Help with pricing

Re: Help with pricing

Mike Schwing from Md.

>The only rule I have in this situation is that if the wood I'm using to make the bowl came from that person's property, I go half price of what I'd think I would sell it for otherwise. That would be for one or two items max though.

Decide what dollar figure makes you comfortable. That figure for me is different if I know the person vs. a stranger. Time and materials rarely works out for hobbyists, so don't try to figure it out that way. I figure at a labor rate of $0.35/hr my bowls would have to cost about 10 million dollars each to break even.

Re: Help with pricing

Richard Allen

>As a starting point I figure diameter times height rounded up to the nearest $5. To that I add the fair market value of a square hunk of wood that the bowl could have come from.

If I add decoration then I add to the price.

Since they provided the wood and the bowl is plane then I would charge the diameter times the height. Actualy at least half the fair market value of wood is in the processing and drying of wood so I would fine with adding half the fair market value of the wood to the price.

Good Luck

Richard

Re: Help with pricing

Sam Simpson

>Hi Y'all,

Roger, this isn't so much a pricing dilemma as it is an ethical and moral dilemma. A price too low and your earlier gift is diluted. A price too high and it looks like you are trying to make up lost ground.

A solution is to have several articles made up and offer the wife the option to choose from items previously priced at retail.

How much is retail? Well, only you can answer that. But you should arrive at it in the absence of the current dilemma.

Regards Sam Simpson.

Re: Help with pricing

Chuck Ludwigsen

>I'm with you on both points, Mike.

Whether it is bowls or pens, if they give me the wood, it is half price if that is all I can get from it. If they give me enough to make that and a good number of other things, then the first 1 or 2 are free. Nothing like cheap advertising.

Regarding pricing, I just upped my minimum price on a bowl since I can turn a pen in 1/10th the time (including prep/sand/finish) and can sell it for between $25 and $45. I'm almost up to $2 per hour on the bowls now.

Chuck

Re: Help with pricing

Dave Shombert

>Roger,

I would agree with the others that the wife deserves a discount on a couple of bowls, since they provided the wood. Beyond a couple, you're entitled to charge "full price". As someone else pointed out, all of that is independent of what the full price should be.

One thing you can do to establish a price is this: if there's someplace near you - a gallery, a craft shop, whatever - that sells turned bowls (not mass produced, things turned by an individual turner), look at the prices of that work and decide if yours is as good as that. Maybe it's better. In any case, use that to establish a sort of baseline for your own work.

When you see a bowl for sale in a craft gallery at a certain price, chances are that price is more or less what the market will bear. And in the end, that's the bottom line. It's worth what someone will pay for it.

Dave Shombert

Elkins, WV

Re: Help with pricing

Chuck Ludwigsen

>Having not sold a LOT of bowls but enough to consider my pricing, I stopped pricing based on size.

I did that for the first few that people bought, until I was asked to make a square bowl that was smaller than some of my other bowls. I quoted a price based on the size with a slight mark-up for the additional requirement of a square bowl.

But when I actually finished it, I realized I had substantially more hours in it than many larger pieces. So I started pricing by complexity and value/cost of the wood. Categories are not precise, but something like (a) bowl - open form, (b) bowl - semi closed form, (c) bowl - natural edge, square, or other variation requiring extra care when turning/sanding/finishing, (d) hollowform, (e) multi-wood project. If I collected the wood and feel I can replenish it, then the bowl is priced based on the category complexity. If I have to buy a blank to satisfy a special request, I will add that price to the complexity.

Still learning and figuring out what is both acceptable to me for my time and acceptable to them for purchase.

Chuck