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Managing your customers expectations.

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Bryan Milham:
Okay, so it’s quite, I thought I’d ask a question that’s been bugging me for a while… How do you manage your customers’ expectations.

I was recently at a wood store and while sorting through one of the boxes for the Banksia Pods I wanted.  I got talking to someone beside me doing the same thing. It transpired that we were both intent on making the same item but he was pitching his price at £7, less than half what I charge. ???

Now I don’t want to debate the merits of underselling items, that’s been done to death. But how do you convince people that what you are charging is a fair and reasonable price.

For example, in the past I have paid upto £7 for a pod. So to sell it at £7 would be a loss, okay those I was sorting through were under £4. But all the same, I’ve found that if I tell people I’ve paid Up-To (I don’t admit what the current ones cost) they then consider my price acceptable. Economical with the truth, maybe. ::)

When selling face-to-face what methods do you have for proving your price is ‘Fair and Reasonable’? ;D

bodrighywood:
I work my charges out according to an hourly rate I pay myself, cost of materials (including finishes, abrasives etc) and at lest double it. As far as convincing people, if they want quality hand crafted work then they pay for it, if they want cheap imported work then they will probably go to a store or online anyway. Generally speaking i get few who argue the price. Those who charge the sort of rates that barely, if at all, cover cost of materials are doing those of us trying to earn a living no favours. A sore point with a lot of full time crafts people I'm afraid.

Pete

Les Symonds:
This could be interesting and I'm going to watch this thread very closely, just to see what pointers I can pick up to help me as I start out selling my 'output' from the workshop.

I can see that I'm going to have some difficulty setting a price on the bowls that I've made from the pieces of Thuya burr that I discovered in the job-lot of timber that I bought a few months ago. The blanks cost me £1 each, so I'd be daft to sell them for that, plus my labour costs. On the other hand, if I were to consider the replacement cost of these blanks I'd have to charge very high prices for the bowls, and as a new turner without any reputation established, I can hardly command such high prices. I guess that I'll have to set a realistic value on the pieces ....but goodness knows how I'll do that.

Another point, of some relevance to this thread....a friend of mine had a stall at a major event at National Trust venue; he makes and sells individual wooden toys, jig saws etc. Either side of him there were stalls selling equally high-quality items - one a woodturner, the other a portrait photographer. Sales at the event, over 2 days, were dire, to say the least, yet, across the aisle from him was a stall run by a bit of a 'chancer' who had placed orders with several local bakeries and purchased pies from them....fruit pies, savoury pies and a few other similar items. He grossed £1,000 by the morning of the second day, then packed up and went home because he'd sold out. He had no lead-in time involved in making stock, just a capital outlay on one day, which he covered more than adequately by the next day. I guess that this speaks volumes about the public, who can spend money to get into events like this so that they can marvel at the beautiful artefacts on sale, whilst munching a mass-produced pie from a stall that made no attempt to conceal the fact that they were mass-produced and sold under barely legal conditions... it also says much about the sort of person most of us are....could we be happy buying and selling pies instead of being creative?

Food for thought...ha ha!

Les

bodrighywood:
How long you have been turning is not as important as the quality of work that you produce. That is partly what customers are paying for. You can buy a wooden bowl in a supermarket for less than the blank costs but you will find it is made with laminated wood and often with inferior glue. Your cost should reflect the price of the wood if you need to replace it not how much it happened to cost you this time. If you are selling at craft fairs and the like people will be looking for bargains and expect cheaper prices. The price they pay is for handcrafted, usually unique items that are locally made friom sustainably sourced wood. (unless of course you mass produce everything the same from endangered trees LOL) Another selling point is that if anything goes wrong with the piece they can contact you and get the problem sorted, it does happen.

Pete

woodndesign:

There are always those who can and do make a living at Turning.. but it's not always Turning alone .. we all do other elements besides.

It's right as each of you look at it, it's more over the cost to replace, than the initial cost or being free and our time is far from free as well.

Pete sums it up the quality of work is the all important issue and that has been done before ..

The funny thing with this coming up, is I've only recently read an interesting post on Robin Wood's Blog, as it's for all too read, the link .. http://greenwood-carving.blogspot.co.uk/ ... at the time ..  Saturday, 15 June 2013 .. How to price craft work, business advice for craftspeople.... since then it's interesting on his bowl prices .. Electric is not an over head for him, other than his light ..  Pole Lathe .. where do you plug it in ..  :D ..  and a few look to be from spalted timber ..  Thank you Robin for your welcomed Blog.

Cheers   David

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