Pricing Hand-Crafted Goods

I made a search this evening on some items that I'd like to include in my next Etsy Treasury. One of the items is in a friend's shop. Once before, I noticed that I felt she had way under-priced a special item. I got one of these from her a while back, and I felt back then that she should charge more. I mentioned it to her tonight, and encouraged her to raise her price, which she did.

She was worried that nobody would pay the higher price. I feel that she shouldn't make one of these unless she gets compensated well enough.

These days, it's easy to compare prices of a product. On Etsy, for example, a simple search of similar items shows what others are charging and getting. It's easy enough to see where something I've made fits into with the quality of others like it. I look at quality and workmanship and materials. All three issues are important.

On some items, I have lowered a price in the past because it is easy to make, material-cost is very low, and the quality is reasonably good considering the other factors.

On other items, a search showed me that I am putting far more work into an item than others in the price-range I've been using. In that case, I increase my price.

In my friend's case, there are over a dozen pieces to be crocheted, and then joined in a particular way. It is time-intensive, it is labor-intensive, and I'm glad she realized that.

Not every crafter sells what they make. Still, I've rarely known any crafter who has not at least once bought a booth at a local church bazaar, or had a friend ask them if they'd make something special for them and they were willing to pay. In both of these cases, a crafter owes it to themselves to do a price comparison online. Anyone reading this post obviously has online access and can do this. Hopefully, they will find a happy solution to the age-old question of what to charge.