Pricing your Jewellery

[Chris W]

Does anyone have a good formula for pricing jewellery that you have made?
Do you charge for time spent making it?
I find that I can't realisically charge for the time I spend or my prices would be too high for my customers.
I would love to hear any comments on this difficult area.

[Sprinkles]

I add up all my beads that i have used, all the findings wire etc then add on my % of the time it took to make it.

For example if i charged £7.00 and hour, and a pair of earrings took 15 minutes to make then i would wack on £1.75.

I dont like selling my jewellery for too much, but i have to make a profit and something that will pay for the bills.

[Chris W]

Thanks for your reply, your jewellery is lovely and looks worth more than your prices, does this pricing policy work for you?
I haven't been adding a charge for time as I have been trying to turnover a lot so I can buy more beads to which I am addicted.
However I am trying to make a living and wonder what sort of mark up is fair and reasonable.

[Sprinkles]

I think i am selling items a little on the cheap side, BUT i i have been to a number of craft fairs and been outdone on prices, then feel i am selling it for too much!

The profit at the moment is okay, but as the new tax year is coming up, up will go my hourly rate, then up will go my prices! ;)

Like you say we need to be able to live on it!!

[silversurfer]

You have to be realistic, look at what you make and think how much would I be prepared to pay for that. I agree you have to cut in your time for making the item, you have to make some kind of living, stick to your guns though.
It's made by hand, not by machines and in some sweat shop somewhere. I bet most people undersell, I know I do sometimes.

I was in a shop in Crouch End a couple of months ago and was looking at the jewellery in this clothes shop. They wanted £84 for this necklace, it was absolute rubbish, she tried to say it was all genuinely handmade, but it was so abvious it wasn't.

So it is what you can charge isn't it???

[annnoble]

Hi,
One thing you could do is look at other peoples jewellery which is like yours and do a market comparison, also look at the high street stores and find out their price ranges.
This will give you a big overall look at the maket you are in.
Then price to cover costs and your time and to be competitive in the market.

I had to do this as part of my buisness plan for the Princes Trust. It really helped place myself pricing wise.

Ann

[Poppy4lee]

Although I sell jewellery making items I don't make jewellery to sell, I actually make bath bombs & soaps to sell at craft fairs (sounds daft - long story, which I won't bore you with!). When trying to price my bath bombs etc. I was advised, by a business adviser at the local Chamber of Commerce/Business Link, to calculate a 'gross profit margin' - I think I've put down the full formula in another thread but, basically, it involves doing some market research, to see roughly how much similar items are selling for, then working out the percentage difference between an average/acceptable selling price,for your stuff, & the amount each item cost to make. You then take an average of all the percentage difference figures (for the range of items you've priced up) and use this as a guideline figure in future. So, if the average percentage difference works out at 65%, you add on 65% to the cost of the materials for each item you make (obviously, you can juggle the figure a bit to make them 'look' right). It might sound a bit long winded, but once you have an acceptable figure, it makes it fairly easy from then on. In reality, I honestly don't think that many craft people are adequately rewarded for the actual time and effort they put into their work! So, I think, sadly, we have to compromise on our prices.

[Sprinkles]

My pricing has been pushed around a bit by the comments of customers.

"oooh, i can get that cheaper in *well known kids jewellery shop*"

oh, that makes me angry!!
I have learnt now not to take it to heart, and just stick with my pricing guide.
People like that shouldn't been going to a craft fair if they cannot appreciate the hard work we all put into all of our crafts.

[The Bead Fairy]

Hi I do a lot of this for work, and if you are wanting to make a living you need to make sure you mark up by enough, but still keep the prices realistic.
It's a bit more complicated for us as we are bigger, have more overheads and are VAT registered but our simplist formular is:
materials cost + Overheads (% of hourly rate for time it takes to make)
Then multiply by your mark up we usualy do 100%, but our minimum is 77% (we adjust this depending on if it seems realistic)
The rule is to stick to your guns and ignor the people who coment on price, it's fine to pick a price out of the air and sell cheaply if it is a hobby but if you are trying to make money it is best to start how you mean to go on.
Hope this makes sence and helps.:)

[Chris W]

Many thanks for all your helpful comments on pricing, after my last business which was painting backdrops, I swore I would never do anything labour intensive again because I couldn't get a fair price for my time, my customers were photographers and there was a limit to what they could afford.
I do use the same formula as The Bead Fairy which hopefully will work for my website too.