Not picking on you, Kandice. Yours is simply the last in this thread I've read.
You know, I have bought lots of sets of beads in the $25 to $35 range, that include 5 to 7 beads -- in boro, or pokes or raised dots. Heather Davis's Cameo roses beads are about $5 each. I have a set of poppies by Waimea Mist that was $60 for 5 sculptural flowers and 6 sculpted bud accent beads, plus spacers.
So I don't think $5 to $10 is outrageously low. Also, for beadmakers who do not have a following, it would be a really cool thing to have some reliable income.
How would it work out for everyone if it was a smallish focal bead - around $15-20 in value - and it didn't have to be the same bead for everyone? If $15/mo covered shipping, which lampworkers would do free, essentially instead of having to photograph and market the beads?
I would be completely up for a situation like that. I would thrive on it, in fact.
-Kalera
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Kandice Seeber wrote: > Right, but it would have to be all in one month. And depending on the cost, > it might be more than one bead per person. >
I think the way I was hoping for would be for subscribers to get affordable beads, and artists to get guaranteed sales. You make the beads and send them out; they're already paid for by the subscription.
Not to mention that the subscribers are signing up to pay for beads, sight unseen.
Another thought I had was that, instead of the artists each mailing their beads out to all the subscribers, they could mail them to one person who could be responsible for getting them out to the subscribers; i.e., you don't mail out 50 packs to 50 people, you mail one pack of 50 beads to one person.
Cheers, Carla
Kalera Stratt> How would it work out for everyone if it was a smallish focal bead -
Just thought about that some more and realized it probably wouldn't work. The cost to one person of mailing out all the beads would probably be higher than the cost of subscribing.
But then the person setting it up would need a cut of the pay to pay for shipping. Shipping out 50 different packages is a *lot* of work.
And as for guaranteed sales - many artists don't really need to worry about that. I've heard this as a point for wholesaling and it just doesn't fly for me. Maybe it does for other artists, though. This might be a good thing for artists who really need the sales or are having trouble getting their beads to sell in the venues they use.
I'm not trying to shoot down anyone's ideas - just trying to look at things realistically and from all points of view.
I think that the customer is reasonable to expect to get a little more for their money in trade for paying (a) up front and (b) sight unseen, and the artist, in exchange, is getting some sure sales with artistic freedom and with the work of marketing those beads eliminated since they're already sold.
However, Kandice, I think you have hit the nail on the head in that this would not be nearly as appealing an arrangement for someone who already has more full-priced work than s/he can handle! Which is a bummer, because I'd be more willing to take the "sight unseen" part if I already love the artist's body of work. But, then if I like the artist enough to buy without seeing, they're probably successful enough that this deal isn't appealing to them! Definitely something for me, as a potential subscriber, to consider. If the list o' artists isn't liberally sprinkled with my favs, it becomes a much bigger risk for me to subscribe.
Well, yes, beads in sets often work out to $5 or even less... but what would one do with a SINGLE $5 bead? As a collector, I want a focal from each artist... or, if I'm buying smaller beads, I want a set.
-Kalera
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Christ> Not picking on you, Kandice. Yours is simply the last in this thread I've > read. >
Price also depends on quality, technique, colors used, popularity and so many other things. You may not think that $5 or $10 is low, but I think you will be hard-pressed to find an artist who would agree with that. Why on earth would an artist want to absorb the cost of shipping out 50 separate beads for that little?? $5 would not cover the cost of shipping and time for one single bead, even if the bead were simple. It just wouldn't. $25-$35 for a set of 5-7 beads... You might find these on ebay or justbeads, which are *wholesale markets* to many, but it would be hard to find examples of this pricing on websites. And if such low priced sets exist, one needs to look at the factors which make the sets such a low price. Again - quality, technique, colors used, popularity of the artist or the type of beads, difficulty of the beads, etc., the venue where the beads are sold, etc.
All the artists joining in will have to agree to a price and to a type of bead that fits the price. That's going to be hard, I think.
I'm not trying to be a lampworking snob here. I'm being realistic. There's got to be something beneficial here for the artists as well as the subscribers. And no matter how you look at this, it is *still production work*. There's a deadline, a number of beads, a type of bead and a price point for the bead. There's a commitment. Some artists don't do this very well. Some artists love it.
LOL - a conundrum - yes, totally. :) And I agree with the part about the subscriber being able to get a little more for buying the beads sight unseen, and for paying up front. It's definitely a risk for them. That's why I think there is a happy medium that might work out for everyone. It's finding that happy medium that's interesting and might be difficult.
