How to Price Dovetailed Drawer Boxes

Dove tailing is a woodworking technique to attach different pieces of wood together.

When pricing your wood products for sale, there are three considerations to take into account. The cost of the raw materials, the cost for your labor and utilities to keep your woodworking shop open and running and the profit you want to make. The third item, pricing for profit is the difficult part to factor in. In addition to wanting to earn a good profit, you also need to consider what the market is willing to pay for your work.

Instructions

1. Determine the amount of lumber, amount of glue and other materials that were used in building the dovetail drawers. Barring any major mistakes where you had to dispose of the wood and start from scratch again, the dollar amount you come up can be used as your base price for materials for this type of drawer in the future.

2. Add up the number of hours you invested in making these drawers. When you determined your hourly shop rate you should have included the costs for keeping the lights on and running your business. As with the material costs, when you determine the number of hours it takes to produce these drawers this will be the labor component for similar drawers in the future.

3. Add the materials cost and the labor cost together then determine the profit margin you want to earn. If your materials and labor costs add up to $100 then that is the minimum you need to sell them for so you do not lose money. If you want to earn a 30 per cent profit then you will need to sell the drawers for $130. Any amount less and you are eating in your profit margin. Provided that $130 is a reasonable price for the type of drawers and for your level of craftsmanship then you should be able to sell them for that price.

References

• TheWoodWhisperer: Pricing your Work