|
Please for forgive the mess as I restructure my
website. To see more about Wire Jewelry please go to my homepage:
http://www.wirewrapping.net
Pricing Wire Wrapped Jewelry
Pricing your handcrafted Wire Jewelry is one of the
trickiest parts of running your own Wire Jewelry business. Most
beginners make the mistake of under pricing their jewelry. The
pressure to give someone a "deal" sometimes overrides the desire
to charge the true value of the Wire Jewelry piece.
A funny phenomena happens to consumers when they are
first introduced to a product they haven't seen before (such as your wire
wrapped jewelry). They assign a Perceived Value to the
unfamiliar product. This perceived value ultimately determines
whether or not they think you are giving them a deal.
For example: You a selling a wire wrapped cameo
pendant. Let's say you spent about $15 on materials to make the
pendant ($10 shell cameo + $5 14k gold-filled wire). Let's say
you have about a 1/2 hour of labor invested in the pendant.
One common rookie mistake when pricing the pendant would
go like this:
You charge a set rate ($30/hour) for the amount of labor
you have in the pendant plus the cost of materials . At 1/2 hour,
your labor would equal $15 plus the cost of materials ($15). So your
final price would be $30.
At this point you might be thinking -- $30 an
hour!! That's great!! Not to mention $30 for this beautiful
Wire Wrapped Cameo Pendant is very reasonable!!
If you are thinking this, take a moment and slap
yourself.
(Just kidding--don't slap yourself)
The problem is this: When the customer walks up to
your booth and the Wire Wrapped Cameo Pendant catches her eye, she
immediately tries to assign a perceived value to the piece. When you
tell her $30, she immediately relates it to other jewelry that she can
purchase for $30. I don't know about you but when I think of jewelry
that I can buy for $30, I'm not blown away. Mostly costume jewelry
or something synthetic you could buy at Wal-Mart.
Always keep in mind that you are selling one-of-a-kind,
handcrafted jewelry set in 14k gold-filled (not plated) wire. In
this example, even the cameo is hand carved.
I would typically charge about $80 to $100 for the piece
as described. This is what I would expect to pay for a beautiful
piece of handcrafted Jewelry if I found it in a fine boutique.
That's how I want my customers to think of the value of my jewelry.
If a customer doesn't want to spend more than $30, I'll
gladly show them some wire wrapped resin cameos or synthetic gemstone
jewelry. Or even some thing wrapped in yellow brass wire for those
who want to spend about $10.
Never devalue your high quality wire
jewelry pieces!
This is my philosophy about pricing my Jewelry.
I'll talk more about pricing in a later post. Until then below is an
e-book that goes into great depth about Pricing.
|
