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!