With the intention to sell some more products this year, and the new years’ resolution to step up and professionalise my designs, I also want to learn how to price a product properly. Therefore I start with a new series about how to price your product. I will collect and summarise all the information I can get. And how knows, maybe we’re all an expert at the end of the series… First of all, I want to discuss the materials with you.
Leather
Type of leather: Maybe, the biggest expense for the material part will be your leather. At my not-so-local leather shop, the price of leather differs per hide/type of leather. This means, whenever you make a ‘standard’ design the amount of leather might be the same but the costs of this leather might differ.
Amount of leather: When you are making your design you should definitely calculate the square cm’s or inches you will need. A sort of leathercraft rule is you will need about 10% more then your design actually is. This will be all the cutoffs and leftovers (practice scraps) in between your parts.
Quality of leather: not just the price will be determined by the leather but also how many blemishes you have on your hide. You probably don’t want to sell products with too many (or no) blemishes so you will have to check it in advance. Otherwise, you should choose between a better quality or a larger hide.
Thread
Once you have bought or calculated the leather into the price, you aren’t done yet. There might be some items on your shopping list you might forget to add… One of those items is the amount of thread. I always use Tiger thread because it flat woven and already waxed. But especially when you use, ‘Sajou Fil au Chinois’ you need to add this to your price. When we compare these two types, Tiger is about 0,06 euro/meter and the Sajou Fil au Chinois is about 0,13 euro/meter –> Twice the price. Depending on the size of your back and the amount of stitching you are prepared to do you might need for example 50 meter, that’s about 6,50 euro’s that you might just forget to add… These are the prices calculated with a full spool while it is even higher when you don’t buy a full spool at once.
Glue
Glue is just like the one above, something you might forget. It won’t be a large amount you pay for it, but if you are just a beginning seller you probably need every penny you spend. A middle size can of leather glue (or at least mine is) is about 35 euro per litre. You can glue a lot from a litre glue but nevertheless, it might be interesting to calculate the amount you use in a product.
Hardware
Luckily this one is a little bit more straightforward. You can exactly calculate the price for each item. Depending on whether you get them from aliexpress or from your local shop, 100 rivets might cost let’s say 6 euro. That’s 0,06 euros per rivet. Or another example, a magnetic lock is about 0,75 euro per piece. That’s not that hard to add up. The only thing is, if you don’t have them yet, you will have to pay the whole price. But sometimes you will have to invest a little.
Structural items
When you want to make a structured bag, your bag will be more expensive then others. Not just because of the stiffener but also because you have to do a lining. This will add up to the total price ofcourse. To give an example a sheet of 1 x 1.5 m will cost about 8-9 euro. A lining is about the same size of your other layer but the price depends on the material you will use.
Tools
I was not totally sure where to place this one. Because it isn’t actually material of your bag. But it is something you need to make your product. And it definitely has a price… So, for this part of the series, I will only tell you to add the price of the materials that will be wasted at the end. For example, I use a Stanly knife in most of my projects. The knives are breakable and easy to replace. But eventually, you will need to buy some new ones… noted on our list. 10 new blades are about 5 euros so, 0,05 euros per blade. But how many do you use in one project… It might be interesting to count once or twice.
At the end of series we will have all the costs clear in mind and will be able to define our prices, but for now, it is time to note everything down and check what we use while leathercrafting!! Hope, you will like this new series. But if you’ve got any questions or ideas, please let me know!
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