Craft and Wholesale Pricing

Craft fair pricing 

Image credit: craftprofessional.com

An important element to be considered in setting prices for pieces at a craft fair that are also consigned to a shop, is that the price the shop is selling your item at, is also the price you should be asking at craft fairs.  Without doing this you risk losing the consignment arrangement with shops and stores.

Also remember that when attending craft fairs or pop up shops, you are doing the setup, travel, marketing, sales, etc., that the shop is doing in a commission arrangement. That cost needs to be reflected in your price for the item at a craft fair, even if different work is being offered.  Especially if the craft fair is in the region of any of the shops or galleries you have placed similar items, you need to be fair to the shops in your pricing to be able to continue supplying them.  The same principle should apply to your online sales.

Some people solve this problem by having a craft fair range and a consignment range.  The craft fair items can be offered at a slightly lower price, if you must. But remember to factor in the costs of craft fair and pop-up shops even when pricing craft fair lines.

Wholesale pricing

Image credit: erplain.com 

Also note that your price on consignment needs to be high enough that you can take wholesale orders without losing money.  Wholesale orders are where the buyer pays you for the work in advance or upon delivery without taking a commission. They normally expect to buy at a lower than commission price and multiples of the work you are offering.

Maybe you feel you do not want to do wholesale work.  Stop a moment to consider that instinctive reaction. Wholesale means you have made the sale already without having to wait for the ultimate sale to occur, as you would on consignment. You do not have the administration of keeping track of stock in various galleries. You have certain, and almost immediate income. All these things make wholesale attractive.

It is the expectation that the wholesale price will be half or less of the retail price.  To make the piece affordable to the wholesaler and for you to still make a profit, you need to add something to the consignment price to enable the items to be sold by the wholesaler and the consignee at similar prices. This is most often less than the full difference between wholesale and consignment prices because you receive the money up front.  Cash can mean quite a lot.  You also need to have enough cushion to be able to give a discount on orders for multiples of the piece.  And that means you need to set the minimum order number to get that discount.

The bottom line (as they say in accountancy circles) is that you need to set the wholesale price first and then work back to the consignment price and retail price.

The wholesale price should be about 10% above the absolute minimum price where you can make the desired profit.  This enables you to offer that amount of discount for orders of multiples of your work.  This then implies the retail price is twice the wholesale plus taxes.  The consignment price will be about 70% to 60% of the retail price (based on 30%-40% commission levels).  More realistically, you can visualise the consignment price to be 10% to 20% higher than the wholesale price, leaving the shop to add their percentage on top of your price.

Image credit: seobook.com

Selection of a gallery or shop in which to place your work is a complex interaction of commission levels; the value you place on your time in preparing for and attending craft fairs or putting your work online; the perceived prestige of the shop/gallery; the potential relationship between you and the outlet; and the relationship of the consignment, wholesale and retail prices.

Consignment Rates

The most common comments about the rates for consignment of pieces to a gallery or gift shop are that they are not fair. They are too high. The gallery is greedy. And so on. How do you judge whether the commission rates are fair?  What are the factors that should be considered?

Time

How much is your time worth?  

Think about the amount of time used to prepare, promote and attend craft fairs, pop up shops, or prepare for and administer online selling. Could you be using that time to make more things, or be with your family?  How much would it improve your quality of life to have to do less selling?

Costs

What are the costs of attending craft fairs?  

    You have to acquire display materials, whether you make or buy them.  You must travel to the event.  You have to be prepared to accept breakage risks from repeated movement of the pieces.  You must pay for the space at the craft fair.

Customer base

Is the shop’s market different than yours at craft fairs or online marketplaces?  

    Shops have a different clientele than craft fairs or online shops.  They spend effort in attracting customers.  They know their clientele and what kind of things will sell to them.  They are aware of the pricing levels needed for their visitors.

Decision

Answering these questions about time, costs and customer base will give you an assessment of whether consignment commission rates being offered are fair. 

Other posts on consignment:

Consignment

Consignment Agreements

Consignment Rates

Consignment Venues

Instagram as a place to sell

What it is

Instagram is a place to show work and get followers.  It is a photo and video sharing site owned by Facebook.  It is a place to tell visual stories that lead to direct message conversations that can lead to sales.  But it is not a direct selling site.

Developing a body of followers is a slow process requiring continued commitment.  Audiences tend to focus on the Instagram stories and videos. Talking to camera, showing your workspace, showing and telling about favourite products are some of the things you can do to make stories for Instagram.  Posting these images and videos is way to get feedback on new products by inviting people to react.

Using it

Instagram’s value is largely as a marketing tool.  It is not a place to do frequent or blatant selling.  There is a general lack of response to posts with an overt selling message.  But occasional on-line sales to a group of committed followers seem to work. Beware of the effort and cost of packaging and posting, though.

What to post?

Frequent posting is essential to developing and maintaining your group of followers.  Remember the title - Instagram.  Instant reporting of developments is important.  It develops the connection between what you are doing and your followers.  The things to concentrate on are such things as how the day has gone, stories, new venues and products.  Ask questions of followers to get feedback and conversations developing.

Some use Instagram as their main social media source.  Share anything in your life that you are comfortable with everyone knowing, and of course, how the business is developing.  In all this sharing be yourself, have your own voice.  Your postings need to be when there is news rather than at set times.  Your account becomes livelier and more personal when spontaneous.

Images

Good photographs are essential.  Photos and videos are the essence of Instagram.  Your photos need to have clear captions. The captions need to provide the context for each image. Some suggest that concentration should be on the captions, and then finding a photo to fit.  The captions and hashtags are the ways people find their way to your postings.  You need to think about the terms potential customers may use to find out about your kind of work.  There is no need to overload the images with hashtags.  A few well thought out terms will give better results.  Look at the kind of tags you would use to find items of interest outside your craft. The really important element is an emphasis on providing a story in all the postings.

Sharing

In addition to creating content, reciprocation of likes and comments is important.  This means you need to spend some time on the platform to help develop followers.  Instagram does assist in creating a community of followers and makers, especially if you connect with makers of similar things and exchange supportive chat.

Time commitment

There are suggestions that 80% of your time on Instagram should be building your brand, and partaking in the community. The rest of the time you can tell about new products, promotions, and answering questions that will help people in deciding on the purchase.  But, generating sales is difficult by use of only Instagram.

Location of Outlets

Galleries use Instagram too.  But it is mostly about raising awareness of their businesses, so sales on Instagram are incidental to them.  They use it to let people know about news of the gallery and artists, their interests, and promote their exhibitions.  For them it is about publicity. 

Their secondary use is by browsing and getting a sense of potential exhibiting artists as persons and what their expertise and audience may be.  This means that getting galleries as followers can be a way to maintain contact with galleries and get invitations to participate in events.

How Can Glass Enthusiasts use Instagram?

It may seem the emphasis of this post is on full time craft artists, but these things are applicable to any craftsperson who wants their work to be more widely known and purchased.

Anyone who is going to craft fairs needs to do a lot more than turn up with product.  Many times, I hear of people lamenting the poor attendance at an event.  Or, the concern that people don’t seem interested in buying your work.

The organiser of the craft event can do only a limited amount of promotion.  Their promotion will be largely general and untargeted.  Your promotion will be much more targeted, because it will be directed at your followers – an already interested audience.  If you can get your followers to attend the event, or spread knowledge of your attendance at an event, you have a greater chance of having a good event.

In summary, Instagram can be an element in building an audience for your glass work.  This can increase attendance of interested people at the events you are involved in, if you put effort into getting followers who appreciate your work.