How much do we charge?

custom made furniture thats not something extraordinary is a tough sell.
People are polluted by sales pitches that theyve heard for years, why pay more for this when we the superstore will get you the same thingfor 60% less.

We live in a world where people who go in to buy a car, ask first if the car has cupholders and how many CDs can their player hold, not a question about the engine or how the body is put together.

People, not all people, but the average consumer assumes if they buy a piece of furniture from a decent chain, Lets say an Ethan Allen type place, they are getting a quality built piece, and its likely true, but try to explain to them there might be a spline joint instead of a perfect hand made MT joint, its unimportant to them unless they appreciate the quality of workmanship, and are hiring a craftsman to build them a piece like that.

No easy answer, and in a very weak economy, its just that much tougher when dealing with average consumers.
 
I'm interested in you guys that are getting a price for that chest over $2000. If you can find a market for that rate, good for you, but unless you've made that jump from furniture maker to artist, I think those rates are getting somewhat unrealistic. You have to stay within what the market will bear!
 
I'm interested in you guys that are getting a price for that chest over $2000. If you can find a market for that rate, good for you, but unless you've made that jump from furniture maker to artist, I think those rates are getting somewhat unrealistic. You have to stay within what the market will bear!

That right there nails it, and if you are like Steve Ash, and get $30 an hour for building houses, why would you want to build blanket chests for $10 an hour :huh: :dunno:

The bottom line is that neither Larry nor Steve would be doing this as their primary source of income, so they should build them for fun, but not profit, or they should ask top dollar and build heirloom quality. If a potential customer balks at the price, then you don't have to build anything :D

Steve Ash said:
I just built a simple box 12x15x36 with a piano hinge and two hasps, all made out of ash. Figured I needed $160.00 for it, wife thought it was high, but customer was more than satisfied and wants something else built..... so what one may think is a lot, may really not be

In my experience, the wife is the WORST person to ask the value of your work. When you get something for free, or nearly free (meaning no money changes hands) you value it a LOT less than if you are paying for it.

Case in point, my lovely wife was shocked that someone would pay, and gladly pay $50 for one of my basic Mount Blanc style of pens that I turn, she would not pay that much for a pen, but then again, she gets them for free :D

:wave:
 
...You have to stay within what the market will bear!
Very true, in my limited experience. A hollow form priced at $350 does me no good if nobody is willing to spend that much on a hollow form. I'd rather have it move at $200, even if it means I'm undervaluing my hours. Keep in mind, though, that I'm not trying to do this as a sole income, and the $200 is still a healthy markup from my out-of-pocket expenses.
...Case in point, my lovely wife was shocked that someone would pay, and gladly pay $50 for one of my basic Mount Blanc style of pens that I turn, she would not pay that much for a pen, but then again, she gets them for free :D...
I wouldn't buy a $50 pen either, but I'd be glad to sell one to somebody. :p I recently had a case where a good friend fell in love with a hollow form I had for sale -- one of my favorite pieces -- but in the end decided that she couldn't afford my price. (And she didn't try to talk me down in price...she agree that it was worth my asking price.) She felt bad and a bit embarrassed about the whole situation, and I reassured her that I fully understood. I wouldn't spend that much on a hollow form myself. ;)
 
I'm interested in you guys that are getting a price for that chest over $2000. If you can find a market for that rate, good for you, but unless you've made that jump from furniture maker to artist, I think those rates are getting somewhat unrealistic. You have to stay within what the market will bear!

I completely agree Ed - what the market will bear is the only true determinant of price. But - the market is a two sided beast. If the "cost" of making an item to the seller is $2000 (real cost - all the factors included) but the maximum that any purchaser will pay is $1000 then there is not a market. The price is basically telling us that nobody values that item sufficiently for the scarce resources available to be expended on it. The seller would be better off applying his time and skill to something that does have a market

I have never said that I would get $2000 for the chest. I have said that I wouldn't build it as a one off commisioned piece for much less than that and if nobody was going to commision it from me it would therefore not get built.
 
