How long to make a belt vs pricing

[bruce johnson]

Here's my take and I guess the devils advocate in this thread. This is a general post of my experience and philosphy and not intended to be pointed just at your thread here. We can bet every successful business big or small knows their cost of materials, time for each step, and overhead. They don't build a car and then say, "this one is worth , umm, oh maybe $25,000?". 

     Before the tool deal  I started as a leather hobbyist , moved to a small "fun" business and eventually got into a "do or die - have to make money" business situation  at one time for some medical debt. I got into formulas late and I'll throw it out that it was way too late. They don't have to be complicated but with regard to steps, get an idea of your time involved in getting out the leather, cutting, and putting away. Time spent stamping and a clock is your friend here - you will get faster and smoother but time yourself for stamping a project. Bigger stamps are faster than smaller stamps. I knew how many sq ft/hr I could do with each, how long a floral corner took, and that all factored in. Time spent sewing - for me on the Boss - 10"/minute, on the Adler or Ferdco - 24"/min. Time spent slicking and finishing. Stuff like that. Once you get some rates it makes estimating future projects a lot closer. Figure in incidentals and figure in future tool purchases. Add up time and costs with a fudge factor and then profit. Profit is not a dirty word. 

     The real kicker now is your rate, what do you charge? Some people are happy working for beer money and some people are paying a second mortgage, nice vacation with the family, or making a living. You have to decide where you need to be.  Is it worth $10/hour to sit in your shop all weekend and not spend family time? Do you need to make $500/weekend to help pay down the second?  Do you want more Jueschke stamps, a powered sewing machine, or something else eventually for the business/hobby. Unlike fishing or golf, this pastime can pay off if you let it. I never sold the first trout to pay for the fishing boat. I have sold rope cans to keep from bankruptcy though. Once you figure a shop rate and do the math - then you can decide your market. But...you have to be honest with your skill level and speed early on. Pete Gorrell told me this one time and I'm going to paraphrase it to get it right. "Don't sell a $5000 saddle for $3000, and don't sell a $3000 saddle for $5000. Give the customer what they paid for". 

   Are you outpricing everyone locally? Not a problem if you aren't looking locally. It is a problem for people setting up at street fairs or word of mouth at work,. If you are eventually selling through the internet, doesn't matter. Are you planning to sell 100 or 10? all things to consider. I sold several hundred rope cans and probably 5 of them in a three county radius. I was surrounded by good saddlemakers who made $5000 tooled saddles. I built $3200 roughouts and $3500 partial basket stampeds because they didn't price them to "want to"  build them. Saddles for me were all local market. There's room for different price points and different target markets. 

[Outfitr]

Great looking belt and I'm sure the quality matches. I see it is stitched..is it lined? Charge plenty, that's the only advise I can give you. There's so much junk out there, let the people who can't or don't want to discern the difference buy 5 junkie belts instead of one good one. JLS is sooo right about "hand made" vs a machine. I mean who cares if it results in the same quality. With that said I make  "100% Hand Made"  stuff and I charge for it. I am fortunate because leatherwork for me is kind of a full time ....hobby. If it sells fine. All my friends and family have a lot of really nice stuff. I try to make hand stitching a real important artistic/visual part of most of my projects so I charge a lot more for them too. And that does depend on the project. A belt actually is hard to justify hand stitching. I make Case trapper knife sheaths and they are all different from floral carved and painted to basket etc.  You can buy a pretty darn nice one online for $30. I charge WAY WAY more. Are mine that much better?? Well they'll last a lifetime and they look better. They also sell so maybe.

[Spyros]

By the way Scootch, don't be put off by the discussion and the apparent lack of clarity and the variety of opinions on pricing, it's perfectly normal.

I do this professionally (pricing of products and services for a multinational organisation) and I can assure you it's exactly the same discussions over there as it is here.   There are always people who say we should price things cost + margin and there are always others who say we should ignore costs and price them to match the market.  Both opinions have their merits.  It's good to listen to both but ultimately you will have to make your own decisions based on your particular business strategy, product and market.  And keep in mind pricing is not an exact science, there's a bit of an art and a gut feel to it.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Spyros

[Klara]

My two cents after 10 years of selling handmade wool items (from handspun yarn): The money you can get depends on the market. The money you should get depends on your cost, including a hourly rate. If the difference between both is too big (not in your favour) then you might as well not bother. Because it is no fun to discover after years of practice, when you turn out a really well-made product (not just my opinion), that you are still working for 1 or 2 Euro an hour because the market or the product is all wrong.

A leatherworking colleague of mine started out making, amongst others, hand-tooled hair barettes (the piece of leather with a stick through). He stopped because people just were not willing to pay the time it took him to make them. Now he is making extremely simple belts - no tooling at all, but good quality leather and buckles - and they sell like hot cakes.

[chrisash]

To make the big bucks on anything, it's generally agreed that you need to spend heavily in Marketing to your intended sector, to get people needing to buy your product, and then price is only a minor point

This is what the brands attempt to do, from the obvious ones like Hermes, LV and Swiss army knives, some brands are new like say "Superdry" and others like fashion designers who come up with this years fashion and consequently get publicity and talked about

If you don't market your brand, you will never get the big bucks, as only very few people know of you and few talk about you to others 

Lastly dont make one item make three or more at the same time and reduce all the setting up time

[Scootch]

18 hours ago, Spyros said:

By the way Scootch, don't be put off by the discussion and the apparent lack of clarity and the variety of opinions on pricing, it's perfectly normal.

I do this professionally (pricing of products and services for a multinational organisation) and I can assure you it's exactly the same discussions over there as it is here.   There are always people who say we should price things cost + margin and there are always others who say we should ignore costs and price them to match the market.  Both opinions have their merits.  It's good to listen to both but ultimately you will have to make your own decisions based on your particular business strategy, product and market.  And keep in mind pricing is not an exact science, there's a bit of an art and a gut feel to it.

Not put off in the least.  I'm please with the dialog!  Good stuff.

Scootch