How to Price Your Etsy Products

Confusion about fees and what should be charged for products is the only thing stopping most people from selling on Etsy. Deciding a good, fair price for your handmade product isn't as difficult as it seems, though. You just need to take it in steps.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Pencil
• Paper
• Calculator

1. Figure the Cost of Materials: The cost of materials is broken down by how much a thing costs, and how much you can create from that thing. If you purchase a ball of crochet thread for $5 and create 30 boxes from it, your cost of materials is .17 per box (5.00 divided by 30). This needs to be done for every material (not tool) you use.

2. Figure the Cost of Labor: How much are you worth per hour? Decide that, and then multiply or divide your hourly wage by how long it took you to make a single product. If your thread box took 1.5 hours and your hourly wage is $10, the cost of labor would be 15.00 ($10 X 1.5).

3. Figure Your Fees: Average out the fees you pay. Include Paypal fees and Etsy listing fees, but don't include shipping and handling unless you're going to promote your product as having "free shipping".

4. Figure Actual Cost: Using the numbers you've created, add the cost of materials and the cost of labor to figure what your actual cost per product is.

5. Figure Retail Price: Retail price is created by multiplying your actual cost times two.

6. Figure Etsy Price: The fair Etsy price of your product is figured by adding the retail price and your fees.

Tips & Warnings

• Create a simple chart that helps you perform each step with every product you make - as you make it - so you can save yourself time.
• This model won't work for wholesale. If you create for wholesale sales, discount your overall price because you're going to be selling a lot of items at once.
• More dangerous than over-charging on Etsy is undercharging. If you take pride in your work, you'll charge appropriately for it and Etsy customers expect it.

Resources

• In-depth guide to Pricing for Etsy

[Spyke2831]

on 6/25/2009 Great article. Very helpful.

[sunshineandrose]

on 3/28/2009 I have worked in retail and this is how it's done. very good article about itsy. I go there all the time. time for me to try selling. 5*

[AbbyNormal]

on 8/2/2008 Good article.