Thursday 2 June 2016

Cards, bags, dolls and pricing

Collage card by Jenny Stacy
Collage card by Jenny Stacy
Collage card by Jenny Stacy
Clever bag by Carol Smith that folds down...
...to this handbag friendly package. Bag by Carol Smith
Individual paper dolls with button joints by Jenny Stacy £3 each.

'The price is what people will pay' I remember being told.

 It's complicated. What sounds expensive to one person will sound reasonable, if not too cheap to another person. Sometimes the price of something handmade seems more to do with the confidence of the maker than with any actual rules.

 Take my cards (pictured above), for instance. Although they take a long time to make as I fuss about it looking right to my eye, it's a card, therefore I don't feel I can charge more than £2.50 or £3.50 tops. Yet when someone asks for something personalised it should cost them more.

I just made a special wedding card with a fancy insert and the customer insisted on paying me £10 for it. She felt it should have been more and suggested I charge £12.50 for any personalised cards in the future.  But are people happy to pay this? I've just taken an order for a personalised engagement card...I'm planning it in my head. Then I'll make a sketch and then I'll start playing around with colours and papers. If it was larger and had a frame round it, it would cost a lot more.

When visiting an art exhibition I always wonder at the prices. A large canvas showing two painted lines could cost thousands and an exquisitely drawn little watercolour landscape. framed, could cost £40. So maybe the price is not about what people will pay, more about what the maker/artist is prepared to charge.

1 comment:

Brenda Tilbury said...

Hi Jenny, lovely cards x . I agree that pricing for handmade creations is almost impossible....taking into account the creator's time, the cost of materials and the brain power and thought processes.....no, it is simply impossible! I agree with your thought that the price of something handmade is down to the creator, and if customers want cheaper products then they will get what they pay for!