Hard Decisions

Some times, as a business woman, you have to make decisions that are hard. For me, one of the hardest decisions is deciding how to price my items! That's been one of my biggest struggles since I started Rose Works Jewelry, and I have a feeling it will continue to be a process I struggle with. 

Fortunately, over the last year, I've come to a place where I'm fairly confident in the pricing of most of my pieces.  Most of my earrings and wire work are at prices that I'm comfortable with and that I think pretty accurately reflect my time invested and the materials used. What I have always struggled with, and continue to struggle with, is the price of my woven work.

When I first started out selling my bead weaving I priced it pretty low. A large part of that was a lack of confidence in my own work. It was also, though, a lack of knowledge of what else was out there, and what other people charged for similar work.  

Over time I have raised my prices some, but I've known from what I've read and what others have told me that my prices were still too low.  Let me give you an example. The piece pictured below, Amelia, is currently listed for $25. Now the cost fator going into is pretty small, seed beads are cheap, so that doesn't affect the end price too much. But how long do you think it took me to make? Any guesses? 

I don't know precisely, because I didn't track it, but a brick stitch piece like that usually takes me around 6 hours. And I'm only charging $25...that means that if I don't even count the cost of the beads I'm only making a little over $4/hr for my labor! This is not a sweat-shop and I think most would agree that my time is worth more than that.

Because of this, I'm going to be raising prices on my woven pieces. I'm still doing research and figuring things out, so it'll probably be a week before you see the changes, but if you've had your eye on any of my woven work, now is the time to buy it! 

I'll admit that I'm really nervous about making this change. In this economy it's scary to be raising my prices, but I don't want to undercut my fellow beadweavers. I also think it's time that I actually earn a little bit more of what my time is worth. 

There are a lot of resources out there that talk about pricing your work, but here's just two that I've recently looked at. Bead Nerd and Home Based Jewelry Business.

I want to say a big thanks to Smadar, she's not only an incredible bead weaver, she's also been kind enough to spend some time lately giving me advice on the pricing issue and other questions I've had about the beading world. Be sure to go check out her shop! The picture below is just one of her awesome pieces :)