Pricing... Again.

[ps_bond]

It's been a wee while since I last vented on this - it's cropped up again IRL

As some may recall, I use a formula that is pretty simple -
Wholesale price: (Materials costs + hourly rate * hours worked + other costs) * 1.2
The 1.2 is profit to allow development & growth. Fairly standard stuff.
Retail price (usually): 2 * wholesale

A jeweller I know is selling a bangle.
There's about £20 of material in it.
There's a box - call it £2. It's hallmarked, no idea how many items were in the packet but let's say it cost £3.50 (incl. post to & fro). That's a total of £25.50 so far.
Retail price is... £78.
So the wholesale price is £39

39/1.2 = £32.50

That leaves £7 for labour; it took "around" 2 hours (so probably more).

So an hourly rate of £3.50

By way of comparison McDonalds will pay £5.55/hr for over 22 year olds. And you don't need to spend loads on tools either.

BTW - as I've covered before: Retail price is there to cover cost of sales. Whether that is through a shop, a gallery, an online presence or even "just" on Facebook those costs exist. Curating an exhibition takes time - again, cost of sales.

There was quite a good article in Craft & Design on pricing by Pete Mosley in the Nov/Dec issue - in particular, it covers the issue of devaluing work by underpricing. One thing that stood out was a line to the effect that if people tell you your work is too expensive (and you've done your research) then ignore them, they are not customers.
If you're in an exhibition however, underpricing not only devalues that maker but also undermines the other makers there.