Questions on Pricing

[Big Papa Leather]

I know this is all subjective and up to descisions each crafter should make, but I have looked on Etsy and other craft type sites and found pricing from the ridiculously low to the obscenely high. I am looking at your staple leather goods, belts, wallets, small handbags etc.

On the lower end if these were made from kits the wallets are being sold for cost in some instances.

On the other end, whoa..... 8X markup.

Just as some of the other threads mentioned 2X material cost is understandable.

Then an acceptable labor rate correct?

Now I'm not knocking anyone who is commanding primo $$$ for thier work. If you can get it more power to ya I say.

Just looking to find a happy medium for me if I decide to sell my stuff. Right now I'd have a hard time giving it away.

Just a little insight would be appreciated.

PS if you want you can contact me off list on this subject....

scissormedic at gmail dot com.

Allen

[tashabear]

I know this is all subjective and up to descisions each crafter should make, but I have looked on Etsy and other craft type sites and found pricing from the ridiculously low to the obscenely high. I am looking at your staple leather goods, belts, wallets, small handbags etc.

On the lower end if these were made from kits the wallets are being sold for cost in some instances.

On the other end, whoa..... 8X markup.

Don't go by prices on Etsy. You're finding a perfect storm of people who have an overinflated sense of their own skill combined with people who don't know what the hell they're looking at. Do a search for "handspun yarn" and see what 25 yards of unusable "art yarn" goes for. It's enough to make me want to pull out my spinning wheel, get a couple pounds of handpainted roving, spin it as badly as I can, and sell it for $75/50 yards -- I could probably pay the mortgage.

Right now I'm covering my materials and paying myself ~$10-12 an hour. I'm just starting out, though, so those rates will go up as I gain experience. I call them my "Guinea Pig" rates.

[broddhisatva]

Pricing is a tough one.

First off, Tasha may be right about some of the people on Etsy. I've seriously seen $20 Tandy kit projects on there marked at 5x. Then again, I've also found a lot of leather websites where they take the kits, use the tooling patterns provided, and price the exact same way, so I don't think Etsy is to blame. I have found some of our board members on Etsy; some of their prices are literally through the roof, but most tend to at least try to keep it reasonable.

I think "per hour" pricing is very much the wrong way to go, though. For one thing, it's hard as hell for me to keep track of how much time I spend on a project : how do you figure in drying time after tooling or staining, how do you figure in the time developing your artwork, or developing your designs? And what exactly is your customer paying for, a product or your play time? As you develop your own designs, material pricing also kinda becomes irrelevant, I think.

What it really comes down to, in the end, is what the market will bear. I find that I get the blink-blink from a lot of folks when I tell them what I get for my work (as in, they stop speaking entirely while they process what I said, and stand there blinking for a few), but there are honestly a large proportion of my customers who think that for custom artwork I'm totally undercharging. Helping to educate your clientele will be a huge help in this regard. If you can show them the qualitative difference between your handiwork and that of mass producers/lesser talents your value goes up instantly. Starbucks was genius at this kind of thing, getting people who were used to paying 69 cents for coffee to pay 5 bucks.

[tonyc1]

What is Etsy?

Tony.

[Daggrim]

I also use $10-$12 an hour for calculating time/materials cost, altho none of that ever goes into my pocket. I'm going to increase my rates, but I'm just getting past the beginning stage. I sell from my website, but do the majority of my business at Renaissance Faires.

I have worked my pricing calculations over 4 years' experience. At the end of a weekend, I can figure out the cost of my time and materials on the items I sold. It usually comes out very close to what my other expenses are...merchant fee, gas, food, camping. So, I get my selling price by tripleing the cost of time and materials. So, about a third of my take is profit. Of course, once I make my expenses for the weekend, then two thirds of my take will be profit.

My prices are on the low to medium side. But my reputation is growing, and so will my prices, next season.

Anyway, this little shorthand way of figuring my prices is working well for me. It's not what the fiscally savy use, but then , mos tof them don't do craftwork, either. In the beginning, y'gotta do what the market will bear.

Daggrim

[broddhisatva]

<br />What is Etsy?<br /><br />Tony.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

Etsy is an online marketplace specifically for handcrafted items.

www.etsy.com

[tonyc1]

<br /><br /><br />

Etsy is an online marketplace specifically for handcrafted items.

www.etsy.com

Thank you.

[tashabear]

Pricing is a tough one.

