Crafty/Etsy Musings

[jennythereader]

What do you guys think of the name "The Reader's Creations"? The url would be "thereaderscreations.etsy.com"


Or maybe "A Reader's Creations"? That url would be "areaderscreations.etsy.com"

Neither is in use at the moment. Any other suggestions?


Another issue is my pricing structure. This is the formula I came up with:

([(time x wage) + materials] x 2) + etsy fee = selling price

Terms:

Time: amount of time it takes to apply the color layer, doubled (it's hard to time the glue layers. They're lots and lots of 30 second chunks.)
Wage: $6.00/hour for now. I will adapt this number.
Materials: The cost of the item I'm covering + $0.10 per square inch to be covered (rounded).
Esty fee: $0.20 per item listed, plus 3.5% of the price when an item sells.

For example: A picture frame that took me half an hour to cover, has 19 square inches of surface area, and cost me a dollar would sell for $18.63. I'd probably round that to $18.00 or $19.00 even.

Does that seem like a reasonable price? Am I over thinking this? Are you guys sick of me asking for input yet?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

your formula seems rational. however Whenever you start a production process it is slow and as your buisness progresses your speed should increase therefore the time = money equation is flawed.

You should base your charges on the market and, if you can afford to, then charge less than the competition. They have already done the math. You dont need to. They already know what they can charge, dont waste your time thinking to much.

You do need to figure out what income you are willing to accept for the time you are going to invest. However this should only affect your choice to start the .com or not to. It should not affect your selling price. Your equation seems to make sense for your personal value of the work but does not seem to reflect the market.

Another thing is that a 40% mark up is standard in most retail stores from the wholesale price

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'm going to speed the process up too much, other than becoming more efficient at transitioning from one task to the next.

The problem with pricing by the market, is that there doesn't seem to be a "standard price" for the sort of thing I'm making. The prices at Esty.com (http://www.etsy.com) for a decoupaged trinket box range from $3.00 to $60.00. Picture frames have an even wider range: $1.00 to nearly $100.00.