Location, location, location - Help with Pricing

[AnotherDano]

I have a dilemma.

It may be just the small town I live in or I'm just talking to the wrong people. My expectations may be too high and I'd like to talk about the elephant in the room; pricing.

I've made a series of wall switch backers that I'd hoped would be a kind of income stream between custom/art work. A lady who is 'connected' with the arts & crafts circle around here announced that she was really impressed with one of the products and that I should be able to get 'up to' ten dollars for it at a craft fair. She said that in a store, she'd probably expect to pay five.

It's not a unique design or anything outstanding, but five bucks? It's 16 ga with a textured powder coat and a clear coat.

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I have another work in progress and she liked it too. She said that I might expect to get (maybe) $150. Maybe it was the way she said it; like I should be stunned at the windfall!

You tell me - what should something like this bring?



Is my ego in need of adjustment?

[Scratch]

I know what you mean... It's so hard to compete with what's already out there and built from 10 year olds around the world who get paid a dollar a day. My wife bought this metal formed 3D giraffe from Pier 1 about years ago for 80.00. It's a complete 3D sculpture, about 5 feet tall, made out of probably 18G steel, hollow inside and looks great! There's no possible way I could think that any metal artist in the US could do it for less than 300.

We also have a table made completely out of steel washers welded together that probably took some poor kid 5 hours to make, and we bought it new for 29.00, not even on sale.

People see this kind of stuff all over the place for so cheap all the time so it's really hard to try to explain how much time there is that goes into making this stuff to some people. Sometimes you have to price it, based on what people can buy something similar for. Unless it's something that you really feel proud of and was just too much time and work involved, then I'd price it what you want to get out of it and if it doesn't sell, don't make any more of them.

Honestly I think 10 bucks is a good price for the switch backers. They must be pretty quick to make, and are a great price point in my mind. I like to have a bunch of items that sell for 10 bucks at my shows since most people will pay that much for something small like that anyways.

As far as the horse... what's the size of it? And what price are you looking at getting for it?

[AnotherDano]

The horse & rider should be around $220, going by the formula of .15/inch-.15/pierce -.05/sq in for the steel.
That's just for the cutting - no finishing. It's 36x48.

Here is my closest 'competition';

They are getting $15 for their switch plates in their (huge) store.
http://www.allwayzmfg.com/index.php?mai ... 243b6b4357

[Loyd]

Dano,
After looking at your competition's site I think their philosophy is to have some "teasers" so that you will buy other things.
You should look at it the same way. Those desk nameplates that I designed go for $25.00 and that is with the butterfly, flowers, deer
or whatever....painted.
Use the switch plate covers as your teasers...they do look great by the way and seem to be nicer than your comp's...
I think your pricing structure is fine on your larger items. I have decided to just charge twenty cents per inch on things like that and
adjust it by "gut feeling" if I think it is too low or high.
Once someone buys from you most of the time there is some sense of loyalty. I think if you go for the craft fair crowd you need to have
a selection of teasers and also some really nice stuff like the pony express on display.
The way I look at it is 10 parts @ 10 dollars is a hundred!
Maybe the way you could do it is plain black is 10 dollars and clearcoated is 15 dollars.
Hope that rambling helps.....
Loyd

[AnotherDano]

Thanks for the input, guys.

I think what I need to do is NOT compete with the 'big guy' next door, producing the same things.

I tried to be a bit different with the large cutout that would fit even an 'old-work' box (that has ears riding on the top of the drywall), and uses a standard cover to hold it in place. I find that not all switches/outlets will allow the faceplate to be flush against the wall, so I tried to compensate for that. Standard faceplates are concave on the back for a reason.

My next designs will not be for everyone - or every room. I'll be putting the figure on the side of the plate instead. Should work great for a 'bucking' horse or standing bear etc.

A woman gave me a really critical opinion of a couple of my faceplates. She was really worked up about the little dimple where the cutting head took a 'hard left' at the lead-in/cutpath intersection. I held my tongue but was very tempted to offer her 'perfect' pieces that I could have made for me in China. "How many thousands would you like to buy today?".
We all have those days.

[grogmeister]

HEY NICE JOB ON THE ITEMS ,THEY;RE AWESOME

[DumOleBob]

Sorry to be late reading your posts. My first comment is, How can you expece to have an income stream from $15 items that you have to make from scratch, powder coat and someway sell? There is simply no way you can, or should compete with things like that. There is no way you can make any money like this. Stick with the stuff your competition CAN'T Make!

[AnotherDano]

I'm going to do some of the same things but in a different way. My switchplates go behind the existing cover. There ar a lot of advantages to that design. Plus, instead of placing a figure on top, I'll move it around a bit and make them larger. There isn't much additional cost to me - a few cents per piece. And it makes then unique. (Until all of you start doing to too. LOL).

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And then, there are the more creative things to be fooled with;

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