Ok Thinking that most of you have the shop rate way to low. My shop cost around 60k to build (if I had it done). there is another lets say 30k in tools in there. On top of that you have the power bill, heat bill,phone bill, tax bill, repairs, and up keep. Oops don't forget the insurance bill, and the jing for uncle Sam.
Now if you stop by your local car dealer or welding shop I would bet you will find that the shop rate is between $65.00 and $110.00. Right where any woodworking shop should be. Most will say but my shop is in my garage so it doesn't cost me any thing. Ok tear that garage down and see just how much money you save in a years time.:eek:
So if Larry"s project has a bill of $200.00 for the materials and he worked 30 hours in the shop at lets say $75.00 that would be $2,250.00. Now there needs to be some mark up on materials say 20% so that makes the hole thing $2,470.00:dunno:
Shop rates very on where you are but if the car dealer is getting $110.00 you shouldn't be far behind. There shop equipment is not any more expansive than ours.


This says it all exactly as it should be said.

John
 
You have to stay within what the market will bear!

With respect Ed, I have to disagree. I believe that staying within a market without testing the boundaries of the market simply perpetuates that market. The only way to make the market better is to push it.

I understand that sometimes pushing a market is hard to do, and I also understand that local economic situations tend to make a person think that the market is at its price limit, but... I also understand that if the market is such that you absolutely cannot charge a wage that allows for a decent life style, then the market has collapsed and we'd better find something else to do, and... if even one other tradesman (of any kind) in an economic area is charging substantially more than the others and is doing well, then "the others" are not charging enough. In other words, if your auto mechanic is charging $75/hr, then good woodworkers are also worth $75/hr.

just my opinion

cheers

John
 
the difference is, we are not auto mechanics(funny, I put the word we, well, the craftsmen here),
People cannot live without their cars, and the average person knows little to nothing about it.
They pay because they cant live without their cars.

Hand crafted furniture, its a different game.
When something can be imported or made by huge factories that look similar, differences are overlooked due to pricing.
A cedar chest in Walmart might sell for 199 dollars, a nice looking 4 foot chest.
It would be a very, very tough sale unless you have an established market to convince your average consumer your one of a kind piece, although similar in size and looks, is worth 10 times that amount since you put in all those shop hours.
There is a market for hand crafted home made one of akind pieces, but its a very, very small market. If you dont have it, youre not going to get what you want. You will sit on a piece until your shop is overcrowded.

I purchased my few bedroom pieces from a guy that built custom made to order sets. I ordered maple with cherry trim.
Dresser, platform, makeup table, and it wasnt that expensive, simple furniture design. But I wanted my say and my hand in picking the wood, the trim and the style, so I paid a bit more than a wood set at a furniture outlet.
When I went back to buy my kid furniture a few years later, they were gone. Out of business. And so out here on the east coast, many of these small shops have since closed. People just wont pay the extra price for custom. There is a market, but unless youre in that specific market, there arent going to be enough customers to sustain your business.
 
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Well, I'll jump back in here and toss some wine into the discussion.

Wine is a better analogy than a car mechanic, because both the wine and the handcrafted wooden blanket chest are luxury items. A really good, well made example of each is worth the money to people who can afford them, and appreciate them. :thumb:

Most of the wine I sell is in the $10 to $25 range, but I do sell a lot of the $50 to $100 bottles, and a few above that level, even well above that level.

I have good customers that a "daily wine" is in the $10+ range, and some that the daily wine is in the $30+ range, it depends on their income etc.

one guy that comes often buys a good dozen bottles at a time, his lower limit is $100 a bottle, and for him, this is his regular wine, yes he is rich, and a good customer, that knows the value (to him) off good wine.

We have a few sushi shops here that do not have the price listed for the menu, if you have to ask how much it costs, you are in the wrong place :D

I think that if a real craftsman were to make a blanket chest like Larry shows, that is top drawer, then he should be able to find a market for his work, there are people who are truly rich, and those people are not affected by the yearly swings in the economy.

When I lived in Vancouver, I was quite in to bicycles, mountain bikes etc. I knew some friends of mine who raced and did well, we hung out some days at this bicycle shop that specialized in hand built Italian racing bikes. One time, we were talking about business etc with the son of the owner, and one of the guys asked him how sales were with the lousy economy...? The son replied that they sell 3 or 4 good bikes a month when the economy is bad, and about 3 to 4 good bikes a month when the economy is doing well :huh: :dunno: When it comes to $5000 plus hand built racing bikes, I guess you either have the money to buy one, or you do not.

