Questions for Sellers

[EIEIO]

I have my 1st Handmade Market coming June 1 in Lancaster Ohio. I'd appreciate getting your thoughts on a few items:
 - Do you accept credit cards? If not, what do you accept? If so, what system do you use?
 - Do you have a formula for setting the price of an item? I'm thinking something like the cost of material + consumption of equipment life + manpower hourly rate. It looks to me like manpower would dominate.
 - What do you consider a fair hourly rate for your labor (a rate that you would defend if a buyer questioned it)?
 - Do you refer to some reference to come up with a price for items (e.g. ETSE listings for similar items, etc.)
 - Do you adjust pricing based on other sellers' pricing at your market?
 - I plan to bring items to the market, but to offer more custom work like portraits and personalized cuttings to be delivered when ready. Any thoughts on that?

Any other suggestions to help have a successful market day will be appreciated.

[Spartan scroller]

Wow E! Big topic, so I'll take a couple and leave the rest for others.  As for credit cards:  haven't been set up to take them but wish I was and will by my next show.  Am looking into the Square that works with the smart phone but don't have one as yet. It's only 2.75% per transaction BUT smart phone plan runsh around $80 a month. At least the one I've investigated.  Right now I don't do enought shows to justify that so I take Texas credit cards ( 20 dollar bills!).  Pricing for me is based largely on what the market will pay and the price of the venue. Some charge $20 to $35 dollars a space and others are $150 or more!  I haven't found that I do any better at the more expensive venues so right now I'm sticking to Churches, schools and clubs. 
Also a thought for the day, the way to make a small fortune in scroll sawing is to start with a large one.

[dgman]

Hey Big E, I just got the Square to take credit cards. I don't have a smart phone, but I do have an iPad. It only runs on wi-fi, but I have a hot spot, so that will work fine. The device is free, and you can download the app for free. No fees to run, just 2.75% per transaction.
 I always prefer cash, But I will takes checks. To date, I have never had a bad check, knock on wood!
As far a prices, I think if you use a formula to set prices, you will never sell anything, because you will have to charge more than you can get. I base my prices on what I think the item will sell for. As far as adjusting prices to other sellers, I am usually the only scroller at most shows I do, plus I usually don't have time to go check out the rest of the show because I am usually to busy!
While I am selling, I never sit! I am always circulating around the booth, always making eye contact with the prospective customer. If your sitting behind the booth, the customer will just walk by. If your circulating in the booth, you can draw them in to look at you fine woodcrafts! Good luck!

[Jim Finn]

In my opinion:   dgman has it right.  Set the price at what you would be willing to spend on the item.  Some of us take days to make the same thing others do in hours.  If you figure in your labor you will not sell much at all.  I do 25 shows a year and sell a lot but my reason to sell my stuff  is so that I do not have to throw it away.  If I needed to  make money I would go get a job. <ugh>  I went to my banker and they set me up with a  wireless credit card machine.  It increased my sales by 50%- 100%.I do not take checks. Lost about $300 to learn to not do that.  I do take custom orders but I am not fond of them.  They make you do things you may not want to do and it puts a dead line on delivery.  It feels too much like a job <ugh>

[Scroll Down]

Haven't done any shows as a scroller yet but did lots with chainsaw carvings.

Don't undersell yourself and get a deposit on any custom orders. Half down stopped me from winding up with custom orders they had second thoughts on and nobody else wanted.

The research I see on scolling seems to land on a per hole price for scrolling and a per piece price for Intarsia.

Marketing,.materials, labor, transportation, taxes, among other things to add in.

[Marcellarius]

I don't sell many stuff, to me scrolling is a hobby so I give most things away.
but I did had some orders and feel a bit like Jim:

They make you do things you may not want to do and it puts a dead line on delivery.  It feels too much like a job <ugh>

for the orders I did make, I made a cost list to cover all my expense:
wood, blades, tape, sandpaper, lacker/finish etc.
must say most orders are for social or charity organizations so I round up the amount of money with one or two dollars because of electric and "machine use".
(I use an 2000W electric heater for hours to dry the lacker in my cold basement.)

so mainly I get my expenses payed.
if I then see what things that I make cost, I can't imagine that I can make more then a few dollars profit on one item.
so if I should charge the hours of designing, cutting and so on on a $5,- an hour rate I wouldn't dare to sell.......
there is not a great market for scroll saw items in our country. 

