question: craft fair pricing

Hi Maren,

I looked at your website. Your pricing looks good there. How about using that as a starting point? I would use both $ .50 and whole dollars as selling points. You will know your market, the people represented who would possibly buy; go with this hunch when considering final markup.

Anyhow, I am certainly not an expert, but I hope my thoughts help.

CC

I agree that simple prices (round dollars or prices ending in 50 cents) are best. I just had a huge garage sale, and I noticed that for the some folks would select a second item to round out the $n.50 prices to even dollars because they didn't want to hassle with change, even though I had lots of quarters handy.

Good luck with your crafts fair, Maren!!!

I always price everything in whole dollars because I don't want to mess with change. I try to price things so if the customer gives me a $10 or a $20, he will get back some dollars. So, if something is priced at $9.00 or $19.00, 29.00, 35.00, 49.00, etc, psychologically they think "well, it's not $10, $20, etc. If in doubt, price higher, you can always come down (lots of people think craft fairs are like a flea market and try to negotiate a deal), but you can't price up. If I've had something in inventory for awhile, I always price it higher and it will sell. (I've tried pricing it lower & it just sits there). My uncle, who is a portrait artist, told me "if you don't value your work, you cannot expect anyone else to value it either." It's good advice. Good luck. Walk around the show and look at comparable pieces and prices, that will give you an idea of what your competition is doing. I've found there is a tremendous difference in mark-up from one craftsperson to another. Patti

this is the exact thing I was debating with myself. And then I didn't want to change the jewelry prices which are in whole dollars because I don't want to mess with change at the Farmer's market, but I still have to figure out the price for my clove jars and I didn't want to mix whole dollar prices with one item being priced at, say 5.95.

Good idea, didn't think of that, only thought in terms of nickels or pennyes.

Will think about raising some of the prices ...

I have read that tip here before. It has changed my outlook quite a bit. Not just for my jewelry, but for my other work as well. This is a very nice and helpful group!

I'll be largely by myself, not much of a chance at walking around, and they did assure me that they weren't going to have a lot of competition between craft fair venros - of course you still have to compete with the mall vendors, but while the stuff at Claire's or Hot Topic my look similar at first glance it is a whole different thing. There aren't going to be a whole lot of craft fair stands from what I was told (and 4 cruise ships in 3 days - the have a shuttle from the port to the mall).

I see that on some people's web sites ... I remember the last thread that discussed pricing. I went back to the person's web site later and found that she had upped her prices quite a bit (but still had plastic beads in some pieces).

Thanks to all who have replied so far!

(Still no idea whether I have to spend the next week making jewelry in any spare minute or whether I'm fine with what I have now)

Aloha,

Maren Tropical seeds - Job's Tears Jewelry - Plants & Lilikoi