Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Soft Stitch Markers

This is the set I passed around:
Soft Stitch Markers

Here's all the sets I've made so far, minus one set loaned to Ram Wools for consideration:
Soft Stitch Markers
(They thought minimum wage was too much too.)

1. What outrageous price do you think I was asking? (Remember there's retail mark-up on top of what would make me minimum wage.)

2. What price would you think acceptable if you saw these in your LYS? Etsy? (If those two amounts are different, why?)

5 comments:

sara said...

I've paid over $10 for markers before...and those were beaded ones (which I assume do not take as much time as yours.) THose are lovely and I would expect to pay about $12 for them.

noricum said...

Thank you! I actually bought the beads already made from WoollyFabulous, who has perfected mass-producing them from recycled sweaters. However, in order to construct each marker in a sturdy manner involves threading a needle at least four times.

Bethany said...

I'm the wrong person to ask, since I don't buy fancy stitch markers!

However, it IS very hard to get minimum wage off of hand-crafted items. As far as I can tell doing so means tailoring what you make and how long you spend making them to what people want to buy and how much they want to pay for them.

Also, you *might* get a better price on Etsy, since in that case the retail markup goes to YOU and not to the yarn shop.

Or you might not... it looks like beaded stitch markers go for $4-$9 on Etsy in general. (I realize these probably take longer to make than the beaded markers, but that may or may not translate into people being willing to pay more for them.)

Knittah said...

These are adorable, and I love the card with your sheepy! Very cute product.

Seems like there are two issues - the cost of buying the beads from someone else, and the labor of turning them into stitch markers. Retailers generally like to buy at least 50% off suggested retail price. That means if someone would pay $12 for the markers, a store would not pay more than $6.

I'm not sure how much I would pay for them if I saw them in a shop, just because I can't tell from the photo how big they are, the construction, etc. But they are super super cute, and if I saw them in the store I would look very closely!

Deneen said...

Go with etsy and try it!