[Toneman]

I have decided that you will not get the prices based upon time and material and equipment usage and utilities, etc. etc. I used to be a cost adjuster and priced what was sold at a large printing company and I had all the costs to figure and a profit margin to reach. Most of my items sold at craft shows takes me at least two hours on a average to cut and finish, which would put the price somewhere in the $40-$50 dollar range and have found I cannot sell most items at this price. I do sell portraits,however, in this price range, but, most of my work is priced in the $10.00 to $20.00 range and I usually sell around $300.00 at a one day show. At Christmas shows I run a little more because I sell a lot of ornaments. I live in a small rural area and have to keep my items affordable. If I sell enough to pay for materials and tools, then I am happy. To me, labor is no factor because I am retired and scrolling is my hobby. I had rather be at the saw than at the TV or golf course, etc, etc.

Tony,aka,Toneman





 

[EIEIO]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I see wisdom & experience in each response. It sounds like pre-made items sell at close to material cost or a few $$$/hour labor rate (competing with Chinese slave labor). Custom work might be at reasonable labor rates but will involve the hassle of finicky customers.

I'll let you know how the show goes.   

[newfie]

Travis over at scrollsaw village as an article on pricing work it may help you out in your decision.

http://www.scrollsawvillage.com/topic/5817-pricing-your-work/   

[ShadowB6]

I as well could have written a paragraph of what everyone else has already said. At shows I find pre-made items sell good. In particular religious items such as crosses or plaques. Stuff like portraits, of which I just got into recently, is much slower for me and has been more of word of mouth or they call later as I put out a lot of brochures at the shows. One thing I do know for sure is that I can't quit my day job and scroll full time. If I did that, I'd take quite a cut in pay. Though I've never figured it out in detail, I think that with the price structure I use, I probably make minimum wage scrolling after expenses are taken into account.  And I'm OK with that. At least it's not costing me money like it used to when I was giving everything away.

And like several others, I to am now registered with Square Trade and accept credit cards. I also accept cash and paypal. I actually had 2 customers put deposits down on portraits at the last show recently I was at because of my accepting credit cards. I do insist on a deposit before I start any custom work. When not involved in any project, I make personalized name tags which sell quite good at shows. I've built up an inventory of over 600 most common names and keep track of what names I have and which ones I need on an Excel spreadsheet. As I prepare for retirement, I'm enjoying my increased involvement in scrolling and the people I'm meeting at craft shows, flea markets and other venues. I pull a small motorcycle trailer behind my car and it sets up within minutes to display all of my stuff. I custom made a cabinet to hold over 2500 of the name tags I mentioned earlier. This insures that I usually have good sales at the shows.

No matter what EIEIO, I'm sure you'll enjoy the experience. I never thought I'd be in sales, even though for myself, but I sure am enjoying meeting all the new people.

Mike

[ToverT]

EIEIO,

I'm fairly new to scroll sawing and as you probably know i just did my first show a few weeks ago.  I have been doing small events selling my hiking sticks, custom hunting knives, wine stoppers, bird house, etc for a while now.

i just used the Square for the first time at my recent show.  It was GREAT!  One customer asked if I took Credit cards and when I said yes she said "That changes everything" and went on a shopping spree!  Thank you very much Square.  As Dan said it is free for the software and the device (even free shipping on the device)  The money was in my bank account the next day!  I got a smart phone just for that purpose.   T-Mobile has a No contract, unlimited phone, messsages and data for $50/month.  My first show paid for the space, the phone and the monthly fee for several months.  It was so worth it

Pricing:  Good luck with that!  I priced my stuff at what I thought it would sell for, not what I thought it was worth!  I only had one customer offer me less then what I priced it at.  It was a $40 item and he wanted it for $20.  I politely  said, "I can't do that"  One customer said my stuff was priced to low, but they didn't buy anything, but...."it was priced to low", go figure.  I didn't use any formula for the pricing...I just put what I thought was a fair price on it and went with that.

Display:  Mine is very simple and easy to set up/ tear down.  Two 6 foot tables with black fitted full lenght covers.  Two card tables with table cloths.  I used a few "covered Bump Ups" on my table to showcase some of my finer pieces.  It worked.  Looking at a table with everything laying flat is very boring.  My space was 20X21" and I had a 10X10 EZ up with a few chairs.  The space costs $75.00

During the show:  Like Dan said keep moving, don't be sitting down while customers are visiting your booth.  Engage in conversation, tell them about how you make the items.

Custom Orders:  I do not like to make custom orders.  My reasoning for that is, when someone buys something from my table, they buy it because they already like it, even if it has a few flaws.  No questions about the final product.  On a custom order when the product is finally delivered, the customer might not like the completed piece..."I thought it would be bigger, darker, lighter,  etc, etc, etc,"  Having said that, I took 4 custom orders at that show and I'm sorry I did.  I have them completed and ready to deliver, but I didn't enjoy making them and that took the fun out of my "hobby".

Overall:  Have fun, enjoy the day, you'll leave the show with a lessons learned for the next one.  Let us know how you did.  I have another show (the same one) the last Sunday of this month.

Tommy T