Pricing my Cards

[lillycrafter]

Hiya

I've got a craft fair coming up on 2nd December and I'm having a few problems with pricing my cards! Here's an example of one of them (they're not all folded fancily like this one though!)
SWALK Twisted Easel Card.jpg
I was thinking £2 but a bit worried that that may be too much so then I thought £1.50. I know some other people charge a lot more for their cards but the craft fair I'm selling at isn't really professonal so I'm really conscious of over pricing! Would really appreciate some help! And the cards all come with envelopes too, just to let you know.

Thanks
Lilly x

[aisles]

You need to start from how much did it cost you to make one card in materiials as you'll need to cover that cost.

Plus the cost of the pitch price

Plus something for your time spend

[Caroleecrafts]

Did you hand stamp and colour the card? Also unsure of the size from the picture but if say a 5" X 5" easel card this should be about £3.50 min. Never undervalue handmade work regardless of the fair. If you sell cheap at this one then go to a proper fair later and the same customers turn up and you have doubled the price of your card will encourage the public to go to cheaper fairs looking for bargains.

Cost of materials
Labour costs
Overheads
Profit

All of these must be taken into account when making and selling.

Check out Dixie's blog post at Handmade Lives where she rightly says we should be proud of our work and double our prices

[3dDave]

£2.00 sounds a little low to me, I would say £3.50 to £4.00. Time involved you are probably working for a ****ensian rate anyway even at£4.00!! Unfortunately our cards are only worth what someone will be prepared to pay. I've never sold a card in my life for no other reason than mine are expensive in materials and ink and take 6-12+ hours to do so what someone would pay for mine would only be half of what I would want to cover costs. I have toyed with the idea of quick 3d precuts to sell at fairs, but it's not really where I am at. If I were you I would price my cards realistically £3.50 to £4.00 and stick to it. I would expect to easily pay over £2.00 for the card shown. Look at some sold online, quite a lot not as good as yours going for twice as much! I say aim for a profit ...or don't go, if you bring them home again so what, they won't go off(Lol). All the best on your venture. Take care...Dave.

[lillycrafter]

thanks guys! definitely know what to price my things at now!...

[Kitty House Krafts]

I find its my confidence that stops me charging what I should for mine, good luck I hope you made a good profit,

[AnnieAnna]

Can I suggest you price those ones as suggested then rack your brains to come up with a less expensive 'line'.
Maybe smaller, maybe simpler, maybe even gift tags.
My family is finding customers like what we are selling, baulk at the price (but there is always someone who pays up without blinking) but consoles themselves by buying something similar but smaller. We always have the argument of should you go for selling a few expensive articles or a lot of cheap ones.
all I can say is ....I do both .

[lillycrafter]

Thanks. My craft fair was a few weeks back now and I found it awful! I had clearly picked a bad one and the cards were priced from 50p to £1!! I was so flustered as I turned up with my £2 cards with all the clear signage etc. Turned out I had to change the prices to a quid and still only sold a couple!!! The organiser was a lovely woman but there wasn't any advertisting so people didn't know it was even on. It's put me off a bit, but I'd like to have another go at a craft fair to try and prove to myself that surely they're not all like that!

[AnnieAnna]

Singing - pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and start all over again.
There are good fairs and bad fairs, there are good years and bad years, there are good times of the year and rubbish ones.
It took the Anna me 3 years to sort out which were my good fairs. Then the second part of last year was awful......so singing again - things can only get better.

There is a catch 22. A good fair will be booked up a year in advance and they won't come looking for you. You have to find them and wheedle your way in.

One of the things I did when I first joined the Craftsforum was to ask members around where I lived if they'd share any secrets about which were the good fairs - and they did. Then at the fairs you chat to the other stall holders and ask where they are going next.

I've just moved house so am starting again. Up to now I have grabbed every opportunity to give every fair a chance but I'm just wondering now whether I shouldn't visit each fair as a customer to suss it out before asking to be put on their mailing list.

[lillycrafter]

Definitely agree there. On the hunt for craft fairs again now. Going to the fair previously is something we thought maybe was a good idea too. Competition for fairs can be difficult at times though too. I was rejected from the fair that I'd been plucking up the courage to apply for for years: one I'd visited many a time. They told me my makes weren't of a hign enough standard. Hey-ho...I got accepted to another a few weeks later though (turned out NOT to be a good thing, as I said before but we live and learn). I find selling cards at craft fairs can be harder though, as it is harder to make more of a profit compared to, lets say, cushions etc.

[Caroleecrafts]

A suggestion at your next fair take some to make up and sit there colouring etc, then customers will understand the amount of work that goes into a card and not object to the cost. Check out Pricing for Failure and be confident in what you do

[Incognito 1]

Your crafting will speed up with time and therefore you will be able to make the cards at a more competative price. Try making a few of the same designs production style but perhaps just change the colours or greetings. I make mulitples of designs to swap with other crafters and can often make 12-40 copies of the same card fairly quickly without them being simple or the quality suffering. It does take the fun out of it a little but I have made a large batch of complicated hand stamped cards in one evening. I used two stamps in two colours of ink just for the foliage background by using the production style method.