How much to charge?

pollarddadid

Delibes

I found this on Etsy: £1 to £1.50 it seems.

etsy.me/2zHaz30

Great. I completely agree with this. I do the same with my store cyberpunkclothing to get the good sales by reducing the prices and this strategy really helped me .

Etsy is very good store like cyberpunkclothing.net/

Delibes

I found this on Etsy: £1 to £1.50 it seems.

etsy.me/2zHaz30

Great. I completely agree with this. I do the same with my store cyberpunkclothing to get the good sales by reducing the prices and this strategy really helped me .

At my Gdd's fair on Saturday there were a few craft stalls which people had paid to set up.

Must say I thought that some of the things, although perfectly nice, were very expensive for what they were - decorations made out of a flat piece of crochet, nothing added, so no stuffing or fiddly sewing together of various bits.

I did buy some, but couldn't help noticing that by the end of the fair, very few had sold, though TBH I wasn't surprised, given the prices.

My own (comparatively few) things were sited well away from the 'paying' stalls, so I trust nobody was put out because mine were a good bit cheaper.

For such an event (a pre school Christmas Fair) I wouldn't even think of charging for my time, elegran and the materials cost very little. The point of such an event (apart from fundraising) is that it's meant to be fun for the children, and obviously the staff/organisers want things to sell, or it wouldn't be a fair at all.

Making things to sell for one's own profit at a craft fair would be a different matter altogether.

I think the questuion of whether to include at least a little for the time you spend is answered by the sentence in the original post "I'm hoping to help raise lots at a charity event on Dec 1st."

If there will be a lot of "outsiders" at a public event who are nothing to do with the charity you are fundraising for, the starting price you put on items is the maximum that you think they will sell for, but are ready to reduce it at half-time if sales are disappointing.

If it is a school event, and you want to benefit the buyers as well as the school, you set the price a bit lower.

Just bear it in mind that if you buy materials worth £40 and spend every evening for a fortnight turning them into five nice things, then put them on sale at £7.00 each, you have made £35 for your charity, at a cost of £40 and a lot of work - when you could have handed over all £40 in the first place.

I don't know what Gdd's pre school will charge for my little fairies, elves and snowmen (snowpeople??!) tree decorations, but I hope it will be cheap enough - I'd have thought no more than about £2 - £2.50 - to see them all sold. I doubt that many of the parents will have a lot of spare cash.

They are willingly given donations, so I don't count my time or the relatively small cost of the materials. In the past I have helped at a school fair where one or two of the senior organisers have insisted on factoring in the time taken to make the items, with the result that they did seem expensive, and not long before the end, quite a few were still unsold - what on earth is the point of that, when it's a fundraiser?

In this particular case they were mostly sewn or knitted clothes for Barbies.
In the end I and my friend on the stall said, 'Stuff it' - we would take whatever the children had - far better IMO than having them languishing unsold.

Guess what everyone I know will be getting at Christmas if they don't sell??!!
Any leftovers gratefully received on GN!
I can swap for spare yarn

I bought some FR with knitted Xmas puddings for £1 each last year.

www.craftfairsuk.com/craft-calculator.aspx

I use this tool

So £1 is a reasonable amount, 75p is a bit low, 50p is definitely too low and three for £1 is giving them away!

For the past few years, a friend and I have made FR hats, for our Church Christmas Fair.
We sold them for £1.00 each, and they are very popular, even having people putting in orders before the Fair, to use as decorations on their Christmas lunch tables

For the chosen charity the OP may feel she is donating her time not charging the going rate for it.

It is ethically problematic when "hobby" crafters/bakers sell products (for profit or charity...irrelevant) without charging for the makers time.

It makes it difficult for others to charge a reasonable price for comparable crafts/bakes

That is her choice, gmelon, but it does mean that she has given that time to the buyer, not to the charity. The charity doesn't benefit from her freely given time unless what it would have cost is added to the cost of the item.

If she gives her time as a volunteer, working in a charity shop, say, or driving for a charity, then they benefit by not having to pay an employed worker, but if she spends the time making things without adding a bit to the cost of raw materials, it is the person who buys something very cheaply who gets the bargain.

For the chosen charity the OP may feel she is donating her time not charging the going rate for it.
From past experience that's usually the scenario.

No less than: (Min wage × hrs it took) + price of materials

Do a costing of how much they really cost to make, or would have cost if you had to go out and buy all the materials new. at shop prices. Then time how long it takes you to make them (If you do them on a "conveyor belt" system, then make a batch and divide the time it takes to find how long for each, and work out how many you can make in an hour) and add enough for the minimum wage, which at the moment is £7.83 an hour for over-25s. (If you were doing this as a manufacturer, you would then add on the costs of overheads - which people who are making crafts for pin money often forget about - rent, heat, insurance and so on)

Don't under-price your work! People don't actually value the things they get very cheaply, and remember that your objective is to raise money for the charity, not to provide ultra-cheap stocking fillers for buyers. If they don't sell fast enough at your costing, you can always reduce the price, or quote a cheaper price to children obviously buying presents.

If you are not getting enough for things to cover the cost of the materials plus something extra for the (valuable) time you are spending on them, you would be better to not make anything but just hand over what you would have spent on all the bits and pieces. Not so much fun, though.

If it was for a school I'd end up giving them away to the kids to give their Mummy for Christmas!
In that case you can charge a bit more than I suggested!

Although I think that children do love to spend 'their' money buying Christmas presents at school fairs (helps the school too)

Thank you all! These are for a charity fund raiser, not a school thing. If it was for a school I'd end up giving them away to the kids to give their Mummy for Christmas!
FlexibleFriend I just sit and knit in the evenings while DH sleeps after a hard day at work, so it gives me something to do rather than get irrationally angry at him leaving me "alone" every evening mon-fri. Costing hasn't entered my head tbh - I'd make a poor business woman!
Delibes I think you could be right, I'll start high and can always go down.
Jalima thank you, I did buy some chocolate oranges for 75p from Tesco about a month ago but need more so will nip out tomorrow to pick some up while they're at £1.
Guess what everyone I know will be getting at Christmas if they don't sell??!!

Sniffing the FR, that's made me giggle.
I get where you're coming from.

and morrisons!

Have you bought the chocolate oranges yet?
Tesco have a half price offer on
www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/293749766

so you could make a bigger profit on those (£2.50 each?)

Is this for a school fair where children may be buying their Christmas presents? If so, perhaps £1.50 to £2 could be a bit much.

I do appreciate how much work goes into these projects, but better to sell all of them in packs of 3 for, say, £1, than have some left.

It's really hard to price handknitted items whether it's a choc topper, baby clothes, hats and scarves or a sweater. It very much depends on your market and the area it's in.

I'd start at a single FR for £1, the trios for £2.50 and £3.00 for the choc orange (assuming you are buying the orange on offer at £1) - more yarn more chocolate.

If sales are poor you can always reduce your prices.

Firstly do you know what it's cost to produce each item ?
So individual price of the chocolates, the cost of cellophane and the wool. Not forgetting your time. Your prices seem more than reasonable to me. Doesn't a chocolate orange cost around £2 unless on special offer?

Thanks Delibes, I always forget about looking on places like Etsy. I was thinking of asking 50p and was worried it might be too much! I've put groups of 3 FR in cupcake cases and used that stiff sort of cellophane to make little gifts which I think I'll ask £2 for, and maybe 75p each for individual FR. Maybe £2 for the chocolate oranges. Just thinking to myself really!!!