Dirty Deeds

I certainly took it a bit slower yesterday. I did so in an effort to fully eliminate that nasty back/shoulder pain I told you about yesterday. It appears to have worked as all I'm left with currently is a slight soreness of the kind you might get after carrying a large bag on your shoulder. That doesn't mean I didn't do any tatting yesterday. I finished up my 'As The World Falls Down' mask early in the day. As I finished wrapping the wire with thread, I came to a conclusion. This mask and it's bejeweled sister are under priced. Since I created them, I have designed several new pieces that are priced higher because I thought that they took longer than the masks, but that's just not true. These two masks take a ridiculously long time partly because there are so many different elements that I need to take a break between creating.

So I did the deed, I raised the prices on the masks. Not all of them, the newest masks are remaining at their initial prices. The design for those is quite a bit more straightforward. In fact as I discussed the price change on etsy I toyed with the idea of doing an instructable for those. It was pointed out to me at that time that I have enough to do right now, which is absolutely true. So, that task can wait until after the summer and all it's inherent events, Maker Faire, house buying and the moving that goes along with it.

I did also work on a pair of Victorian lace cuffs though I couldn't finish them. Again I was reminded that some things take so much longer than their price reflects. I was so conscious about overpricing goods when I first made them. This was mostly due to other cuffs made with manufactured lace costing so much less. I need to constantly remind myself that tatted lace is very different from machine or even crochet lace. So again I raised the price a bit. I truly hope that I haven't bitten myself in the rear with this move. I hope that my smaller pieces with their smaller price points can help maintain sales. Attempting to buy a house this Spring has really got me focused on making sales to build up our cash reserves. We are trying to buy the only home we will ever own, rather than a starter home and obviously that move makes even my meager tatting earnings important.

Well this post has been a complete downer and for that I apologize. I will try to have something more entertaining occur today for tomorrows. Though in reality I'm just gonna finish up those cuffs and keep trying to get everything listed in the store to be ready to ship, so don't put any money on it.

Nosy Nose

Every single time I have had a bit of "fame" on etsy, like an item on the front page or Mondays Finds email, I get extra convos from relative strangers. Most of them are simple congratulations or 'hey did you know" kind of messages, but along with those, that I wholeheartedly appreciate, there are the weird ones. Okay, maybe weird is the wrong word, let's say unsolicited advice veiled as a compliment. The advice is almost always regarding pricing and usually comes from someone with a blank profile.

I really don't get why people feel the need to tell me that I need to charge more for my work. It seems anti productive if they are really customers to ask for a higher price, so I'm left assuming that the advice comes from someone who feels like I'm devaluing their work or simply a nosy nose with nothing better to do. I suppose they could just be looking out for my best interest, but I somehow doubt that. There of course is the chance that I could get more for my work, but that's not really the point, the point is, they are my prices that I picked and if I want them higher or lower it will be up to me.

Look, pricing is a tough subject and I've talked about it before, You Want How Much For That and more recently, Perception Of Value. These posts represent my opinion on the subject, but to address the most recent comment I received, I must talk about speed. I recently read another tatter detail the amount of time she spent making the most beautiful hankie border. After listing how many hours it took, she pointed out how much she would have to charge to make a hourly wage for her effort which was much more than the average person would think about paying. This got me thinking less about price and more about speed. I concluded that I must be a fairly fast tatter. I am certain that I am not the fastest by a long shot, but none of my pieces take nearly as long as most people think they do.

At the risk of removing the mystique from my tatting, most of my pieces are done in just a few hours, with the more elaborate ones like my hat taking the longest at a few hours a day, even it was done in a week. It's still time consuming and it still takes a degree of skill, but it does not take me 40 hours to make anything I sell. I do still have small children and a house to take care of, so it might be a week before I finish a piece, but that's not actual work time. With this new information, perhaps my prices won't seem so low to people. I've always thought that I will increase my prices as my skills improve, but never just because I think I might be able to get that much for it.

I do want to get paid for my time, but I also want to make something that is affordable. I make a lot of pendants that take much less than an hour to make and I use fairly large thread that is not only easier for me to work with, but works up fast and makes a more durable piece. There are so many factors that go into creating my pieces that no one but me knows. Sure there are those that can make an educated guess and be pretty close, but they are most certainly in the minority. So, in conclusion, those of you who feel like sharing your unsolicited advice, please stop being such a nosy nose...oh, not you, your opinions I care about.

Perception Of Value

Ah, I'm finished. I haven't shared, but I've been tatting my fingers to the bone the last few days to finish one of my most interesting custom orders to date. I made a total of 72 inches of lace in the same pattern as this choker. I'm told this lace will adorn sleeves and a scarf edge and after all this work, I really should ask to see the finished garment, but I don't want to impose. Anyway, the reason I bring this up is, it got me thinking about pricing again. I know that many creators have a devil of a time pricing goods and I think I might know where the problem is coming from now.

I knew that it was going to take many, many hours to create this order of lace, so despite a small discount for being such a large order, I priced the lace accordingly and I assumed my customer would balk at the price and the request would be rescinded. I was pleasantly surprised to be told that the price was fair. As I completed the project and held all this lace in my hand, I thought, man I wouldn't pay that much for this. And there it is, right there, our whole problem! Of course we wouldn't pay that much for our products because we can make them, but we are not our target audience.

