Selling Items, Unsure What To Do

[TranscendentalTopiary]

So i finished the deck box and dice pouch for hubbys mtg cards. He went to his friends house to play a game and his friend wanted to know how much it'd cost to purchase one. I told him $30 for a plain one, $80 for one that's tooled. That was friend pricing. My materials are $30, i need to at least cover that much. As a novice I'd like to get $10 an hour to tool but this pouch takes 15 hours to design, carve and tool. Assembly, dying and burnishing is almost another 2 hours. Thats a deep discount for a long time friend but it's still up there for his budget so he declined for now.

If i were to sell these as they are with my time and materials they'd end up being $200.

Heres where i dont know what to do, similar items sell for $75-$90 depending on the seller and inticacy of the designs.

Am i taking longer than i should to tool because im still a novice? Idk how much faster i can really tool even with more experience. The boxes I've seen aren't as intricate as the ones ive made so there is that. I can take off the design on the backside and use the rivets that hold the box together to secure the dice pouch to the box turning 2 items into one and still bringing cost down. (The pouch costs like $20 to produce, materials and time)

I can simplify my designs so they don't take so long to tool which would also bring down cost, but in the end would i still end up with a decent looking item? The ones I've seen look very plain compared to the ones i made.

I might make one with enough changes to keep the price at $80 and see what our friend thinks of it. He and his son play at a couple places with a bunch of other players, if he likes it i can see if he'll buy it for the cost of materials and bring along my business card when they go play to hand out to anyone who asks about the box. At least it'd get my work out there instead of being hardset in my price and not selling anything and have no where else im advertising or displaying these items for sale.

Veteran opinions welcome because i just dont know

[dirtclod]

A picture would nice because I don't what your talking about.

[TranscendentalTopiary]

Sorry i posted pics in other areas of the forum, didn't want to barage the site with my pics

Heres the pouch

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=66700#entry434501

Heres the deck box

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=66482&hl=

[TranscendentalTopiary]

I had debated using stamps, going to look at the selection and mull it over. Thanks

[chrstn53]

If I were in your same situation I would offer two different sets, one plain and one tooled. To cut down time on the non tooled set, I would use a distressed finished leather which would cut out the dying time. On the tooled set, I would use some of the celtic craftaids to cut down on setup/design time and practice practice practice. Maybe you could start selling the cases at the $80 range even though it is taking you along time to tool the item and just write that time off as bench/practice time. I also started out slow in the tooling area but after I put the bench time in, something that would have taken me 4 hours to do in the beginning I could complete in 45 minutes after putting in a couple hundred hours of bench time in. With all that said, the first thing I would do is try and figure out how to get my material costs down. I'm assuming that like most people who start off in leather work that you are getting your materials from Tandy. You should be able to cut your material costs in half by getting it somewhere else, or at least that was my experience when I started sourcing other places.

[TranscendentalTopiary]

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll be playing around and I'm in no rush to sell anything, but selling one to cover the cost to make myself a couple would be a nice idea since the materials arent exactly cheap

[Boriqua]

When I was a young guy and worked as a helper to an electrician he would charge a set amount per outlet of electricity on new installation. When I asked how he could do that he said because I know how long it should take and if I want to be competitive that is what I have to charge. I cant charge the client because it may take you 3 hours to do something that should only take 45 minutes.

Were I to offer any advice ... you need a way to pay for materials while you get better. As you get better you can command more money and you will soon find that tasks that used to take you 3 hours now take 15 minutes. Combine that with all the little secrets you can discover floating around here and you will be producing great product more quickly. So if you can sell some stuff and cover your materials and have some change left all is good and I wouldn’t pressure myself to come up with some arbitrary per hour minimum right now. Remember .. people used to apprentice for years before they got to touch a tool.

Dont turn an awesome hobby into a crappy job! I have more orders than I can complete. Every time someone contacts me I tell them point blank .. your not in a rush right?

One last bit ... dont fall victim to thinking you have to charge what others are. Looking at Etsy and ebay and going to local art and renaissance fairs is a good place to start to get your pricing in line but I was at the local renaissance fair a couple of months ago and their was a group doing what I thought was SUB par work and they were charging big giant money. My wife said .. " oh my god look what they are getting for that "%$*" I said "no look what they are charging" See you can put whatever sticker on there you want ... if they aint reaching into their wallet .. your charging to much and I would rather have money in my hand than inventory on a shelf.

[Dave Richardson]

Really good points boriqua, thanks.

Dave

[eransh10]

I agree with everything said here -especially with Boriqua.

As for my 2 cents: If you want ot cut production times for the deck box - change the design.

Instead of gusset design - use a wooden mold pouch type design. This way your stitches are much easier.

Also as what previous person said - use Celtic stamps or Tandy 3d stamps: http://www.tandyleather.com/en/category/3-d-leather-stamps

Most people will not know the difference between stamps and carving.

From what I can see a custom molded deck box with leather stamps - should take you about 1-2 hours of work after your first prototype.

Hope it helps.

Eran.

[aaronmcoleman]

Three pieces of advice, as someone who has owned a "craft" business for a few years:

1) don't underprice yourself just to make some sales. it's very hard to raise your prices later. so find a price point you feel comfortable with and don't budge.

2) don't over do the design. find a way to make the product in an amount of time, with a material that allows you to charge a price you're comfortable with. don't skimp on quality, but maybe dial back the intricacy.

3) maybe just find a way to sell enough to where the hobby pays for itself. if you can sell a few items here and there that cover the costs of your materials and tools for personal projects, that is a huge bonus.

also, Boriqua is dead on on all points!

NOTE: my business is not in leather work at all, i'm a novice leather worker at best.

[TranscendentalTopiary]

Thanks everyone! I got into making different items as Christmas gifts from tandy kits. Tomorrow is payday and I am planning on buying a half shoulder and trying to make a wallet from scratch.

Totally different tooling designs from the celtic ones. Still working on pricing but with these great tips i know I'll get it all figured out