Is there a "wrong" in creativity?

[metalsmith]

He has now stopped buying me jewellery from our favourite designer shop because I know what their mark up is and I know exactly what the jeweller gets and so does he which is a shame

So can you not track down the jeweller and approach them directly?

[ps_bond]

Hopefully, they'd recognise what a bad idea it would be to give a lower price. The shop or gallery being undercut is unlikely to keep selling your work if you do that.

[CJ57]

Hopefully, they'd recognise what a bad idea it would be to give a lower price. The shop or gallery being undercut is unlikely to keep selling your work if you do that.

Galleries and shops are pretty clear if they accept your work that you can in no way undercut them. You just feel in that case with a mark up of 120 to 200% that makers can hardly be covering their costs

[Gemsetterchris]

My local jeweller was happy to buy from me but added 124% automatically, with that they said their average sale had to be within a certain range..which didn't leave much more than a blank 3mm casting
Needless to say I haven't bothered, but they could have made a small regular amount which would have added up by now.

[medusa]

He he! I was just following suit, thought we maybe weren't allowed to advertise. Although it has to be said to anyone with artistic skill they are the demons child.
They are stocked around here at farm restaurants but I've never asked to take them out of the case for a feel. As you say Liz it's an easy present for someone to give, a bit like candles! I was shocked at how many fancy candles I have in a massive basket which I can't use incase the cat sets her tail on fire. Maybe I should give them as presents

Once it was noted that I took my monthly bath by candle light, I have since been inundated. I now have enough to last a lifetime. I don't think discussing Pandora beads counts as advertising.

I didn't want to say the name as I wasn't saying anything particularly nice about them and I wasn't sure about advertising* and what not on here
Husband and I did glance in the aforementioned shop today, I told him I'm more than happy to have the equivalent of the £314 bracelet in the window in tools........he went strangely silent and passed onto the next shop!


*(other expensive beads are available)

My other half knows better than to get jewellery for me now. As a bit of a tool freak he encourages tool buying

I don't think It's a good idea to slag off any brand names or anyone even if you are straight thinking (I'm like that).
Especially if they are doing way better than you could dream of.

I see it as more like the local cafe critiquing McDonalds. Pandora are mass produced in a third world country (though at least their factory conditions are reportedly not too bad, albeit un-unionised) and the value is in the brand name and marketing and not the quality. Plus they copied the idea from Troll Beads which in the hand anyway seem better made. I don't feel bad about slagging them off

[Gemsetterchris]

My other half knows better than to get jewellery for me now. As a bit of a tool freak he encourages tool buying .

Plus they copied the idea from Troll Beads which in the hand anyway seem better made. I don't feel bad about slagging them off

Firstly, that tool freak thing is a very good thing, use it

Secondly, I forgot about trollbeads, so yes, I guess its quite ok to slag em off.

[Aurarius]

When "mark-up" is mentioned, together with figures of 100% plus, presumably we're talking about shops and galleries buying your merchandise from you outright and then advertising it for sale with these sorts of big mark-ups?

If I've sold my handiwork outright to someone, I consider it the buyer's privilege to advertise it for sale at whatever price he wants, whether it is 10% higher or 1000% higher than what he paid me for it. The only stipulation from my direction would have come at the time the buyer bought my merchandise from me: he would have paid me a price I was happy with or he wouldn't have got the goods. If I found that a shop or gallery was consistently managing to sell my stuff at a 100% mark-up or more over what it had paid me, I wouldn't feel aggrieved at it; I'd simply know that there was some leeway for increasing the price I charged shops and galleries when I sold my goods to them in the first place, and the price I would settle for when I sold my stuff to them would go up accordingly.

Am I misunderstanding what's going on here?

[ps_bond]

I would say yes.

As I've banged on about to the despair of many I don't doubt, the wholesale price is what you need to sell it at to another business to make money. The retail price is what the shop, gallery or whatever needs to sell it at to make money - and out of the difference between the two prices comes staff wages, premises rent and all the other associated costs in achieving the retail sale.

If a customer goes to you directly, then you still have costs associated with the sale; they're probably lower, but if you're selling to them then you aren't making jewellery at the same time. So that time has to be billed for.

If you have a gallery holding work, but people know that if they approach you directly they'll only get charged the wholesale price, then that gallery will not have much interest in holding your work any more. Similarly, competing galleries will be unimpressed by different pricing structures.

Then there's the galleries who want the full markup AND presence of the jeweller... It's important for both parties to recognise that it's a symbiotic relationship, neither side is doing the other a favour.

[Aurarius]

I would say yes.

As I've banged on about to the despair of many I don't doubt, the wholesale price is what you need to sell it at to another business to make money. The retail price is what the shop, gallery or whatever needs to sell it at to make money - and out of the difference between the two prices comes staff wages, premises rent and all the other associated costs in achieving the retail sale.

If a customer goes to you directly, then you still have costs associated with the sale; they're probably lower, but if you're selling to them then you aren't making jewellery at the same time. So that time has to be billed for.

If you have a gallery holding work, but people know that if they approach you directly they'll only get charged the wholesale price, then that gallery will not have much interest in holding your work any more. Similarly, competing galleries will be unimpressed by different pricing structures.

Then there's the galleries who want the full markup AND presence of the jeweller... It's important for both parties to recognise that it's a symbiotic relationship, neither side is doing the other a favour.

I'm not sure what I said that suggested I was unaware of the points you rightly make, except perhaps my arbitrary choice of 100% as a retail mark-up level that suggests there is leeway for me to increase my wholesale price. For the relationship to be sustainable it does, as you say, have to be a symbiotic rather than a parasitic one. The thing is, in the dim and distant past wholesale to retail mark-ups of around one third used to be the order of the day and I'd imagine no-one found it difficult to see the strict economic necessity of such an arrangement. Maybe strict economic necessity is solely responsible for the mark-ups of 125% seen today, though it's difficult to see how costs for retailers can have increased so sharply whilst costs for manufacturers have remained more steady.
Mark.

[medusa]

Firstly, that tool freak thing is a very good thing, use it

Secondly, I forgot about trollbeads, so yes, I guess its quite ok to slag em off.

Oh yes He is awesome especially his perspective on cheap tools. He ought to have 'buy cheap, buy twice' as a tattoo he incants it so often.

re. mark-ups, I suppose there is a difference between buying at wholesale and sale or return. Galleries round here take 40-50% commission on artworks they sell and I assume they do the same for jewellery, but then there is no risk to the gallery. If they take a punt and actually buy stuff off you, then 100% isn't bad. I used to work in a local upmarket hippy/ethnic retail store, and the mark up on stuff they bought was well over 400%. I'm not sure if that was standard practice or they were just greedy.