6 – If you were to sell your products to wholesalers, you wouldn’t make money
As a test, divide your prices by 2 and imagine that’s the price wholesalers are buying your product for from you. Are you losing money? Neutral? Making money? The reason I’m asking about that is that a lot of shops have their retail prices that are closer to what their wholesale price should be. Are you one of them? Even if you’re not thinking of selling to wholesalers, that’s a handy test to help you determine if you’re not charging enough for your products. If you’re not making money if you divide your prices by 2 and selling that, you need to raise your prices.
7 – You’re hurting the handmade community
Made in China is not handmade and always keeping low prices makes it very hard for the community as a whole to raise the prices. Repeat after me: handmade is not cheap. It’s actually opposite of that! People who shop handmade for the good reasons, who actually are your ideal customers, understand that. They will pay more for handmade. By keeping your prices as low as possible you’re doing a disservice to the community in general because it’s harder for people to put their prices up. It’s also confusing for the customers when they see a product for $5, a similar one for $30, and yours for $60. They don’t know that the person who has a $5 product doesn’t make any money, the $30 product guy is just breaking even, and you’re there, trying to sell your product for $60 because that’s the price it should be. So please, as a community, let’s raise our prices so we can stop attracting customers that are better off shopping on Amazon.
The last thing I need you to hear is this: YOU ARE WORTH IT! Most of the times pricing issues come from uncertainties and doubts about ourselves and our work. You are talented, you have a gift that no one else has (yes, same skills maybe, but each design is unique to you), you work hard, and your products are beautiful. You are worth it. Raise your prices.
What do you feel is your pricing strategy doing for you at the moment? Is it working? Do you need to raise your prices? Comment below, I’d love to know!