You’ve spent days, weeks, months, conjuring up those great ideas, and then meticulously making replicas of your products. Finally, everything’s branded, packaged, ready-to-go, and it’s almost time to get in touch with stores to see if they’d be interested in carrying your stuff.

WAIT. There’s one thing you should do before you start spreading the word about your new stationery line. DECIDE ON YOUR RETAIL PRICE.

Yes, it’s tricky. But here are some pointers to make it a bit easier:

1) Take a look at what’s already out there. Do some thorough research on how products similar to yours (in terms of style, material, method, size) are selling, and what the price range on those items is. You should set a retail price (the price it sells for) somewhere within that range. [To make this research a bit easier, I’ve compiled a list of online boutique shops that carry stationery by independent designers.]

2) Calculate the cost of materials for each item. If you’re a little mathematically-challenged (like me), you might want to take out your calculator. Add up the price of all the materials you used to make your products. If you had a printshop do some work for you, add in how much they charged you. If you had to rent a studio to work in (e.g. for letterpress or silkscreening), add in that fee. Divide the material total by the number of items you were able to make from them. That’s the material cost per item.

3) Think about how much time and energy you put into making each item. For example, you would charge more for your time if you’re cutting, gluing and pasting a design onto each card than if you were screenprinting them. You’ll have to look at how other stationery items that are currently on the market, that are made in a similar way to yours, are priced.

4) Your retail price would be the sum (total) of your material cost per item + cost of your time per item + a little bit extra (hopefully a teeny profit). Also, keep in mind that if you plan on having stores carry your items and selling them for you, what you actually get to keep is only approximately 50%, yes half, of the retail price.

Don’t think that just because you’re a newbie in the field of stationery design that you should charge less for your products. Your work speaks for itself, and people who want to buy your things could care less whether this is your first line, or if you’ve been churning out stationery for years. They’ll pay based on the quality and craftmanship that goes into your work. So set your price, and stick to it.

Why am I making such a big deal about this? When I first started showing my stuff to stores, I didn’t have a set retail price. I only offered a price range, so some storeowners chose the lowest numbers (which meant I was making almost nothing after the 50% cut)and some were willing to try the higher. Luckily, the higher pricepoints worked. Then I found myself having to run around negotiating price adjustments so that I could have a uniform retail price in every store that carries my products. It’s such a hassle, and I’m so thankful that the storeowners I’ve worked with have been so understanding about it. But if I’d known from the beginning how to go about things, I wouldn’t have caused so much inconvenience for myself and for them.  For me, it really has been all about learning from my mistakes. Hopefully, those of you who read will be able to go about it much better than I did. Good luck!

July 25th, 2006