Hello all,
Can someone point me in the right direction for computing price for goods? I've been doing some reading and there's mention of number of pierces. I realize how everything can vary. Overhead will vary shop to shop. And material costs. I don't want to charge too little and hurt the industry, but don't want to charge a lot either. I want to be fair. I see some pieces for sale on Ebay and Etsy and think, wow, that's inexpensive. Noticing that the metal thickness is 18 gauge. That's thin, yes? I'm typically cutting 12-14 gauge cold rolled metal. We've been painting our pieces, but that is time consuming. Sometimes I think the way to go is to grind/polish and clear coat. Haven't tried patina yet. I need to look into SteelFX products.
We were contacted by a guy wanting a couple signs cut for his gym. He'll supply the metal and text file. He's thinking it's as simple as importing and pushing a button, but we all know that to not be true. Time for some schooling!!
So, is there some kind of formula to use?
Thanks
Vicki
Pricing ???
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muzza
- 4 Star Member
- Posts: 1472
- Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:35 pm
Re: Pricing ???
Here's a link to one of the spreadsheets on here http://www.plasmaspider.com/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=9565
Spend a bit of time reading through the posts within this pricing forum and you will quickly see there are many different pricing indexes from different members. For some it's a hobby or top up income, for others, myself included it's a full time business from a dedicated premises incorporating factory and shopfront. My over heads are much greater now than 8 years ago when I started out on a part time basis but I would never have got to what I have now had I not factored future growth and upgrading into my pricing structure.
You have looked at Etsy and Ebay, much of what you find there is at the low end of the price market and aimed at the one time buyer looking for something cheap. It's also a market that's cheap to enter and maintain and many find it a great way to test the market or get some product out there. Big problem with this market is that as soon as you have something successful, it's straight away copied and you get low balled by someone else, a month later nobody is making any money on it. Therefore in my opinion, don't take too much notice of some of the Etsy and Ebay pricing.
On the other hand it's sometimes better to overprice a job and lose it than to underprice it and lose money although that does rapidly speed up the learning curve
There are too many factors to have a one price fits all, just spend a bit of time researching your pricing and checking your true costs. It will pay for itself in the long run. Have a read through other posts here and you will find some very good information from others who have walked a mile or two in your shoes.
Murray
Spend a bit of time reading through the posts within this pricing forum and you will quickly see there are many different pricing indexes from different members. For some it's a hobby or top up income, for others, myself included it's a full time business from a dedicated premises incorporating factory and shopfront. My over heads are much greater now than 8 years ago when I started out on a part time basis but I would never have got to what I have now had I not factored future growth and upgrading into my pricing structure.
You have looked at Etsy and Ebay, much of what you find there is at the low end of the price market and aimed at the one time buyer looking for something cheap. It's also a market that's cheap to enter and maintain and many find it a great way to test the market or get some product out there. Big problem with this market is that as soon as you have something successful, it's straight away copied and you get low balled by someone else, a month later nobody is making any money on it. Therefore in my opinion, don't take too much notice of some of the Etsy and Ebay pricing.
On the other hand it's sometimes better to overprice a job and lose it than to underprice it and lose money although that does rapidly speed up the learning curve
There are too many factors to have a one price fits all, just spend a bit of time researching your pricing and checking your true costs. It will pay for itself in the long run. Have a read through other posts here and you will find some very good information from others who have walked a mile or two in your shoes.
Murray
