Craft Venture: Pricing for the New Year

Im Brenda from Phydelle and Phydeaux Designs, back with this weeks edition of Craft Venture! We talked last week about debriefing from your holiday season – identifying lessons to learn and new opportunities, as part of our January series on cleaning up and making over our online shops. Let’s revisit pricing this week – January is the perfect time to recalculate your prices, particularly if you’re introducing new designs and new lines!

We talked about pricing recently. Is it too soon to think about pricing again? No! As a small business owner, you should always be thinking about your pricing structure and strategy! Your expenses constantly fluctuate – revisiting your prices a few times a year will help you make sure you’re not unintentionally losing money.

Also, after the holidays, retailers are looking for brand new goods and designs. What better time to revisit your wholesale pricing, while you spruce up your shop and introduce new goods?

Below are the specific posts below about pricing, followed by a few comments on pricing strategy.

Pricing for wholesaling
What the market will bear
How much are you worth (salary)
Overhead Part I
Overhead Part II
Direct costs Part I
Direct costs Part II

If it looks like you need to increase your prices, let your customers know that you’re reviewing your pricing with possible increases, and then make those increases incremental (e.g., $1 increase this week or month, $1 next week or month).

If your current prices don’t cover your direct expenses, then you’re certainly losing money with wholesale and consignment orders. Why give away your goods to retailers, who will make a profit on their great deal? If you can’t set a reasonable price based on the wholesale price, don’t wholesale that item. You can develop your own wholesale line of specific items that you can price so that you can cover your expenses – and make a profit – despite wholesale discounting. Also, many of your colleagues successfully wholesale at a discount less than 50% – that level of discount is not set in stone.

I strongly encourage you to revisit your pricing as you introduce new items and lines, spruce up your shop, and plan your 2010 strategy this month. That’s what I’ll be doing all week!

I’d love to hear what you think! What has been your experience with price increases? What have you learned the hard way about recalculating and increasing prices? How do your prices look: are you making or losing money?

Images:  Poison apple clutch by eclu; Tulips by Chakra Pennywhistle