from personal experience that even massive companies with armies of accountants don't really understand their cost. They can estimate it based on some assumptions, and overtime they're getting more and more accurate with experience, and then something changes and they start over again. Give you a simple example: say you bought an expensive sewing machine to make bags. The cost of that machine is now part of the cost of making a bag, right? Correct, but the machine cost $3k so how much for each bag? To calculate this you need to know how many bags you'll make on that machine every year and how many years the machine will last. Well, there's no way you know this right now. See what I mean? There are many problems like that in cost calculations, and if you try too hard to price your product based on your cost you run the risk of getting it wrong and losing money with every sale. Happens a lot. Secondly: in most countries 2 out of 3 new businesses fail. That's a statistical fact, not my opinion. When the odds are stacked against you like that you should absolutely not reduce your price just because your cost went down for whatever reason. And there's nothing unethical about that, it's the way the world works. Nobody will give you free money if things don't go your way, therefore you should not give your profits away when you catch a break that allows you to keep the lights on for longer. And conversely, don't try to put your prices up just because your cost went up, you're only gonna lose sales. Nobody cares about your cost, it's not their problem. Your cost and profit is nobody's business but yours. A customer has a budget and a price on his mind that he's willing to pay even if he doesn't know it. When you're pricing your product you must figure out what that price is, and that's absolutely all you have to do to price your product. At that point in time your cost is irrelevant. Cost and and price will often move in opposite directions, and that's fine, you should let them do that. I'll discuss further down when you should think about cost and for what purpose, but it's not for setting a price. So how do you figure out the right price for your product? You should look outside your business, not inside, look to the market. Find businesses that have been around a while and sell products similar to yours and take note of their price. Use their experience, they have made those decisions long before you. Etsy is great for this type of research because it tells you for every shop how many years it's been on Etsy, how many sales it has made, and you can also see the customer feedback. Very easy to spot the businesses that are successful, and those are the ones you should look to. If you see someone with 10 sales in 2 years move on, his prices are most likely irrelevant because he's not actually selling much at those prices. Do the same with ebay, then go to websites of people you know who seem successful, and also show your product to pretty much everybody you know and ask them what they'd pay for something like this. And when I say show your product I don't mean the actual bag or wallet. Most of you sell online these days, so show them on your phone what they would see when they're making up their mind if they will buy or not: photos and description, hide the price. Do all those things long enough and you will soon start getting a range of market prices in your mind. Say for example you want to start selling your belts, and you see that similar beltss to yours sell between $50-$70. Because you are new to this market start with a price towards the bottom of that range, around $50-$55. If you make for example 10 belts a week and they all sell at this price, bump the price to $55-60. Wait a couple of months and if you're still getting recurring business and all your 10 belts sell off at that price bump it again, until you see that you're now only selling 7-8 belts, then take it back a notch. That's your ideal price: you're selling all your production and getting the most you can out of the market. Here's an important detail when doing your price research: I said look for businesses that sell a product similar to yours. To do that first you must understand what a product is. Sometimes people think they know but they really don't. Say for example there is a guy who makes and sells a wallet exactly identical to yours, but that guy also has a youtube channel with a million views and you don't. In that case his wallet is not the same product as yours, his product is vastly superior and you can't compare. Along with the actual wallet people are paying for this guy's persona, his lifestyle, and of course the fact that they can see how the actual wallet was made. This guy has done the hard yards to attach those things to his product and therefore can price it accordingly. Another simpler example: identical wallet as yours but with a better description on the website, materials, process, where it's made etc. People will pay a little more for the fact that they understand better what it is they are actually buying. You have to put in your product more than just stitches if you want to compare with the best sellers. Look to Mascon Leather, Mr Lentz, Ian Atkinson, these are all outstanding product managers (whether they view themselves like that or not) because they embody in their products many different things that customers value, whether it's lifestyle, knowledge, a persona, or simply an honest or even just familiar face. It's not easy to achieve that, or quick. If you meet a guy and you think he's an awesome guy, you are then more likely to buy his product. That's just the way the human brain works. Same if you meet a guy that looks successful, there's a reason sales people (try to) show up in expensive cars and suits. Another example: a wallet on ebay is not the same as the exact same wallet on a beautiful website, ebay is great in many ways but it is also associated in peoples' minds with cheap imported stuff. Last example: a locally made wallet is not the same product as the exact same imported one, people value locally made things a little higher. And so on. Understand your product so you can compare the price correctly. So what about the cost then, should you just ignore it? No, you must make an honest effort to at least estimate your actual cost as best as you can. But not for setting a price, that's too late. You should have an honest cost estimate in the back of your mind when you're deciding IF you should even make something or not. If you do that, and you understand what is the actual product that you're selling, it's really not that hard to see how much it sells for and if there's money in it or not. And if there isn't, you simply shouldn't make it regardless how good you know that it is. Make that thing for yourself or the people you love instead. Sometimes you might find that products that seem boring to you are actually more profitable than your favourite pieces. That's the nature of the beast and the eternal battle between the artisan and the businessman, at some point you might have to decide which one you want to be. You're not making this for yourself, you're making it for somebody else and you must give them not what you want but what they want, and for the price that they're willing to pay. So, estimate your cost to decide if you want to get in the market with this product or not. But if you decide to get in, you should forget about the cost and just try to get the best out of the market that you can. Along the way if you feel that the prices or the costs have moved too much, periodically do a review of your products and make sure you're still making money on all of them. Drop the ones that don't and boost the ones that do. And remember, when you're getting into business the goal is exactly the same for you as it is for a billion dollar corporation: survival. The longer you stay in business the easier things will become and the more options you'll have, but you have to start from somewhere. Hope I haven't confused you and this helps a little. Just my opinion

I love being married, it's been 15 years and I love it as much as day 1. That happens too, occasionally.

