Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Price of Starting Over

Moving the big stuff via actual movers tomorrow. Spent weekend in Madison. Head is so far up butt right now you wouldn't believe it.

NiftyKnits wrote a lovely little pricing/econ post this morning in her blog. For people who replace things in their shops when they sell (felted booger-makers), she poses a great way of looking at the lowest price you should charge:
A complete stranger asks you to create an item (something you currently sell in your shop). That's not all, they want you to photograph, list and promote this item as well.
Whew! "Is that all?", you ask.
No, they have one more request: package that item, print a shipping label and drop it off at the post office. Now imagine they want you to do all this for the price you currently have this item listed for in your Etsy shop.
Would you do it happily? Would you grumble? Would you deny this task altogether?
Now, keep in mind this mental exercise doesn't really apply if you make things when the moment hits and don't change your production (ie don't make more) based on what sells. But if you do, then sweet mother of monkeys! hurry up and ask yourself the "how much would you have to pay me to do it again from scratch?" question and use that as the lowest price you're willing to charge for your item! You can charge as much more as people are willing to pay.

Econ topic for another day: start your pricing by looking at the final product and judging what buyers would be willing to pay. (There's more to it than that, so don't jump down my throat just yet.)

Merry Christmas.

2 comments:

Heather Leavers said...

I can't take too much credit there, I pinched the text straight from an Etsy email (way too busy reinventing the wheel at the time)

Cherry Tart Design said...

Great post, it's so hard to judge pricing sometimes, especially in my line of work because most people have no idea on the amount of time spent creating, refining and finalizing designs.

Thanks for the post.