As the song says ……. it’s a rich mans world!!!
Joking aside unfortunately I have had to do a price increase effective today……it’s been 2 years since my last price increase, and I don’t enjoy doing them, but needs must.
It’s a tricky decision when I sell a product that’s a non-essential and most of us are feeling the pinch, but most of my costs have also increased, so there we have it. In fact rising costs and prices for artists is a tricky subject, and always fraught with guilt when we finally take the plunge and increase those prices.
I thought I’d give you a little insight to how it works though:
Obviously there’s the cost of materials, packaging, overheads like postage, stall costs, commission fees ( up to 50% when work sells through a shop or gallery…..bet that surprised a lot of you), and don’t forget the taxman….. etc etc
BUT and this is the big but that often goes unnoticed for makers…. is the cost of my time.
It’s very rare for a maker to actually pay themselves a wage – I know I don’t. If you did pay yourself a wage for the time you spent actually making the item you were selling – what does that do to the cost of that item…..well unsurprisingly it’s often way way higher that the cost of the materials, even if you only value your time at minimum wage.
And surely the years of experience and time spent learning your craft qualifies for more than minimum wage…?
And there’s the next dilemma – what is my time actually worth? it was very easy as an employee to work out how much I would get paid per hour, but as a self employed maker…..I work way longer hours and get paid a whole lot less. And that’s ok – that’s what I choose and I am genuinely contented….. but my time is still worth something…..I hope you agree!
Well that was a long winded way to tell you my prices have increased!! If you’re quick you may still make some old prices at some of my stockists as I need to send them new price labels…….but it won’t be long!