First off, Tasha may be right about some of the people on Etsy. I've seriously seen $20 Tandy kit projects on there marked at 5x. Then again, I've also found a lot of leather websites where they take the kits, use the tooling patterns provided, and price the exact same way, so I don't think Etsy is to blame. I have found some of our board members on Etsy; some of their prices are literally through the roof, but most tend to at least try to keep it reasonable.

It's like that everywhere, true, but Etsy seems to be a hotspot for that. Leatherwork is just the latest in a long line of saleable crafts I've learned, but the first I've ever tried to sell, so I'm still learning what my work is worth in this arena. I know what my work is worth in knitting and spinning, and truthfully, I don't think there are too many people who can afford me.

I think "per hour" pricing is very much the wrong way to go, though. For one thing, it's hard as hell for me to keep track of how much time I spend on a project : how do you figure in drying time after tooling or staining, how do you figure in the time developing your artwork, or developing your designs? And what exactly is your customer paying for, a product or your play time? As you develop your own designs, material pricing also kinda becomes irrelevant, I think.

I wouldn't charge for drying time, because I'm not doing anything to make the project progress; I'm just letting it sit. I can use the time that project is sitting to work on something else. Basically what you can do, if you want to get anal about it, is create line items for each activity, and then dole out the time you spend working to the line items in no less than 15 minute increments. (This is what we did at a construction company I worked for, and sometimes the guys would get passive aggressive with me and do their time cards in 5 minute increments. They didn't get paid on time when they pulled that shit.) Otherwise, I would recommend a stopwatch and a slip of paper if you're concerned but not crazy, or just your best guess if you're laissez faire about it.

There are ways I might charge for artwork, but as I'm just getting started and will likely rely heavily on Dover Books, I don't need to develop those yet. I also need to keep myself from getting caught up in minutiae, because I could seriously spend all my time organizing and categorizing stuff and not working.

[Bree]

I know this is all subjective and up to descisions each crafter should make, but I have looked on Etsy and other craft type sites and found pricing from the ridiculously low to the obscenely high. I am looking at your staple leather goods, belts, wallets, small handbags etc.

On the lower end if these were made from kits the wallets are being sold for cost in some instances.

On the other end, whoa..... 8X markup.

Just as some of the other threads mentioned 2X material cost is understandable.

Then an acceptable labor rate correct?

Now I'm not knocking anyone who is commanding primo $$$ for thier work. If you can get it more power to ya I say.

Just looking to find a happy medium for me if I decide to sell my stuff. Right now I'd have a hard time giving it away.

Just a little insight would be appreciated.

PS if you want you can contact me off list on this subject....

scissormedic at gmail dot com.

Allen

There is no such thing as "obscenely high". The object of business is to make money. You can always give your work away... but then you aren't in business... you are in philanthropy.

You charge as much as you can get away with consistent with the volume needed to meet your financial commitments and goals. If you can sell your products for 8X... great! If you can sell your product for 80X that's even better. 800X is a big winner if you can get it.

Customers will always try to get the lowest price no matter what the consequences are to you as a seller. You will do the opposite and try to get the highest price... without regard to the consequences to the customer. When the smoke clears, the conflict of interests between buyer and seller... the market dialectic... will result in your collecting close to the market rate for similar goods. That is the way it works.

So aim high but don't be surprised if you have to settle for less. But if you never aim high you will never hit the big win... only mediocrity of profits. If you enter business with a customer's mentality and not a businessman's mentality, you are very likely to fail within the first three to five years. Never ever feel sorry or guilty for making a profit!! That is a suicidal behavior pattern as far as business is concerned.

[Windy]

There is no such thing as "obscenely high". The object of business is to make money. You can always give your work away... but then you aren't in business... you are in philanthropy.

You charge as much as you can get away with consistent with the volume needed to meet your financial commitments and goals. If you can sell your products for 8X... great! If you can sell your product for 80X that's even better. 800X is a big winner if you can get it.

Customers will always try to get the lowest price no matter what the consequences are to you as a seller. You will do the opposite and try to get the highest price... without regard to the consequences to the customer. When the smoke clears, the conflict of interests between buyer and seller... the market dialectic... will result in your collecting close to the market rate for similar goods. That is the way it works.

So aim high but don't be surprised if you have to settle for less. But if you never aim high you will never hit the big win... only mediocrity of profits. If you enter business with a customer's mentality and not a businessman's mentality, you are very likely to fail within the first three to five years. Never ever feel sorry or guilty for making a profit!! That is a suicidal behavior pattern as far as business is concerned.

Well put. I have told many an artist " you can not get 1000 dollars for it if you only ask a 100 dollars".

WINDY