Personally, I would do this if the following happened:
The cost per person is $20-$35, with shipping included. The artist has total artistic license, with the knowledge that each person gets around the same caliber of beads, and that caliber was agreed upon beforehand. The subscribers have complete understanding about what they are paying for. The artists would facilitate that by stating in advance the quality of beads they would make in general. The artists would receive the money before shipping out the beads. I don't think I can go for the monthly payment thing, because I think the number of subscribers would change every month, and some artists would make more than others, not necessarily based on their own output. For instance, if artist A only has 30 people signed up for their month, and artist B has all 50 signed up, and they both got the same share of money for each month, artist B would be making more beads for less money. I hope that makes sense. I think subscribers will likely pick and choose a month based on which artist is signed up for that month, and some artists might have more demand than others. The amount of money needs to reflect that, otherwise it's not fair to the artists. This is based on what Starlia is saying in the WC thread about subscribers being able to sign up quarterly, monthly or yearly. If we only allow a yearly subscription, then there would be total commitment, and the artists would be able to split the cost evenly as originally stated.
One I would like to add is that a "___________ of the Month Club" usually connotates collectibles, which is also a selling point.
There have been threads on WetCanvas where people have posted their bead collections and it's very interesting to see the progression that artists have taken since the initial collecting. Some styles you won't see again from them! Some would really be worth something big.
I know when I followed polymer clay, our guild auctioned off some donated pieces from 'big names' in the medium and an older pin of CityZenCane went for $300! I can guarantee you that when they made that style pin, it was no where near that much. But bidders knew they wouldn't see it again.
I think this probably has a different slant now then when it was initially proposed as a way to collect artists beads. I'm thinking of it from the point of view as possibly being a participating artist as well as a collector and I'd like to make sure there is quality on both sides before I commit. I know if I were making a $5-$10 bead, plus knowing what shipping would be like, I probably wouldn't turn out my best quality work. (so I wouldn't do it). $5-$10/bead is below wholesale to about wholesale for one of my beads. You can collect my beads for that much on eBay, but eBay is not the price you would pay outright...it's what I use for advertising. You will also have to buy a whole set, not just one....unless someone is reselling them. :)
Maybe someone should do a poll to see what kind of interest is out there at different selling points?
I think Carla's original suggestion was aimed at new bead collectors/users, and thus indicated a lower price and lower expectations. Probably what I'd call an accent bead. This would not be my own preference.
On the other hand, if I pay $25 for focals, I want more control of what I buy. So this would not be my preference either.
I think for me, I'd want to know who the artists are, and then I'd want a moderately priced upgrade accent bead. Basically a small, simple focal.
The sort of thing you often find in a group of "orphans". Like the ones I got from Michelle Eilts. Or some I have from Mary Ann Williams (at $5 @). I have a set of 5 small red beads with black stringer and dots from Lori Greenberg. I have Jerri Roey's maze beads in turquoise at about that price per bead. Heather Davis beads at $5. Susan Burwash fauxpals at $6 @ for BIN. 9 Liz Johnston (Aristotle's Lantern) flowers, etc for $40. Mountain Morning beads. Nisha beads. These are all good beads from good artists.
I wouldn't realistically suggest $5 @ for these beads as onesies. But, if the point is to reach out to people newly interested in lampwork, $10, including postage is a very reasonable compensation for the artist. And it can be a way to get new customers for the more sophisticated beads.
And yes, these are eBay prices, but with the prepaid beads there are no retail costs -- for listing, photographing,rent, etc.
Ah, but if buyers get to sign up on a monthly basis depending on what artist is doing that particular month, then they're basically just buying a bead from that artist, rendering the bead-of-the-month-club moot. I think it would only work if people signed on for, say, 3-month minimums.
As for paying up front, I don't think people should expect more for doing that, because I for one have never seen a bead seller who offered E-Z Financing!
Buying sight-unseen, though, is a different story. A'la Rent-a-Tink, it eliminates all kinds of merchandising for the beadmaker, and so the buyer should definitely benefit from that.
Well, I don't know if the original intent for this was to keep new people interested - I think we have a lot of that already. Tina, $10 for a small focal or even an accent including shipping is way too low. And I am not the only one who thinks so. Shipping out one single bead for $10 is just, well, not worth it. And doing that 50 times is really not worth it. For me, it costs the same amount to ship one bead as it does to ship 20 to one person. I'm paying for packing materials, postal costs and time. You cannot compare sets to singles for this reason. If you're buying a set from someone, $5 to $10 per bead doesn't seem that unreasonable. But if you consider the increase in cost of shipping 20 beads to one person to
20 beads to 20 people, that's a huge difference. I know you are looking at things from a cosumer point of view, and that's fine, because I know you're not a lampworker. I don't think you are understanding the artist's point of view, though. And just because something is prices a certain way on auction, does not mean people can get that price elsewhere. Personally, the cost for listing on auction is very low, and the time it takes to ship a single bead to many people is way more than the time it takes to take pics of sets of beads. Even when people were ordering from me, I asked that they pay shipping on orders below $25. I absorb shipping on items above $25 because then shipping is pretty low. I will do this for $20 or more. But I will not do it for less than that. $10 is just out of the question for me. Just my own opinion - other artists may feel completely different, and I certainly understand that. Different stuff works for different people.
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