I very much agree that you should not be pricing your hard work with the kids asking "Would you like fries with that....?" :D

Cheers!
 
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The price of anything is what somebody will pay for it.

A skilled auto mechanic has about the same level of technical ability as a skilled cabinet maker. The comparison of the value of their hourly work has validity. If you want an skilled mechanic to repair your production run motor car then you should pay a similar amount to having a cabinet maker build you a "production run" type of furniture piece. So my guess is that kitchen cabinets are charged out at roughly comparitive hourly costs. At least there or thereabouts.

If you want to commission somebody to build you a one of a kind motor vehicle from scratch then you are probably going to employ a more highly competent engineer and would expect the cost to be considerably higher both per hour and overall in the number of hours required.

Relatively few people building one of a kind furniture pieces ever build a piece like Larry has shown. To be honest, it has too many close analogs which are available at production run prices and therefore the majority of people do not choose to spend the money necessary to make it worthwhile for somebody to build it as a one off. One of a kind pieces tend to be more complex, more ornate, more "designed" or more idiosyncratic. Those kind of items do not have direct analogs in mass produced items and therefore buyers with a desire for them are obliged to seek sellers with the ability to make them and those sellers, if they are to make a living, have to learn how to price for all of the costs involved in their work. If Larry were planning on selling 100 of these blanket chests a year then he could probably fairly easily get it to the point where $400ish would be a reasonable reward for his effort - economies of scale.

The other consideration is that sometimes the cost of something and its provenance is a very important part of its value. People who wait years and pay large sums of money for a Maloof chair do it in part because you have to wait years and pay large sums of money for a maloof chair. The chair is little different as a sitting experience from production run chairs sold at much lower prices but those chairs don't have any Maloofness about them. If you want to sell one off items very similar to production run equivalents then you need to add at least some Maloofness to them.
 
mr ablett, I agree with you 100%, I never said he should or be forced to sell his creations at anything less than what he feels its worth.
But in the exact thread of your remarks about wine customers, if someone knows and appreciates what they are getting, due to intelligence, individual tastes, whatever, its their money, and if they have it, they will spend it.
Its a market that keeps many small store owners in business.
If that chest is available to people in this select type of market, ones that appreciate hand crafted wood creations, people that understand the care and hours put into that, they will pay if they have the means.

Im only trying to state, its a hard market to find, the average person is not in that market, and even the over average spenders today have watched their dollar shrink shrink shrink, so if they were into the handcrafted things 5 years ago, financial concerns will be a determining factor when making a purchase of a 2000 dollar blanket chest. Not all, but then again, this area of the market.
Id hardly believe the people earning 100K a year together, as a couple, with kids, mortgage, are going to spend 2000 on a blanket chest, although Im not saying it isnt worth every penny, Im just saying weak economic times call for more belt tigthening, and the upper middle class who might have purchased this product a year ago, might not be so easily convinced or interested anymore.
I agree there are still those that money is not an object in their decision making, and until one finds those people as customers, hand crafted goods at true value pricing is a tough sell.(I personally would admire a maloof chair on display, study it, look at something I know is a one of a kind, but in my financial world, I would not be purchasing it,
 
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Mr. Levine, I was not countering you, or arguing with you, I hope you did not take my post as directed towards you, or anyone else, I was just adding some thoughts to the conversation. :wave:

I'd certainly not pay 2K for blanket chest :D
 
There are many markets and it depends on what market you have access to.

An example that comes to my mind is the Maloof rocker. There are quite a few people making Maloof's design that sell them in the $3000~$5000 range,
but Sam has access to a market that will pay $20,000~$30,000 for his chair. There has to be value beyond the actual piece to get that market.

Some of the first pieces I built I wasn't able to charge top rate, because I lacked skills and lacked havinig my name established. Now I have developed some (only some:eek:) skills and I have several customers that will vouch for the type of work I do and can therefore charge a higher rate.


Looks like I have restated some of what has just been posted!
 
People cannot live without their cars, and the average person knows little to nothing about it.
They pay because they cant live without their cars.

Hand crafted furniture, its a different game.

