Should newbie include work hours in jewelry price?

[SilverBouillon]

This part is confusing to me.
I've read many pricing recommendations for hand made items. It usually tells to include the cost of working hours in price.
It's reasonable for skilled jewelers, but how to apply the same rules for newbies?

There are many operations which can be improved and can be done faster with experience and proper tools that newbie may not knowing about yet. I also consider the certain amount of time as an investment in education. Plus, prototypes take lots of time from the idea to testing the final result. Including work hours in prototype price will give me absolutely unrealistic numbers.

I'm a lousy jeweler, who finished one piece so far , but I'm much skilled knitter and crocheter. I see that lots of newbies overvalue their amateur work instead of optimizing work and getting more experience first. They calculate their every knit and purl, but they don't calculate how much faster they can do it practicing and learning. Because they do follow recommendations to include their work hours in price and then are getting upset blaming customers for not buying their work.

So, how? How to start entering that pricing territory for the fist time jewelry seller and pretty much newbie ? And what pricing method can be the most effective for newbie?
Thinking toward my sales (hopefully this year) I have not idea what price policy I can adapt for beginning.

I invested about 2500 dollars to start, and I consider that I would spend more for jewelry school, so I don't count to return that money right away, or even return at all. But pretty soon I will need more metal, more materials, and I have no wish to invest "in education" more than I already invested. From another side, I don't want to be an amateur who overvalued own amateur work.

How to get balanced pricing for newbie jewelry maker?

[caroleallen]

i don't think there's an easy answer to this. When I started out silver was cheap to buy and so I was able to make a reasonable profit on my work. It was also a time when craft fairs were less abundant but more profitable. Now with silver being expensive and so much cheap imported jewellery around I really wouldn't want to be starting out. Sorry to be so negative but I don't really have an answer.

[SilverBouillon]

Sorry to be so negative but I don't really have an answer.

Please don't feel sorry! Being realistic does not mean being negative.
I was planning to start jewelry studio back in to 2006. Then crisis started, we lost a lots of investment, and it was pretty upsetting. However, I gave up not mostly because of that. One day insurance agent came to our house to do some inspections. He told me that he recently quit his job as professional jeweler, and he told me that the industry was very bad. I got scared.
Now I regret that I lost 6 years of my life giving up, and now I just need to think carefully about all aspects not to be scared again.
So, any constructive thoughts are welcome even they may sound like negative.

[caroleallen]

I honestly think a lot of it's down to getting lucky breaks. I'd have thought Florida would be a good place to sell to tourists, especially in the expensive bits where they have those big boats moored outside.

[SilverBouillon]

I'd have thought Florida would be a good place to sell to tourists, especially in the expensive bits where they have those big boats moored outside.

Yes, I count on that in the future. We have some expensive boutiques in upscale areas. We also have big fairs, but they are pricey to attend as a seller. I've tried small local fairs in the past when I've been doing beading-not worth it.

However, I'm not there yet. Right now I count on my friends who wait patiently for my new work, and I have abandoned etsy store which I plan to recover.
And here is the pricing question. Here. Newbie pricing. I'm going to face this very soon.

So far I think about simple formula as possible: calculate the materials only, amount of silver by gram by stock price and multiply the total material cost on 2.5 or maybe 3. No work hours calculation, no tools amortization, no propane, electricity, etc. cost.

I would be happy with covering my replacement of materials, and a bit more for the studio improvement as I develop to buy kiln, good quality rolling mill, expand more techniques... By the other words, I plan to receive 0 profit for a while putting everything back into jewelry making. I hope at least

[Patstone]

I am in a similar situation to you really as I never know what to charge either, costing it with a minimal hourly wage puts the price up too high for people to be able to afford, at least down this way, I dont have an Etsy shop or any other outlet other than a website and a stall at a local craft fair once a month. I am retired and make jewellery as paying hobby, but Carole has pointed out that it doesnt do the professional jewellers any favours at keeping their price at a realistic living wage. So I am caught in a dilema, charge what I believe people can pay, and sell stuff, or charge what it should be and not sell anything.

[solitarysmagick]

I tend to use a few different methods when pricing. I will work out a price based on materials x 2 or 3 depending on what it is (hard to find beads for example I would charge a bit more for) plus an hourly wage and see what comes out, but then also go by how much I'd be willing to pay for the item, and ask friends and family to get a bit of feedback. I also try to include postage and packing costs in the final price as free postage is always a good selling point.

I started making tree of life pendants before Xmas and put them up at £25 each and sold a fair number. A lot of people said I should charge more so I tried a few at £30 and had hardly any sales, so sometimes its a case of pricing a little lower than average and selling pieces, or charge more and sell less. I also tend to look at similar items on sites like etsy to get an idea of what other people charge and try to fit my pricing somewhere in the middle!

[ps_bond]

OK, here's a worked example -

I'm currently part-way through making a forged bangle. There's £24 of silver in it, it'll probably have taken me 2 hours by the time it is fully polished (although the first bit of forming the bangle was slower than it should have been) and it'll need hallmarking and a box (call it £4 in total - I'll batch up the hallmarking).

So materials of £28 total; I'm including electricity & consumables in the hourly rate.
At minimum wage, that is £12.40 (rounded) in labour costs.

Using the formula I mentioned, this gives a wholesale price of about £49. Which then means a retail price of near enough £100.

At £10/hour, this rises to £57.60 wholesale, £115 retail.
£20/hour: £81.60 wholesale, £163 retail.

A *mass produced* bangle of a similar weight retails for around £100 - this is handmade (and not as simple as the one I found while googling). It is your (collective!) responsibility to ensure that customers understand what they're getting, that it does not compare to the mass produced stuff. If you don't, you create an expectation that you're prepared to work for nothing, and your work is valued accordingly.

This - as I keep banging on - is NOT a standard economic model, this is a luxury goods market. DO NOT drop your prices to increase sales.

Have a look at this book - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Setting-Succ.../dp/1408130440 - for some more info (and a lot of the same rant I'm afraid!)

Oh, and a quote from the recent Assay Office London newsletter - "silver is the new 9k"

[bilythepink]

Thank you Peter for the 'rant' and, while I have to say it is really hard as a 'newbie' to have the confidence to sell at a similar price to the pro's, I agree 100% with your comments. I recently sold a pair of earrings to a lady who turned out to be a 'promoter of the arts' and, although she was delighted with her bargain purchase, she told me to double my prices and to stop insulting my fellow jewellers - talk about a backhanded compliment. Pity she didn't feel obligated to pay me double though

[caroleallen]

What I've found over the years is ways to make my jewellery more quickly. Some may say my jewellery is very commercial and I'd have to agree but I make a living from it. I'd love to be making beautiful labour intensive one-off pieces all the time but it wouldn't pay the mortgage. When I do get commissioned to make a one-off piece, I charge accordingly.