Pricing help needed ...

I can help with one thing.. the url doesnt work! You link tease. Diana

I dont know a thing about pricing but may I offer an oooh..and ahhhh over the hammered copper? Diana

Darn it, I couldn't get the link to work!

Well, anyway, I was going to say that *I* try to make about $30/hr (NOT VERY AMBITIOUS, I know!) after all's said and done, including the time I spend cleaning, listing, packing, shipping, and of course purchasing new materials. I feel that if, after all that, I still make $30/hr, about

Theoretically.

So that would make your cuffs worth about $90 to you. Next, try to find a similar product and see what it's selling for, to find out whether your $90 is reasonable for the market. Right now, I find that my $30/hr is a pipe dream, but I do have hopes for it picking up.

OOOH, i love the jasper necklaces. I sure wish i could help with the pricing as well...I'll be lurking around to see others' answers so that I can learn a thing or two.

I take it one must beat the copper into submission? Di

I fear that in most venues, even $10/hr may not be realistic for seed bead work...

But $30 is a lovely thought. From your mouth to the marketing gods' ears...

Deirdre

At least into work-hardenedness...

Deirdre

Thanks ...

I seem to be getting lots of positive feedback about the designs. I hope that means they are salable... at some price or another.

Deirdre

I keep saying that for me, copper is the 'real thing' instead of cheap, practice materials. I adore its sheen and color, and actually prefer the look to gold or silver in lots of settings.

Thank you, to everyone who has commented on the copper...

Deirdre

Thank you. I got the ocean jasper at a local gem faire in July, and have been drooling over it ever since. I love how -different- each individual bead can be, and yet still all be -one thing-, ocean jasper.

Deirdre

So do I. I did one of my daughter's 16th birthday presents in jasper and some stunning dicro lampwork. It was before I could do lampwork and it cost more than anything else on the necklace. It turned out so beautiful that I borrow it every once in a while. At least I'm paying her back for all the times she gets into my jewelry box.

Sounds entirely equitable to me :-)

Deirdre

That's why I don't sell any of my loom work. It takes hours and hours on the loom, not including coming up with the initial designs. They are for my pleasure only.

Me too! I also thought that copper necklace was wonderful.

As far as pricing goes, my *ideal* method is to add up the cost of my materials and the hourly rate for assembly (what you would pay someone else to do it, which is probably your $10 an hour figure), and double it. The rationale for this is the same as in retail, if you can't make 100% profit on an item, you probably shouldn't bother selling it. If you can sell items with the above formula, you could theoretically hire someone to assemble for you. Then if there was design time, I try to add a 15% profit over that. Sometimes this needs to be adjusted downward for the situation (when you compare your price / merchandise to the other stuff on the site, for instance. Or if the materials cost for an item is especially high, I'll sell them at cost to make the item more affordable.)

Thought you might be interested in a tip from the Reactive Metals catalog. They suggest shoe polish as an anti-tarnish coating for copper and brass! I've not tried it yet.

• TL *

OK, I'll bite ... what kind of shoe polish? I've heard of polishing with a 'hard' wax, like carnauba, and I did in fact use that on the necklace in question. But it was sold as car polish, not shoe polish...

Deirdre

This sounds like a very reasonable formula. Now all I need is a market in which it -works- .

Deirdre

Well ya know, it was just a little sidebar thing, not explained any more than that. If I find out any more, I'll let you know. They're just down the road from my mom's house, and I pick up an order there once in a while.

• TL *