Pricing and other thoughts

I have been reading some interesting articles in people's blogs lately about people under pricing their products lately and I have decided to put my two cents worth in.

I have struggled with the whole pricing concept. Each time I finish an item I have inner turmoil as to whether people will buy it or not, is it good enough, what should I charge etc. That is stupid because I have extremely high standards, I finish my products well, I don't sell anything that I wouldn't be happy receiving it. If they don't like it, it will come down to personal taste rather than quality.  Secondly, I believe that I have been guilty of underselling my items in the past, and even now from time to time.  However after attending a really useful workshop at our local Art Gallery in pricing stock for Markets, I have revised my pricing structure. They gave us an extremely useful formula, and I am sticking to it as much as possible. They pointed out that underpricing your stock can have a negative effect on your products.

I look on Facebook, Etsy and Madeit.com.au and notice that so many businesses seriously underprice their stock. They must barely be covering their costs, and definitely not making any profit whatsoever. Sure, making handmade stuff isn't about making huge profits, but you do want to make a little bit of money. Why would people pay what I am asking for? Well at the end of the day, I guess you have to believe in what you make. Now, finally I am starting to. You need to cover your costs - yes, you do it for the love, but DONT lose money. Your costs are never going to be as cheap as in mass produced shops so don't even try to worry about what they are charging. Yes, you need to be reasonable, but your time as a WAHM (which most of the people who are doing this type of stuff) is your most precious commodity and that should be factored somewhere into your pricing. You find yourself staying up till the late hours making your stuff but you still need to get up to the kids in the night and early mornings. They don't care what time you worked till!

At the end of the day, handmade clothing is special, unique. Even it's little flaws make it unique. That's what you pay for. You are supporting someone's dream to make something handmade, and you and your family are wearing wearable art be it clothing, hair accessories or something similar. It harks back to a time in the past where everyone's clothing was handmade and mass produced clothing was unheard of, and for me personally, that is something I love!

The Race Season

Wow! What a crazy week last week was getting ready for Family Day at the Hedland Races for B Tween Tides.  A few late nights, but some beautiful creations later and I was really pleased with the outcome.

I am longing to start sewing again though as my first batch of beautiful fabrics from the States arrived. I am even more excited as the girls and I are heading off for a photo shoot with talented local photographer Nicole Yardley and will get some shots of the girls in some clothing and hair accessories. I am still not 100% whether I am going to sell on Madeit.com.au the items photographed or still to facebook, but I am really wanting to get a madeit shop set up as I believe it will open up a different group of people and there are a few safety nets to selling on that as opposed to FB.

My photo of the week has to be Isabella modelling my fav fascinator I made. I named it Alice in Wonderland. I was thrilled with how it turned out. A little bit of gorgeous vintage. I

I wanted to also say that I am a huge supporter of handmade clothing and had to promote the great logo that Crafty Mumma's have set up and display it proudly here on my blog.

 

Neglected!

Gosh, I just realised how slack I have been at posting on my blog - a month! How embarressing!!!

Well April was a busy month what with househounting, a market stall and life in general. But all good. We discovered a lovely new home which will be ours by July and we now have to prepare to move from pretty much one end of WA to the other end. I will be extremely sad to leave this wonderful town that has been so good to us. And not only that, we will be leaving from the most perfect time of year here to winter!!

Good news though, we had a successful giveaway, a better market and I have been stocking B Tween Tides for about a month now and my hair accessories are finding new homes which always is a blast. I have been making gorgeous custom dresses too which has been exciting.

I am really excited about the photoshoot I will be doing next week and hopefully we can capture some of the kids fascinators that I will be working on now my supplies have arrived!

Well best go finish cooking dinner! I will post a photo of my favourite headband of the moment! It is a mini Stella featuring high quality dupioni silk, vintage lace and a rhinestone button. Bliss:)