I know, this probably sounded a bit confusing, sorry I'm not hand stitching because I can't afford a sewing machine, I can, I just think there is additional value in hand stitching. And part of that value is the look, so if I'm going through the trouble of doing it I want the full return on my investment, which includes the visual element. I just think round chisels kind of hide it. Having said that, I'm still very new to all this and I'm still changing opinions.

It grows on me the more I look at it

The reason why all those online bag patters are using gigantic round holes with huge spacing is just practicality. Bigger spaces = faster stitching and less punching. They also make it easier to count holes when you're designing patterns. Round holes = you avoid the risk of pointy edges facing opposite directions when you pre punch and then put the two layers together. Which happens a lot. Big holes = easier to put your needles through, especially in awkard situations like in bag bottoms when one of your hands is inside the bag and you can't see it. On the other hand (IMO) diamond and diagonal holes with shorter spacing make for a prettier stitching and visually it screams hand-made. I mean if you're gonna have a straight line round hole stitch I personally can't tell it apart from sewing machine stitch. Which is absolutely fine don't get me wrong, but when you put in all this effort to stitch by hand, don't you want it to show?

To be honest I'm not too sure about the red, but you did make go and order some tru-oil

Cost?

Don't worry about it, once you thread is through it will take the most anal of anal people to notice it.

Αnything you buy from a leathercaft shop will do and they're all pretty much the same. Water based is runny, barge stinks. Pick your poison.

At least they're good in football hehehe

Very very nice, well done. I love the woven leather, it's the kind of thing I'd reach out to touch just because it looks so plush, even though I'm not a guitar guy. It makes sense to me that users always make the best accessories because they know how things are used. Like photographers make the best camera straps, gun owners design the best holsters etc. About the overflow of ideas, if you're slowly making this into a business don't get carried away. Your time is your biggest cost, try to focus on 2-3 basic designs you are confident you can make relatively quickly and just offer them in slight variations, different colors etc. Even if they're not your favourites, those are your moneymakers. Make sure people don't get frustrated waiting for months, and when you start getting recurring business you can slowly start offering more.

I am the last person to argue with this, people who work need to get paid a decent wage, and the whole planet needs to come down like a tonne of bricks on factories that don't take every possible measure to contain pollution. Absolutely no argument there. Now, about Blanchard, to me their irons look suspiciously simple to produce and their prices seem outrageous even with French wages and EU environmental regulations. But I will not argue with that either because I am not a metalworker, and someone will tell me that their grandpa inherited a Blanchard iron from his grandpa and it still works great today because it's made from special unobtainium. Fine, I don't have the knowledge to argue. However, I do know woodworking. And when I see the price on this thing I know that someone is taking the piss. https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/515613297/leather-stitching-clamp-verni-vergez?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=vergez+blanchard&ref=sr_gallery-1-14&frs=1 This doesn't cost more than $30 whether you use a CNC in Vietnam or in Switzerland.

They're good photos, for the most part, with the occasional crappy one thrown in there for good measure Sorry, I'm neat picking obviously, but having done product photography in the past it amazes me how little care is taken sometimes, even for expensive items. By definition, crafts people are supposed to be sensitive to aesthetics, right? I think when you're selling to them, even if it's a totally utilitarian item, it pays to appeal to as many aesthetic criteria as you can.

try this guy? https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/JUIYTREEHOUSE?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=699710723&section_id=23803929

Osborne should probably try a little harder with their website, those photos look like they were shot on a phone and then someone cut them out of the background in Microsoft Paint. At least Blanchard is also selling on Etsy and that forced them to upload some bigger photos so you can see what you're actually buying. And even they, I don't get it, would it kill them to get some new punches to stamp their logo properly? This looks like a photo of a breakfast fork lying on a public toilet floor.

Ι will kinda go against the flow here, and I know many people won't agree with me, but don't buy more tools. Trust your hand and your eye, and if you don't, keep practicing until you do. It will give you confidence to do many things throughout this (and any) craft and it will often get you out of tight spots. I firmly believe our hand-eye coordination is the most important tool and just like any other tool it also needs honing from time to time. By all means try different things if it's easy and practical to do so but keep in mind that the perfect cutter might actually not exist.

I bought some pig skin. I got some excess (water based) glue on it, I tried to clean it by rubbing it with some water on a soft cloth and the dye rubbed off... WTF? I bought a small punch with a set of replaceable tips, one tip made about 6-7 holes and it broke in half. I bought their 4 prong round hole chisel, the teeth were so wobbly I couldn't get 4 straight holes no matter what. It looks like they had retrofitted some sort of a metal guide to keep the teeth aligned, but the guide is so badly engineered that the teeth were equally wobbly with and without it. Ended up completely shearing the screw for the guide in frustration, the whole thing went straight in the rubbish bin. I bought some Eco Flo glossy finish and it smudged my project so badly it's pretty much useless now. The instructions on the bottle was pretty much 2 lines "finish making your thing and then put our stuff on your thing". POS. Also I must admit, I don't check prices on rivets, they are so cheap that I just ordered what I thought I might need. I thought all rivets are the same, I mean how bad can a rivet be? As it turns out, very bad. Some of them you look at them funny and they bend and buckle. I mean all those things were cheap, I get that, you get what you pay for. Well, its time to pay some more. To someone else.