Okay, so here's my comparison. I don't sell my knitting anymore, but I have mad knitting skills. When I go to a craft fair, I take one look at the prices on knitted scarves and I laugh, not because they are over priced, but because I would never pay that much for one. I can make that scarf and I'm not just one of those people who just says that, I really can. I however take a look at the prices for metal worked jewelry and think wow, I wish I could afford that. See, I have no skills in that area so I would pay a premium for it. Here's another example, my husband is a computer tech, I know so is yours probably, but I digress. He fixes and updates all our computers without a second thought and he also works on the side for a few select folk on occasion. He had a really hard time decided how much to charge for his work too, because he would never pay someone to fix his computer he really didn't know how much his skill was worth to others.

It's always hard to step out of our skin and look at our goods as if we didn't know how to make them. My 72 inches of lace looked so amazing as I was wrapping it in tissue, like something imported from an exotic land, every knot made by hand one at a time. It is worth the price paid for it even if I would never pay that much for it. Perhaps we just need a fresh set of eyes every once and a while to remind us that while we are surrounded at etsy with other creators, it's not like that everywhere. Our concentrated numbers online has blinded us to a general population that does not actually create things everyday. It's easy to forget that not everyone knits, throws pottery, paints, tats, lathes, crochets, solders or sews as a hobby or for a living. We are still few and we have every right to charge what we're worth. So forget what you would pay for your goods and think about what you would pay for mine or for something else you don't make. Then maybe you can start to attach a real value to your pieces. It is, after all, all about perception.

You Want How Much For That?

The Art of Pricing: It's Capitalism Baby!

One of the biggest controversies in the handmade community is, Pricing. There are many reasons this issue is a sticking point for people. We want to make sales, so we want the price to be affordable to our target audience, but we also don't want to under price ourselves for fear of looking cheap. Then there's the most annoying factor, other sellers opinions!

Look, you have every right to price your goods any way you want. This is capitalism, supply and demand, a free market system that allows the consumer to regulate the pricing of goods. I know that as handmade artisans, we feel a sense of community, but that does not mean we need to resort to price fixing just to suit other sellers pricing needs. I know that this is contrary to many other peoples opinions on the subject so feel free to ignore my opinion if you so choose.

When I first started selling tatted jewelry it was woefully under priced. I had no base for comparison as I was the only tatter on Etsy at the time. Eventually I came up with price points that I could live with. I certainly can't wholesale at my prices, but I don't intend to wholesale, so that's a moot point. I used to worry about new folks selling tatted pieces at really low prices, but I realize that the average consumer is not a idiot. They can see the difference in quality, even online and the cheap goods are not really competition for me. The consumer who prefers a $3 tatted doily is never going to buy a $75 tatted scarf and the person who buys my scarf probably thinks that the $3 doily is poor of quality not a great deal.

Here's an example. Widget makers, company A and company B make a comparable product in both function and quality. If A lower their price, B must either lower their price or increase the quality of their product to compete. However, company Z who makes a similar product much cheaper in quality and price is not competition to A or B, because they do not actually share a consumer base. Company Z's customer will never spend the extra money to get a better product, only price determines their purchases. A and B don't pay attention to what Z does because they can't compete with that and continue to make a high quality product, nor should they. They must market themselves to a different demographic and continue making a product high enough in quality to warrant the price they charge.

So if you make high quality baby bibs for $16 a pop, you are not going to get a Dollar store customer to buy them. You do not share a customer base with the Dollar store, so don't complain about their product pricing. Perhaps you should worry more about marketing to your consumer base and less time trying to undermine other peoples business strategies or lack thereof. Etsy is not a co op and although we love to help each other out, we are individuals in a free market system. Not too long ago, I read someones post suggesting that we put a basement price on goods. I was actually shocked, I mean how would we feel if all industries adopted these kinds of strategies. Milk can't cost less than $3, a car can't cost less that $10,000, a pair of earrings can't cost less than $7. Ridiculous. If you can't sell your bibs at $16, the problem does not lie with the Dollar store, it lies with you. Either the price is higher than the market can support or you are simply not advertising to right demographic.

Here's a pricing strategy for you, take your costs, fees, materials, etc., add to that minimum hourly wage or give yourself a bit of a raise, then add $1 and that's your price. If you never plan to wholesale that's all you need to charge. Everything else is optional. My material costs are extremely minimal so my costs are basically labor, so it comes does to how much I feel my time is worth. I would never charge less than it cost to make something and neither should anyone else, but if you make just $1 on your item, you don't have to answer to anyone else. You are not hurting everyone else with your prices. Conversely if you want to make $20 on that same item, you can't complain about the $1 person, you need to make your product worth the extra $20 and market to the audience that pays for quality.

I know that this issue is not going away any time soon, but I think that people need to get some perspective. This is capitalism whether you like it or not!

Prototype Complete!

After nearly a week of work, my tatted hat prototype is finished & shock of all shocks, it actually LOOKS like a hat!

I found a vintage tatting pattern for a baby bonnet, modified it until it looks almost nothing like the source material and tatting for almost a week straight. Although I think it looks great, I think I might get some ribbon & thread it through the holes in the center of the round motifs. I was also thinking of adding a tatted flower there as well.

I'm wondering if I should list this on etsy as a custom hat available in many colors, or if I should actually make one up in black or another color. This is one of those projects that takes so long to do that I might cry if I made one up & it never sold. Not to mention the final cost has me scratching my head. If I'm being honest the cost would probably be upwards of $200, but I kind of doubt that it would sell at that price.

Any and all opinions on any of these matters are very gratefully accepted!