I really meant to blog last week....LOL! Ok, well it's the run-up to Christmas and I still haven't sold anything. I'm not too upset of course, because I know it takes a while to get established anywhere, including a website like Etsy. I do love Etsy though, I just love the layout and all the support there.
Anyway, I have listed pretty much everything I have made so far, with the exception of a couple of things here and there. I know it's hard to price your stuff - whatever you're selling - and I am starting to wonder if I might be over-pricing my jewellery. At one point I thought might have been UNDER pricing, but my brother recently told me that his colleagues reckon that my prices are too high.
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| Would you pay £35 for this necklace? |
The thing is, I would be happy paying the prices I have put everything at. There is no correct way of pricing jewellery, which is what makes it so difficult. The basic formula which I have come across is to add everything you have spent on the item, and multiply it by 2 to get a wholesale price (if you're selling to a store or a company). Now this is realistic because if you sell anything wholesale, you will be expected to sell your goods at around half the retail price. This is perfectly normal - and this is why you need to do this equation to make sure you're not losing out on any profit, even if it might be a little bit. The retail price is usually 1.5 or 2 x the wholesale price. Now, I have actually done both equations and taken into consideration what I personally would pay for each piece if I were buying it. The other thing, is that I do have to cover costs and make sure I pay myself for the time I have taken to make a piece of jewellery. It really does take me about half an hour to string a necklace of beads together from figuring out the design to calculating the price. How many people out there actually know how much I have paid for some of these gemstones? £10 for a string of 50 pearls is quite a lot. Garnet, Onyx and Amethyst are all pretty expensive at the moment, you'd be lucky to find a 30cm string of any of these beads at a good size of 8mm for less than £5. And don't get me started on the price of silver LOL!! Some people might be surprised to learn that I might actually end up paying around £10 for the materials to create a necklace, double that to £20 for the wholesale price, double it again for a retail price of £40 which I think is too much so I take it down to £30 or even £25 because that is what I would personally pay.
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| I'd pay £30 for this necklace - would you? |
I don't know....perhaps I'm rubbish at marketing or perhaps it's just that nobody has noticed or is waiting to buy things at the last minute. All I know is that half the people I ask about the pricing tell me it's too much, and other people tell me it's about right. So I'm not sure what to do there! The other thing is that I know there are quite a few people looking at my Etsy store, yet nobody is buying. There must be a reason - again, I think it's probably either price, waiting for payday / beginning of December, or perhaps my niche isn't attractive to many people.
Anyway, as I said, I'm not too upset about it - as I only started this thing in September / October, and I read recently in an Etsy blog that it can take around 6 months to get noticed on Etsy. In the meantime, I LOVE creating treasuries, I'm a member of a jewellery making forum, I love creating jewellery and even though I have had a few down moments, this is a journey which I am taking in order to find out if it will work or not LOL! If this doesn't work out for me, then at least I can say I tried it out and I won't be wondering "what if" for the rest of my life.
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| How much did I pay for the silver and gemstones here? |
course I will continue to be creative if this doesn't work out, and I will even continue to market and try to sell my jewellery on Etsy, and next year I might do a few craft fairs and it might help spread the word. Who knows, perhaps this will work out in a couple of years' time? Besides, Russell Grant (A British astrologer) told me that it will take off, but it will take time.....so yes, I called into Radio 2 and got to be on air and find out what the Universe had in store for me - where's the harm in that? The Universe can always change it's mind I guess ;)
Anyway, if ANYONE would like to take a a look at the prices in my Etsy store and tell me what you think of my prices, I would be very grateful for the feedback. Tell me if you think my jewellery is over-priced, under-priced, and tell me what you would pay for which pieces! Please, be honest! :)
Siobhan xx
