You Can Raise Your Prices If…

{Personal Image}

In the most recent class posted to ARTrepreneur, April gives an overview of product pricing –  definitely everyone’s favorite business topic!* I found the bit about determining if you should raise your prices – beyond the basic reasons – to be most interesting and useful.

The basics of pricing your products, as you know, include covering the cost of materials, your time and experience, etc.  This basic cost-cover number is the lowest you should price your item – but please don’t undersell yourself! You are probably charging enough to cover all costs and a little bit, right? Or maybe you have a formula you are following?

Take a look at your prices as they are right now.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself if you are thinking about or wondering if you should raise the price of your items:

• Have you increased the item price in the past year?
• Do you pay yourself a fair hourly wage?
• Are you under pricing in order to compete with other sellers who sell the same type of work you do?
• Have you learned any new skills that you apply to your work that give you an edge?
• Do you package your item in such a way that makes it more valuable?
• Has your business gained more recognition and “social proof”?

If you answered yes to any of these and your prices don’t reflect these factors, you should consider raising your prices!

So, if you’ve packaged your products so that your customer feels like they are opening a gift when they get it in the mail – your price can be higher. If you learned new skills that many of your competitors don’t know or if you’ve been practicing your craft for a long time – you can raise your price. If your work has been featured in magazines, on blogs, or endorsed by a big name more than a handful of times – you can raise your prices.

Another things to remember  – people make snap judgments based on the price of an item.  People make assumptions about the quality, reliability and prestige of an item based on its price. What sort of message are you sending about your items with your prices? Should you raise your prices?

*Not really.

About the Author: Hello! I’m Danielle, the President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, Administrative Assistant and summer intern and blog updater at The Merriweather Council. I enjoy sipping iced lattes, listening to boy band music, watching crime solving TV shows and putting things in hoops. I am often covered in little bits of thread and fabric but, well, ‘I want it that way’ 😉