How Much?

[billymac814]

Out of curiosity and if you guys don't mind me asking- how much are you guys charging for wallets? I get asked quite often to make them and do once in a while but damn there's a lot of pieces to cut out and see together that they take a while. I like to be able to make 70-90 bucks an hour to cover overhead and still make a little bit at the end of the day. If they want something tooled on it now were talking either alot of money or no money for me.

I've thought of coming up with 2-3 designs and that way I can reuse the same patterns over and save some time but it seems like most of the people coming in want something specific(not tooling designs, designs of the wallet). That also rules out using pre made interiors like springfields sells although that always seemed like cheating to me although I did order some to see what they were like.

I mostly make holsters and my most popular IWB is 2 pieces of leather, I normally make around 40 at a time and average less than an hour a piece if I'm being efficient and they sell for about 80 bucks. I end up turning down a lot of work because I feel I can't get what I'd need to although I don't even bother quoting them a price, maybe I'm missing opportunities and people do pay up for a wallet they want.

I know the prices vary greatly between designs, I'm just looking for some examples.

Thank you.

[bigorange]

in another industry I do custom work my product has nothing to compare other than length, so I price my products fairly and they are not what everyone wants,, make a wallet or two and put them in the market ! time will tell

[Cyberthrasher]

For me, a tooled wallet would usually be about $160. The little card wallets I do that have few pieces are about $80 with a small design ($20 p/h at about an hour worth of tooling). I figured my base price on the plain card wallets was $60. But, for me that includes lacing. Since you have a shop full of machines, I'd be willing to bet you could make your margin. You'll need to make a couple up to figure out your design, but after that you'll probably be able to spit them out pretty quick.

[billymac814]

I could bang them out quick if I made a design and had dies made and made the same one over and over, that way I could subsidize the design time. The problem is everyone that inquires about a wallet has something specific in mind which means they'd have to pay for all the design time too, it just drives the price through the roof. I think I'll stick to not making them. I do make the occasional card case and simple type wallets, I may look into some other types that I can make over again and if that's not what they want then so be it.

[Cyberthrasher]

I find that most people who want all this off the wall stuff just really don't know what they want. Usually if you can say "these are the styles I offer" and "you can get it with your choice of pocket count" then they'll probably fit right in there somewhere. I get a lot of requests for so many pockets, horizontal vs. vertical pockets, etc... At least by having a few alternatives you could get some of the customers instead of turning away 100% of them. There's always going to be someone who says they want some crazy walletpurse with 30 pockets and 10 hidden compartments with 5 different straps to secure it closed, so don't feel bad about sending that guy away