Thursday, December 23, 2010

Business Overhaul Pending

This is kinda scary to start...

I've been selling for over 3 years, and it's made for a decently profitable hobby and easily pays for itself (which I can't say the same for many other hobbies). But, as a job it takes A LOT of time and I make well below minimum wage.

So, in January I want to start turning this into a more viable occupation.

The first step is to raise prices. There's something called "perceived value" where someone may perceive an item to be lower quality than it actually is if the price is low (and vice versa with a high value item). My chainmaille is worth a lot more than what I've been pricing it at and, in effect, I've shafted my sales because people perceive it to be cheap, low quality workmanship. One quote that has kept reminding me I need to change things was "I only buy earrings that are over $10. Anything lower and they're probably really low-quality. You should raise your prices."

The second is to start shipping internationally! A lot of you will be happy to hear about that. :D
I've been getting a few messages asking if I ship internationally, and so far I've only been able to respond with "I just haven't yet." Now seems like a great time to start...

The third and more time taking step is that I will slowly be changing photos of other items, and listing new varieties of items. I've already been working in some of the new items and pictures over the last couple of months, but now I need to speed up the process to cover EVERYTHING listed. Yeesh...

I've sort of wanted to do this for a while, but I've been a full-time student. Now that I'm done with my degree requirements, I'll only be taking a handful of classes for job skills and "personal enrichment", so I plan on dedicating most of my time to the chainmaille business.

1 comment:

  1. Wish the best of luck with your new plan. You products are outstanding.

    ReplyDelete