# Pricing?



## Maine Dubbah (Feb 20, 2012)

So how do y'all price? I've been pricing light to make sales but its bit me in the as$ on certain items ( matching sets of bowls). Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are...


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## duncsuss (Aug 21, 2009)

I'm not trying to make a living at this, so I ask substantial prices and don't care if nothing sells.

I'd rather be known as "the guy who makes really nice bowls and pens when you need a special gift" than "the guy who sells cheap wood stuff".

Whenever I go with the turning club to Marshfield Fair or Topsfield Fair, it's the items I deliberately price high (because I really want to keep them) which sell first.


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## mickferd (Nov 30, 2012)

Maine Dubbah said:


> So how do y'all price? I've been pricing light to make sales but its bit me in the as$ on certain items ( matching sets of bowls). Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are...


I generally charge $30 for either a pencil or pen. $60 do a set. A little more if the kits are high priced.


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## Horatio (Apr 4, 2012)

duncsuss said:


> I'm not trying to make a living at this, so I ask substantial prices and don't care if nothing sells.
> 
> I'd rather be known as "the guy who makes really nice bowls and pens when you need a special gift" than "the guy who sells cheap wood stuff".
> 
> Whenever I go with the turning club to Marshfield Fair or Topsfield Fair, it's the items I deliberately price high (because I really want to keep them) which sell first.


Heh, except your stuff is REALLY exceptional and ought to command a pretty high price. 

I would suggest researching places like eBay and Etsy and looking for similar work as your best bet. A bowl is not necessarily a bowl. There's a vast difference for something one of the experienced and skilled artists who post here and something that I make, for example.


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## JDMeek2020 (Dec 7, 2012)

*newbie*

i may be a newbie but I think region dictates proce as well... I am a newbie when it comes to turing but I think I have a keen eye for detail and art(i did work for a high end woodworking shop for a bit) I looked online for comparable prices but since most were able to avoid shipping I was able to price a bit higher than others...just because I was new a turning wine stoppers didn't mean my time was less valuable and they were in all that i have heard..great quality and better than the pics presented-- I charged $25/ stopper (this was with top of line Ruth Niles stoppers and regardles to whether I used exotic blanks or slef made scrap blanks) btw///I sold out this X-Mas season and made a nice chunk of change for my new bathroom re-do  good luck from a newbie!


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## duncsuss (Aug 21, 2009)

Horatio said:


> Heh, except your stuff is REALLY exceptional and ought to command a pretty high price.


Thanks -- I'm flattered, but honestly don't believe that's true. I got lucky a couple of times, but still come nowhere near what I see others create.

Etsy and eBay prices seem to be all over the place. I can't see how some people can even cover their costs -- kit, blanks, consumables (glue, sandpaper, finishes, bushings, paper towels, latex gloves), and utilities -- let alone make enough to put towards buying a new tool once in a while.


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## DaveTTC (May 25, 2012)

I agree with Duncsuss. 

Pens for example - I sell a second for $25, my most expensive sold for $175. I believe a second of mine are better than some others out there. Some guys sell there pens for $10 or $15. Admittedly I find the quality of these ones rather poor but sadly others see these and if not pointed out fail to see the difference at 1st glance between quality and not. 

There is a good amount of work in something that has been turned well. If you have good grain or timber features on top it all helps demand a better price. 

My advice is don't sell yourself to cheap. It is easy to come down in price, hard to go up. I have even sold reject bowls for $20 or $25. Tried explaining they were not for sale but people wanted them so I let them go. Normally I like to start around $50 for a bowl but this was experimental stuff that had massive shrinkage and cracks.

Dave The Turning Cowboy


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## TomC (Oct 27, 2008)

I was looking for some design ideas for pepper mills on the net. I found a site selling turned pepper mills in the 250 dollar range. I have seen many here that looked as good. Maybe it's just me but I would never pay anything like that for a pepper mill, nor would I pay $175 for a pen. It's not that I am cheap but I have other priorities for my money; tools and more tools!
Tom


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## DaveTTC (May 25, 2012)

TomC said:


> I was looking for some design ideas for pepper mills on the net. I found a site selling turned pepper mills in the 250 dollar range. I have seen many here that looked as good. Maybe it's just me but I would never pay anything like that for a pepper mill, nor would I pay $175 for a pen. It's not that I am cheap but I have other priorities for my money; tools and more tools!
> Tom


I agree with you, so does my wife. She always says "how can you sell it for that much? You would never pay that if you were buying one."

End of the day it is a matter of what some will pay and if you can target those persons.

