Handmade is by it's very nature, difficult to price.There are so many factor in deciding what the retail price of an item is going to be, and it doesn't help that we artisans tend to be more creative in thinking rather than business oriented.
Sometimes, pricing gets set based on emotions, because of what other people are pricing, or based on what the person setting the prices would pay for it.
None of those are good business (although it can pay to be aware what others are charging and selling similar items for).
Here are a couple tools that may help anyone set pricing.
http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/
This calculator takes in your yearly expenses, how many hours you'll work, how many of them are actually billable (IE, you work 1 hour making a product, and one hour getting it out there, you have a 50% billable rate), etc, and tells you how much you'll need to charge per billable hour to make ends meet, and how much you'll need to charge per hour to get what you want.
http://www.rolbe.com/etsy.htm
This calculator takes a potential price, what you charge for shipping, what you are charged for shipping, your materials cost, and tells you what etsy and paypal fees are going to be
To get true business profit, add your hourly wage to the materials section.
The calculator was originally built to calculate for etsy and paypal fees, but you can exclude either one and even change them to fit a merchant account or another selling site.
Between the 2 above, you can get a pretty decent view of what you need to charge to have a healthy business.
Showing posts with label handmade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label handmade. Show all posts
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
In Support Of Handmade
(all items shown on this blog post are 100% handmade items)
Today is the day where many shops are closing their shop for the day in protest of etsy's decision to allow a seller who claimed to have a handmade shop that could not have been handmade in any one but etsy's definition to stay open.
I will not mention names, or put a link here, miss perfectly manicured pretty hands carpenter has had more than enough exposure.
I understand why these people are closing shop for the day, the silent protest, hoping that their approximately 0.5% of shops closing for the day will put a large enough blip on etsy's radar to tell them something.
But Etsy knows what we want, and closing our shops for the day isn't going to hurt anyone but ourselves. I know I cannot afford to lose out on even one tiny sale, literally every penny counts!
Some of the shops closing today have been bashing those of us who have decided to stay open, it's sad.
Many of us have devised a way to show support of handmade in our own ways (after all, isn't this why we are in business for ourselves, so no one can tell us what to do?). These other alternatives are positive.
*There's the Stop, Then Shop movement, which will refrain from buying today (May 10, 2012), and buy everything they wanted to buy tomorrow.
*Some of us cannot afford to buy anything, those of us in that boat are doing a whole lot of promotion for people we know to be handmade sellers. This is done on pinterest, twitter, facebook, in treasuries, on blogs, and wherever else a person may promote
*Some of us are going to go ahead and take the plunge on some items we've had sitting in our carts and were on the fence about.
There are so many ways you can support handmade any day, not just this week.
Buy and promote handmade by the seller in anyway you can. On etsy, on any other site, even on the sellers own websites. If they have one.
Q: How do you know it's handmade by the seller?
A: Sometimes it's hard to tell. I usually do a search for that item. if it's a reseller item, or "charm on a chain" (which in my opinion is not handmade unless you made the charm or the chain), you'll usually see several other sellers selling the same piece. Many people add a few beads or dangles to the necklace, this is OK, as it shows a little bit of creativity. On higher priced stuff, it's not always so easy to tell, though usually a Google search can bring up the original maker
Both Karen and myself are 100% handmade (although I do have a supply shop where I sell some knitting needles and yarns that I didn't make)
Today is the day where many shops are closing their shop for the day in protest of etsy's decision to allow a seller who claimed to have a handmade shop that could not have been handmade in any one but etsy's definition to stay open.
I will not mention names, or put a link here, miss perfectly manicured pretty hands carpenter has had more than enough exposure.
I understand why these people are closing shop for the day, the silent protest, hoping that their approximately 0.5% of shops closing for the day will put a large enough blip on etsy's radar to tell them something.
But Etsy knows what we want, and closing our shops for the day isn't going to hurt anyone but ourselves. I know I cannot afford to lose out on even one tiny sale, literally every penny counts!
Some of the shops closing today have been bashing those of us who have decided to stay open, it's sad.
Many of us have devised a way to show support of handmade in our own ways (after all, isn't this why we are in business for ourselves, so no one can tell us what to do?). These other alternatives are positive.
*There's the Stop, Then Shop movement, which will refrain from buying today (May 10, 2012), and buy everything they wanted to buy tomorrow.
*Some of us cannot afford to buy anything, those of us in that boat are doing a whole lot of promotion for people we know to be handmade sellers. This is done on pinterest, twitter, facebook, in treasuries, on blogs, and wherever else a person may promote
*Some of us are going to go ahead and take the plunge on some items we've had sitting in our carts and were on the fence about.
There are so many ways you can support handmade any day, not just this week.
Buy and promote handmade by the seller in anyway you can. On etsy, on any other site, even on the sellers own websites. If they have one.
Q: How do you know it's handmade by the seller?
A: Sometimes it's hard to tell. I usually do a search for that item. if it's a reseller item, or "charm on a chain" (which in my opinion is not handmade unless you made the charm or the chain), you'll usually see several other sellers selling the same piece. Many people add a few beads or dangles to the necklace, this is OK, as it shows a little bit of creativity. On higher priced stuff, it's not always so easy to tell, though usually a Google search can bring up the original maker
Both Karen and myself are 100% handmade (although I do have a supply shop where I sell some knitting needles and yarns that I didn't make)
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