Alright, let’s see. In the last post about “how to price your product” I figured out you’ve got quite a lot of materials, you need to take into account when pricing your products. We’re not there yet, let’s continue with the next part of this mini-series, TIME.
Schedules
Time is something I am always short on. Somehow 24 hours are just too few to do everything I want to do in a day. Lately, I started to accept it and I am trying to figure out how long I think things will take, and how low it actually does. Cause apparently I am quite the optimist… You could be a hero in scheduling but if you just are scheduling too few hours for a project, you will never make it. So to improve my designing and professionalize my ‘craft-time’ little by little I started to clock myself. This way, I also get to know how many hours I actually spent on a project. This time should be taken in to account in your final price.
Designing with the Digital Bamboo design pad.
Design – Custom made or off the shelf
When you would write down the hours you spend on a project, you might forget the hours it took to make the design. It does make a difference if you make custom-made designs or you are planning to mass produce one design over and over again. So maybe I should be thinking of a formula or so to calculate the cost of either design.
Handmade or Machine made
As you have might experienced by now, it takes a lot of time to make a product by hand. But in my opinion, both have their charms. Making a product by hand is more exclusive, slow, might have a little bit less consistency (but investing time does improve your products), but sometimes add to the quality. A machine does have more consistency, is definitely quicker but does make it have a little less love, tender, and care in it. This sounds maybe very black and white but you could ofcourse also do a little bit of both. But one thing is clear, there is a big difference in the time it consumes. This is something you definitely need to take into account for your price and see if the customer is willing to pay for it and sees the advantages of the craftsmanship that just took a little bit more time.
Do you remember the bucket bag I made a while ago?
Extra time
And then? Well, once the design is made, the product is made there are a few more things you have to take into account. It will also take time to do your administrative work, sending parcels, getting your supplies, do some marketing. I suggest; clock your time or make an estimation per month, per week, per day or per product and make a fair price for your time.
What is your time worth?
Now we know how much hours we’re working but what are we worth? That is actually a good question… at the moment I just don’t know it yet. In most countries, there is a minimum wage, set per age. You could ask yourself, it this enough, are you worth more or do you need more?
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