Dave The Turning Cowboy


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## TomC (Oct 27, 2008)

DaveTTC said:


> I agree with you, so does my wife. She always says "how can you sell it for that much? You would never pay that if you were buying one."
> 
> End of the day it is a matter of what some will pay and if you can target those persons.
> 
> Dave The Turning Cowboy


Dave, I agree with you. If I could sell pepper mills for greater than $200 I would be in the shop 16 a day. If someone is willing to pay a high price I see no problem, I just have other priorities.
Tom


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## Maine Dubbah (Feb 20, 2012)

I thank you all for your feedback! I was in my first craft fair just before Christmas and needed to make money to finance Christmas for my family so I went low. All have made good points. I guess the bottom line is to size up your audience and hope to price accordingly. I hate charging too much money and always have. I should try to start though...


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## Maine Dubbah (Feb 20, 2012)

And what is too much? For me $20 may be too much. For someone else $200 may be too much.


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## sprior (Aug 31, 2008)

I don't know about you guys, but it takes me WAY longer to make a bowl than a pen, so if you're charging $30 for a pen (I'm charging lots more than that) I can't see charging less than 3-5x that much for a bowl, unless you're getting damn fast at turning and finishing them.


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## DaveTTC (May 25, 2012)

sprior said:


> I don't know about you guys, but it takes me WAY longer to make a bowl than a pen, so if you're charging $30 for a pen (I'm charging lots more than that) I can't see charging less than 3-5x that much for a bowl, unless you're getting damn fast at turning and finishing them.


Pens take me 20 to 30 minutes per piece depending on beads and profile (I turn very few straight pens). This time includes machine drilling and gluing blanks, turn sand finish and finally assemble. 

I have not been able to do a bowl in under 2 hours yet

Dave The Turning Cowboy


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## sprior (Aug 31, 2008)

20-30 minutes??? I'm a lot slower. I don't really like the drilling, gluing, and trimming part and probably take longer than necessary and am generally not doing more than one or two at a time, but just those steps probably take me a half hour - I drill the blanks using a jacobs chuck in the tailstock of my lathe. Turning the pen to shape is pretty fast (and done entirely with a skew), maybe 5 minutes for wood, 10 for plastic. Then for wood I use a CA finish, probably at least 5 coats, often more, then sanding through 400 grit and the first (sanding) half of micromesh. At that point I'll inspect and maybe a third of the time I'll be unhappy with how the CA is going and will sand it down, add more layers of CA and go back up into micromesh again. Then once I've finally got a finish I can approve of I'll keep going through the rest of the micromesh, plastic polish, and then assemble. On a good day that's probably 90 minutes per pen, but I'm sure I've had some go to 2 hours. And then I clean up my shop to the point where you couldn't tell that I had EVER turned a pen, so add another 10 minutes there. Plastic takes me longer to turn than wood, but because I'm not dealing with the CA finish it ends up being faster overall. Here is a picture of 3 pens I turned a couple of days ago for my mother to give as presents which I tried to roll out pretty quickly. I haven't even thought about selling a bowl yet because I couldn't possibly charge enough to make that many hours worth it, but I've turned a lot more pens than bowls so I'm still learning more on bowls.


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## DaveTTC (May 25, 2012)

You might like to try shellawax 

It is a friction finish which can be applied in a few minutes. I cut 20 or more blanks of each species and will glue up at least that many blanks at a time. When I get to turning I usually turn 10 to 20 at a time. 

Done individually it can easy take 1 or 2 hrs to do a pen. How someone turns around and sells it for $10 I don't know. 

Your pens look great btw. 

I have not done many acrylics and have never finished with CA. It does look to give a slightly glossier finish than what I use. I have posted some of my pens some where, don't have a pic handy ATM to show you one

Dave The Turning Cowboy


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## sprior (Aug 31, 2008)

I started out using friction finishes for wooden pens, but didn't like how they got dull over time, so I switched to turning plastic pens while I practiced doing a CA finish which is far more durable and keeps the high gloss I like.

Thanks for the compliment on the pens.

I'm also not trying to turn 10's of pens at a time, in fact I'm a little burned out on pens right now having made about 10 of them for the holiday season - trying to do production turning can take all the fun out of a perfectly good hobby.


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## DaveTTC (May 25, 2012)

sprior said:


> I started out using friction finishes for wooden pens, but didn't like how they got dull over time, so I switched to turning plastic pens while I practiced doing a CA finish which is far more durable and keeps the high gloss I like.
> 
> Thanks for the compliment on the pens.
> 
> I'm also not trying to turn 10's of pens at a time, in fact I'm a little burned out on pens right now having made about 10 of them for the holiday season - trying to do production turning can take all the fun out of a perfectly good hobby.


Fortunately I enjoy it and competing against myself I also find fun. My goal is to be a full time turner.

Dave The Turning Cowboy


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## Horatio (Apr 4, 2012)

Pens take more set up and prep than a bowl...at least more tools. You can chuck a bowl blank in and go. You'll likely be turning alot more but by the time you cut, drill, assemble, turn, assemble again, there's some time involved. If you don't have a drill press, a barrel trimmer/powerful bench sander, or use pre cut blanks/have a good working saw....well, a pen just got alot more complicated. 

