Cards or originals, or both?
yapespaints.com
When you are a super creative person there is a whole lotta stuff you can make. If you are a painter you can create an original piece worth thousands, and still have your art features on bookmarks and greeting that cost a couple bucks. Or perhaps you are a ceramic artist who is commissioned to do custom work, but also sells buttons at 2 for $10. Is it a good idea to have such a broad range of price points? Well, that all depends.
I would say it all comes down to your goals as a creative entrepreneur. Also, what you enjoy creating. But, in my experience I think that being accessible a large range of customers can be very lucrative for an artist, especially when starting out. This is especially true when selling at events and shows like Make It! The Handmade Revolution. With thousands of people seeing your product, it can be very advantageous to have lower priced items that have broad appeal. Lower price point items are also a fantastic way to introduce new customers to your work. When someone sees your art for the first time they might pick up a pack of greeting cards for $25, but next time will be interested in a small original for $400!
Another cool thing about offering lower price point items is impulse POP (point of purchase for those who don’t know). You know the stuff that you see as you are buying something else and compulsively grab because it is oh-so-awesome and easy on the wallet?! This totally works for increasing your sales. If you have something cheap and cheerful that customers can grab with no afterthought, why not? These smaller sales can add up fast and plus you are getting your art into the world so it is win-win!
Some words of caution on lower price point products (nice alliteration!) They must be cost effective for you to make. Say you are a potter who can make cute lil ring holders that you sell for $10. They might fly off the shelves, but are they costing you $7 to make? Well, then you are spending a ton of time for that $3 (only $1.5 if you are wholesaling)! Make sure your impulse items are making you a nice chunk of profit. I go into great detail about pricing in my new Cha Chingle Bells course (pssst, you have one more week to preorder to get Etsy 101 for FREE!) because damn, the numbers will kill you if you are not careful! A quick rule of thumb, make sure you are making at least 100% markup at the very minimum. You are an artist and need to respect your time and talent, because if you don’t no one else will!
My favorite business advice is, do what feels right. If you hate cranking out things that you only can charge 20 bucks for and want to only focus on your masterpieces, do that! There is no right way of doing anything. This is a little bit scary, but totally liberating! Experiment, because if you do fail you are going to learn a whole lot.
Have any tips or ideas? Please share them in the comments below. Also make sure you ‘like’ this blog and share it with your friends. Plz and thx 🙂
Sparkly love,
Jenna
