It’s an ever present topic of conversation amongst artists and craftspeople…how much to price our products for. Here I hope to shed some light on the journey that has lead us to increase our prices today to what we consider to be a fair price for the time and effort expended on creating our products.
When we first started this site and opened our shop, we’d been crafting and creating for over a year. We’d thrown so many pieces in the fire between us that a proportion of our heating bill was being saved through the burning of failed projects. A heck of a lot of R&D and giving things away for free has led us to the point where we felt comfortable to sell our products. We had no idea of what a fair price might be though and relied on what similar items were priced at on Etsy, where we host our shop. The problem with this is that Etsy sellers range from hobby crafters to serious, been crafting since they were born, crafters and the prices reflect this. On the one end of the pricing spectrum there is the hobby crafter who might be very good at what they do, but really all they’re looking for is to replace the materials they’ve used…prices are low (too low) and then at the other end the professionals who have spent years honing their talent and expect to live off the income…prices are realistically high. We were stuck at the low end, not wanting to be outpriced by others in the marketplace selling similar items as us.
When our first item sold, we worked out what the hourly rate would have been for that item and it was in the region of $2 an hour (about £1.50). Far less than the UK minimum wage (around £6 an hour) and more to the point, this item sold for less than a person could buy a mass-produced ‘Made in China’ piece of tat from their local discount score…a totally ridiculous situation given the care and love that goes into each handcrafted item and the fact that most products that are imported from China (or any country where cheap labour is used) are not fit for purpose after a few weeks or, if you’re lucky, months.
It’s a demoralising situation to be in and one that we feel is not to be tolerated. We have increased our prices today based on the formula of labour +10% for materials. Labour is charged at £7 an hour – still well short of the national average wage in the UK but a fair price for the stage we are at…not professional crafters but not hobby crafters either. It’s time that all artists and crafters took a stand and realised that they have a worthwhile product…something special, something that consumers should be willing to pay more for. Each item is unique, each item has a great deal of love, care and attention to detail and quality not to be found in anything mass-produced. Consumers can buy a product that has no labels and that will attract attention to them as an ethical shopper…a popular notion at this time. They can be confident that they won’t find the same item in their friend/neighbour/colleague’s house. This deserves a premium to be paid.
I leave you with this thought and a link to read further…a Louis Vuitton handbag will set you back close to $2,000. People are willing to pay that price for a designer handbag because of the notion that what you’re getting is a quality product. Yet there are many, many very talented designers selling their handbags on Etsy for less than $500. When I checked, there were only three handbags on Etsy listed for more than $2,000, all from the same seller.
Read more discussion on this topic at Crafster and, please, if you sell your arts and crafts, review the prices not based on what everybody else is selling for, but what you feel is a fair wage for your time and effort.