The bottom line is that this is art. So much of selling art is who you know. Look at the entertainment world....people will buy crap. So how much a particular item sells for does not necessarily correlate to quality. In some ways, a huge price tag conveys prestige and style regardless of the item its self but you have to be pretty brave and confident, and, well, a bit of a jerk to pull it off. 

Its a good laugh to cruise something like ETSY and see the absurdity of some artists. I saw a chair bodged together with drift wood from a lake that looked awful and the person was asking $1200 for it! How does one justify that? Well, she was an 'artiste'! and she made it in her organic/holistic Santa Fe studio. Will she sell something like that? I don't know but I do know people have sold giant canvasses that are white with a big red circle on it ....modern art. 

/shrug


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## RusDemka (Jun 9, 2012)

Horatio said:


> Pens take more set up and prep than a bowl...at least more tools. You can chuck a bowl blank in and go. You'll likely be turning alot more but by the time you cut, drill, assemble, turn, assemble again, there's some time involved. If you don't have a drill press, a barrel trimmer/powerful bench sander, or use pre cut blanks/have a good working saw....well, a pen just got alot more complicated.
> 
> The bottom line is that this is art. So much of selling art is who you know. Look at the entertainment world....people will buy crap. So how much a particular item sells for does not necessarily correlate to quality. In some ways, a huge price tag conveys prestige and style regardless of the item its self but you have to be pretty brave and confident, and, well, a bit of a jerk to pull it off.
> 
> ...


Agreed, I have some people that buy pens from me just because someone else said good things about the pen they purchased from me, regardless of price, they care about the quality and the recommendation you get from others, at first I started lower than what I thought, and now pens sell that I didn't think would.


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## RusDemka (Jun 9, 2012)

RusDemka said:


> Agreed, I have some people that buy pens from me just because someone else said good things about the pen they purchased from me, regardless of price, they care about the quality and the recommendation you get from others, at first I started lower than what I thought, and now pens sell that I didn't think would.


I figured out a formula I was comfortable with and stick to it. Your not going to make a living on it, but sure enough to get deeper into turning that's for sure Haha


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## blaineo (Dec 29, 2012)

I agree with all thats been said....ive been looking at Etsy and Ebay, and even paying attention to some local handcrafters when i see them, and just try to match or a bit less the prices...seems to help...just pay attention to whats being sold around you!


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## prestonbill (Oct 27, 2010)

Pricing can be a very hard thing to come up with. I have had people buy my pens and not quibble a bit about price and then I have people say that I am to high. Such is life. I have a formula that I use for the general public that is 3 times the price of materials including a dollar for consumables. The most I have ever charged for a pen was $180.00 for a statesman Jr using blackash burl. I had to do a lot of research for doing this pen because I was matching a knife handle a collector had. He wanted a matching pen for some reason but who are we to ask why. To a person I know I will sell a cheap kit pen for 15 but retail it would be minimum 20. The knife collector had number one of 200 hand made knives and this is the pen he got and loves.


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## Foresta Design (Dec 26, 2011)

Beautiful pen but $180? Man I have to get away from slimlines.


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## DaveTTC (May 25, 2012)

Foresta Design said:


> Beautiful pen but $180? Man I have to get away from slimlines.


I sold a slim line for $175

Dave The Turning Cowboy


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## DaveTTC (May 25, 2012)

DaveTTC said:


> Ok guys this should be a link to MY PENS
> 
> The first two are the expensive ones, the rest ranged from $35 - $69. I can't remember what each one sold for.
> 
> Dave The Turning Cowboy


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## prestonbill (Oct 27, 2010)

Foresta Design said:


> Beautiful pen but $180? Man I have to get away from slimlines.


When I said I did research I got a hold of the knife maker and found what he used and he gave me the name of the guy he got the burl from. I called him and I was on my way. This took me hours of research and I don't work for nothing. Minimum wage maybe but not for nothing. He didn't blink an eye when I said 180.


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## Brian T. (Dec 19, 2012)

The bottom line is to look at some of the purchases of "art" made by the National Gallery of Canada. Faced with that, what can I say?

I was chasing the cash when I painted in watercolor. $50/sq ft and they went as fast as I could slop them together. Stretch 10 sheets early PM. Do skies in early AM at home. Hit the site at noon. If I bombed one, I'd make a ferocious thunderstorm out of it. Sold 2 right off the boards while people watched me do it. 

Wood carvings: no where near the cost for the time. But, I'll call them $10/inch long dimension. You like it? We measure it. $10/inch. I have a few that I have been working on. If they turn out as I hope and imagine, I'm asking $15.


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