Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Pricing Your Handmade Products Can Be Challenging

Pricing my Gallerialinda handmade beaded jewelry is often challenging. There are many thing to consider, such as hard costs of materials, time, markup for retail, and a phantom price that the market will bear. So, your costs + time + markup may not equal price that sells the item.

Usually, after figuring out my whole cost formula, I will then search the Internet for similar items using similar materials to see what is listed and if I can, research what has been sold (although some venues will not show the sold price). From there I will throw a dart at the board and come up with a price that I think is market-friendly.

Here is a great video from Dr. David Weiman on pricing your jewelry. It will translate to any handmade item you create and is worth viewing.  He makes a case that artisan, handcrafted jewelry makers should charge more for their jewelry, because the right buyers will pay more for it.

It is all about marketing to your specific buyer that loves artisan products. That is the key!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing. That is helpful.

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  2. I am making paper beads, and my artist friends say I'm way/way low. They say the same as Dr. Weiman. So I'm trying it out to see. Selling on Etsy, I don't know... Thanks for the post. {:-D

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