The problem with this analogy is that we don't pay the mechanic to BUILD the car --- few of us could afford a car if we did. ;)

I'd certainly not pay 2K for blanket chest :D

Me neither. I suspect that this is one of the reason that many of us woodworkers have trouble the first few times that we consider actually pricing/selling something: We're all basically cheap! :rofl:
(when it comes to woodworking of course. We all build it ourselves!) :D

So I'm grateful when the more experienced woodworking marketers among us share their hard-earned wisdom.
 
I'd certainly not pay 2K for blanket chest :D

Neither would I - but then I wouldn't ever pay $100 for a bottle of wine. The first one is because I (and most people here) are too close to the implementation model, we know too well what is involved and apply our own judgement of how difficult the process is. The second is because I try and make my living as a woodworker and to survive while doing that you have to learn to be a cheapskate!:)
 
I couldn't but add my two cents on all this post.

So to start with, I'm an amateur and I do not have any idea of how much should I charge for a piece BUT... I know that if I were going to be a professional, the target market I would like to sell my pieces would be the high end market that would be willing to pay 2K for a blanket chest.
(Another story is how to reach that point)

Why, because at least here in Spain mass produced furniture is everywhere,ranging from very cheap pieces to not so cheap or expensive ones.
So to compete with those would be futile.

In Valencia there are one or two small companies that build ultra high end furniture and their customers are basically from the emirates, whith that all is said.

My yearly income is not high, but to be honest I find myself sometimes buying things that 15 or 20 years ago when my wages were quite low I would have said: "I'm not going to pay that much for such a thing i.e. a pair of shoes" and today I buy them, and I'm pretty sure that most of you are in the same situation as well.

Here we have a saying " Don't ever say I will never drink from that water" if one day I can afford paying 5K for a piece of furniture with the same indiference that today I buy a ticket for the cinema, most problably I'll buy it ( if I like it and want to have it)

If we try to be objective and not judge things only from our own prisma things look somewhat different. Don't they?

Theme for another thread would be "How do we market our pieces" instead of how much we should charge for them. When Sam Maloof started, his prices were not like today were they?

To me, one of the most expensive things is a cup of coffe in a bar and for sure we drink at last one a day and we even invite our work pals. Think about that and compare what is needed to make a cup of coffe and a hand made chair and compare both prices.
The chair is for sure cheaper, so when we say something is expensive, the question is "in relation to what".

If a woodworker charges the same price for one of his chairs that the furniture shop next door charges for a mass produced one, he will go broke for sure or just make a fair living out of it, nothing wrong with that, we all need to eat everyday don't we? But...

Gosh! this has been more than two cents, sorry to bore you guys:(
 
Not boring at all, Toni. For my morning coffee, I take grounds from a can, put them into the filter on the coffee maker, fill up the water tank. I do this the night before so I can set the timer so the coffee is made when my alarm goes off. A pretty ordinary cup of coffee.

Now, my afternoon coffee when I get home from the day job, on the other hand, is made from beans that I grind at the time, and is made a single cup at a time with a little steamed milk to go in it.

The morning coffee I gulp down to get my eyes opened while the afternoon cup is to be savored while relaxing comfortably for a few minutes before I get after what ever I'm doing in the shop or what ever else. Wouldn't give up either of them.

I prefer to do the woodworking like that afternoon coffee. But there are times when the other kind is what needs to be done. That afternoon coffee is certainly worth more for the pleasure it brings, but the other gets its intended job done. While striving to break into that afternoon coffee market, one might need to make a lot of ordinary cups of coffee and the challenge becomes not starving while getting into that other market.

Just like the morning coffee, I don't think you can make it doing one cup at a time.
 
thanks toni!

for showing us the other side of the worlds point of view. this was started to get some idea of what the general regime is to get to a price and then how to sell the price to the customer.. but way back on the burners i was looking to see what the elders thought and to let the family as whole to see the story behind the scenes if they hadn't in already them selfs,, kinda like warning them about the quick sand or the briar patch that we are or could be entering into. the old adjudge of the grass looks greener over there isn't Green at all and may be quit bitter.. i had already decide that to drink my coffee slow like jerry said, and if i need to i will drink some rough stuff to get woke up but the good stuff is what life is about. :thumb:
 
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