What price would you pay?
By Kevin
@kevin1877uk (36987)
August 1, 2016 7:02pm CST
What price would you pay?
After finish knitting the cardigan in the photo for a friend of a friend and did it for next to nothing. I enjoyed doing because I love that kind of knitting. It also gives me another item to post in my Etsy store as a made to order item.
Ok what would the price be, to be fair I never know what really to put in my items I have in my Etsy store.
To give you some idea the yarn alone cost $34.80. The time to make, I’m not sure but the back is 188 rows long, I could knit 6 rows an hour maybe 8 at a push, at 8 row per hour that is 23.5 hour’s worth of work alone, so it would be same for the front although there are pockets to be made. So to do the front and back would take 2 full days. Sleeve about 12/16 hours each, then the border. This took me a few days to figure out. Then it needs to be sewn together and button added. I would say all in all around 80/85 hour’s work involved.
Now you can’t be paid by the hour, that would put the cost of the item beyond any one's pockets.
Do you have any ideas of what the price should be, it doesn’t matter what you say I won’t be offended in any way.
I do have price in mind but it would be interesting to see what you think it should be.
9 people like this
9 responses
@toniganzon (77223)
• Philippines
2 Aug 16
The cost of the yarn plus the labor cost...hmmmm if i were the one doing all the labor, I'd probably charge a very expensive price, so the cardigan would amount to a $100. Have no idea how much others would charge but I'd check out etsy and then try to give a competitive price.
2 people like this
@kevin1877uk (36987)
•
2 Aug 16
Thank you, Toni, I will be going with expensive myself. ON Etsy anything from $75 upwards of $500 and did see a few over $500.
@toniganzon (77223)
• Philippines
2 Aug 16
@kevin1877uk No idea how complicated the design would be. I think the more complicated, the more expensive it could get.
1 person likes this
@allen0187 (59828)
• Philippines
2 Aug 16
No idea about how much would this particular item cost but if I were you, I'd compared prices of similar items either at eBay or Etsy. That would give you an idea of how much you should charge for this cardigan.
1 person likes this
@allen0187 (59828)
• Philippines
2 Aug 16
@kevin1877uk ok.
If I were to price it though and I always over price, I'd say $100-$115 but I'd go as low as $85.
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@kevin1877uk (36987)
•
2 Aug 16
@allen0187 Thank you, are about right maybe $120 if not more seeing the amount of hours which went into it. If you were to go onto Etsy and look at the same Hand knitted you are looking between $75 - 500 and did see a few over $500.
1 person likes this
@kevin1877uk (36987)
•
2 Aug 16
Thank you, I have already done that and it's a very good idea to do, I just thought I would open it up to people here.
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@kevin1877uk (36987)
•
2 Aug 16
Thank you it really is nice and I love it so does the lady who it was for. The yarn alone cost $34.80
1 person likes this
@PatZAnthony (14749)
• Charlotte, North Carolina
20 Jan 17
@kevin1877uk Years ago someone told me handmade items should be sold for 31/2 times what it cost for the material to make it. That seemed fair then. But, now that I realize all the time I put into handmade items, that is not near enough.
1 person likes this
@kevin1877uk (36987)
•
20 Jan 17
@PatZAnthony True but that is a good beach mark however it all depends on many things involved. I would say I'ma fairly fast knitter, but if you are knitting a large project like the cardigan here with plenty of cabling work then that becomes much harder to price.
What people don't think about when buying handmade items is the time taken, they often think of manufacturing were items are made much quicker due to being made by machine.
@PatZAnthony (14749)
• Charlotte, North Carolina
19 Jan 17
So, now we want to know if you have been able to sell things such as these on Etsy for a price that was fair to you?
1 person likes this
@kevin1877uk (36987)
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19 Jan 17
I've not sold a cardigan like that in the photo on Etsy, however, I have sold a Doctor Who scarf, which is the largest item I've sold in terms of price per item, although not my biggest order I ever had.
1 person likes this
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
2 Aug 16
that is the problem with stuff like this, no one could pay what it is worth. Buying something that pretty in the store would at least be 50 (and nowhere near as nice), so maybe 100? I have no idea.
1 person likes this
@kevin1877uk (36987)
•
2 Aug 16
Yes, it really is a problem with items like that because of the time which they take to do. If you could knit one in a day then it would be different.
1 person likes this
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
2 Aug 16
@kevin1877uk or had a job where you could knit while you work, so the time was already paid, as it were
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@kevin1877uk (36987)
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2 Aug 16
That is why I use Etsy, people do buy good hand knitted items rather than mass produced items.
1 person likes this
@miniam (9151)
• Bern, Switzerland
2 Aug 16
@kevin1877uk
I have never bought an item on Etsy
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@kevin1877uk (36987)
•
2 Aug 16
@miniam There are some good items there, many are handmade, some which aren't and you can tell they aren't hand made. They made a mistake by let whole sales sell there a few years ago from what I've read.
@xstitcher (39045)
• Petaluma, California
13 Dec 16
I was thinking at least $100 -- of course, that's US money...
1 person likes this
@kevin1877uk (36987)
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14 Dec 16
Thank you, you will properly have seen the price in my store, it cost around $40 for the yarn and there are around 100 hours of work in making it.
@Hannihar (130150)
• Israel
21 Feb 18
I try and figure for me to make any kind of profit is to charge a price so I can make a profit. You put a lot of work into making it by hand and so I could not tell you a price. I hope you made a profit in what you charged the person for it. It is hard unless one has their own business for people to understand that we have to make something out of a sale too or we will go out of business. Pricing clothes would be hard for me. I remember when I worked at a Thrift Shop I really had trouble pricing things.
