Name Your Price

I went to the Arts Council Juried Art Salon last night and was amazed (not surprised though) at the diversity of price of the art in the show. For what seemed to be similar pieces to me (an untrained eye, but definitely a consumer of art) prices ranged from $210-$4,000. Wow!

Pricing is one of the most common questions I get asked by artists (next to where do I get money :-) ). And pricing your art is a challenge for sure. Here are somethings to consider when trying to price your art:

1. Cost of materials
2. Cost of running the business (advertising, rent, website)
3. Time into the piece
4. Time on training this far to be able to create this piece
5. And yes, personal attachment does come into play (I had a good example of this the other day. I had a very rare piece of orange beach glass with a star etched in it, I sold it within 48hrs of posting it to my website, but felt remorse right after).

Now that you've taken all that into consideration you piece is probably worth $50,000 right? Well, you have at least 2 other things to consider:

1. Competitors price
2. Market demand (what are consumers willing to pay for this)

The last thing to consider is the concept of premium pricing. When I first started selling my jewellery I priced things very low because for the 4 considerations where very low so I didn't think I could price them higher. As time went on I started to integrate higher pricing based on the last two consideration and WOW what a difference, sales increased by 40% and I made more profit on each piece. If premium pricing didn't work, Starbucks wouldn't still be in business!