Thursday, April 8, 2010

Showing Your Prices


I was looking at a couple of websites yesterday, and saw some adorable bears that I might have been interested in purchasing. I say "might" because there were no prices. There was a similar message on each of the sites that indicated if you wanted more information on the pieces, you could click on the photos. Okay. Clicking on the photos gave me the size of the piece, the materials it was made of, etc. If you wanted to know the price, and cost for shipping, you had to send them a separate e-mail.

I've never understood this method of advertising your wares. Do they want to sell these bears or not? Why can't the price be displayed along with the rest of the information? I think it puts the person inquiring in a difficult position - especially after they find out they might not be able to afford the piece. Shipping may be exorbitant - especially if it's coming from another country. A number of years ago, I inquired about a piece that I had seen in a magazine. Very little information was given in the article about the piece, but I finally tracked down the artist and inquired about it. It turned out to be about 6" tall, which was much smaller than I had imagined. It was almost $400, which was much higher than I had ever imagined. After receiving the information, the artist contacted me a couple of times to see if I was interested in purchasing the piece. I could not see myself spending that much money on a single piece, yet had to figure out how to politely decline after inquiring. Fortunately, a friend asked me if I had seen the piece, and I relayed the info about it on to her. She purchased it, and I was off the hook.

I have often wondered if the hesitation to list prices was because of the different currencies from various countries. That shouldn't be a problem, because there are converters at your fingertips on the internet.

I am one of those people that like to know from the beginning whether or not I would be able to purchase a bear or not. Why not just put the price out there to begin with? I know that pricing our own work is a very difficult thing to do, but it's part of being in business. If I had to inquire about the price of each item of food or clothing in a store, we'd never eat again, and I'd always be in the same outfit. I'm just not going to ask. If you want to sell your wares, boost up your confidence, be proud of your work, and price it. The only place you should have to ask how much something costs is at a garage sale. Artist bears do not fit into that category.

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