In this video I'm giving you the exact steps that you need to take to make
sure your pricing your art prints correctly.
So you can stop undercharging start making a profit and start getting paid what you're worth.
Hi, my name is Mei Pak.
And I help makers artists
and designers make a consistent income from selling their handmade products online.
So in this video, we're just going to talk about art prints.
I'm going to have a totally separate video that talks about how to price original art
because it is a very different strategy now art prints are great.
Because once you've done the original artwork,
you can make as many prints as you like and sell them with minimal amount of work,
but it's the same factor that makes it difficult to calculate.
Wait how you should price it out right now before I even start talking
about the details of pricing your art prints
and figuring out what price works for your Market.
I just want to take a moment to remind you that while it is easy to say all you know,
it's easy and I'm just making a print of a piece of artwork.
It's really important to keep in mind that these prints are pieces of
art that took you a long time to make to get there
and even if that original piece didn't take you like 10
or 20 hours to make Make it took you your whole lifetime
or years of developing the skill set to be able to make this artwork come to life.
Right? So it's really important that you price your pieces
so that you're paid for all of this work and experience that goes into it the biggest mistake.
I see with small creative businesses is not pricing their pieces high enough
and then undervaluing their work now with any creative business.
There is a development cost involved.
This is even true for my business tiny hints.
I make polymer clay scented food jewelry
and I didn't just make a waffle necklace one day and have it completely perfect.
It took me a lot of effort to discover how I want it to sculpt the clay
and what formula I needed to use to get the scent.
Right and what colors to use
for the quays and so when you're pricing any piece of work that
you were selling it is important that this
initial development time is included in the calculation of the final price
because you will spend hours creating the initial work of Of art
before you produce the exact pieces you're selling
but this is why profit margin is important and that comes into play later in this video.
So there are two factors. You need to keep in mind
when you're deciding how to price your art prints.
The first is the cost and the second factor is the market first.
Let's talk about the cost. So initially,
I'm just going to talk about the cost of literally making the print
so you'll want to do your research here to find where you'll be having your prints produced.
Right? Are you making them yourself or are?
Going to use a print service. What materials are you going to use?
And how long does it take you to organize getting the printing done?
So let's say takes you five minutes to upload a file
or to load the inks in the type of paper you need to do the prince.
And then maybe you have to later cut the paper down to the correct size after printing then,
you know, all of that time you need to calculate in into your per item costs.
So this also includes the frames and the canvas and anything else that touches her.
Print and is included in the final production now.
Secondly, we want to talk about the market.
You want to spend quite a bit of time doing your market research here.
So look for similar types of pieces and look at what they're charging.
For example, if you're doing watercolor prints,
what are other watercolor prints priced at you want to compare apples to apples here?
So look at the materials, if you're making canvases then
what are other people printing on canvas charging if you've got a print size that 16 by Inches
then what are other people who are printing 16 by 20 inches
charging then write down those price points
and even write down while you're at it how many sales that shop has had so,
you know, what sizes and materials are
popular so you can decide
what options you definitely want to offer your customers
and what to leave out because they're not so popular sizing options.
For example, I recommend doing this step on
Etsy so that you can see all of this information easily and once you do all of this research,
you will We'll have two different numbers,
right you have a per item cost
and you have a rough idea from your market research about
what your style of art could be priced at now
what you need to do and this
is as much art as it is science is come up with a cost that takes into
account the cost per item the market research
and then the profit and this is very important.
So let's just say as an example every print that you make costs you $5.00 in material costs,
and you do a bit of research and you find that if you It in one kind of paper.
You can sell your print for $15.
So that's $10 over your literal materials cost.
Generally. It is a good idea to price your products at 224 times.
If not more the material costs.
So if you're able to sell your print at $10 great,
that's the bare minimum I would recommend to you.
But since you're seeing other people sell a similar print for $15,
you can decide if you want to be known as the more affordable option.
Pair to other shops and charge ten dollars
or whether you want to be known
as the shop that's higher end
because maybe you provide better service
or maybe you have more Authority in your space as an artist,
like maybe you have a lot of customers who are celebrities in which case you can
definitely charge more than four times your material costs.
And then of course you do also have the option to just charge $15 like everyone else.
So let's talk a little bit more about what the market will bear.
One thing that I've observed is you want to be At the higher end
of what the market will bear
and this is not only because you deserve to be paid
for your labor your skill
and you need to profit for your business to be successful
but a consumer perceives a high price as being an indicator of a higher quality product.
So if you go to a store and you see a pair of $30 shoes,
and then you see another pair
for a hundred and twenty dollars the average customer perceives the 120 dollar pair of
shoes as better quality.
Leti even if they're not isn't that interesting,
so in fact in the fashion
and makeup World many highbrow brands are producing the same
products with the same ingredients in the same Factory
as their lower price brand competitors,
but because of the higher price we perceive that as a higher quality,
even if it's not so keep this in mind
as you're pricing you don't necessarily want to compete on price with other people
and it won't serve your shop to be the bottom price in this scenario
because Opposite is true as well
and people might be thinking that there's something wrong with your product.
If it's priced too low it can make you seem less trustworthy.
Like, you know, it's too good to be true. Okay.
So let's say you're in this situation where your market
research reveals that you just can't price your art.
What you had hoped to earn based on
what you've observed one idea is to adjust the medium you're using right?
So for example, if you do a print on a tea towel that's going to be
valued at less than doing a print on a A canvas,
even if it's the same artwork because there's only so much someone would pay for a tea towel.
Right? And that is much less than someone will pay
for a piece of art that hangs on their wall in the same way.
She clay Fine Art print will be valued much more than something
printed on regular paper from your printer at home
or a canvas.
That's 6 feet wide might be something that you can charge a considerable amount
for because it will be a feature piece in someone's home compared to if you're only
doing so Our print on canvas right now.
Look at t-shirts t-shirts will sell
for far less than the canvas print
but you will also be able to sell more of them
because you have a larger audience willing to buy it if it makes sense
for your art to be on a t-shirt.
So all of these things are things you need to think about as you're determining final medium.
The last thing I want to touch on is branding you want to make sure
that once you've determined a price that you boost your branding
and marketing to ensure that your product is perceived.
And as worth the amount of money that you are charging
so you can have the most beautiful art in the world that's printed on the highest quality paper,
but it will not sell if you have a crummy website and really bad photos.
So make sure to go through the effort to make sure all of your marketing is at the same level
as the price that you want to charge for.