Quantity discounts on your work

[John Van Domelen]

I have an email from a guy that wants quantity pricing on one of the items I make and normally sell for 16 - 18 dollars each. He wants 40 of them for wedding favors.

Got me to thinking - do you guys give quantity discounts for large orders - if so - how much - assuming very little cost in actual material (the items are small)?

Thanxs

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[cmeyer]

I do discounts on pens and other small turnings. I would rather sell them to a retailer than have them on commission some where. Depending on commission I actually get a better price for my product at discount some of the time.

 

[Brodie Brickey]

The items you're turning, do they take a lot of time? Or are they quick? Will you still make money on the deal? Can you look at part of this discount as advertising?

I do discount for volume purchases, but I am reselling a manufactured item. If someone wanted 20 turned mugs or bowls, I'd have to figure my time into the equation since they take time to produce.

When my father sold his paintings, he sometimes discounted for multiple purchases. It is subjective and focuses in part on your financial situation.

 

[John Van Domelen]

discounts?

They are smallish spindle work that I can make fairly quickly. As a relatively new turner - this is the first time I have had to think about this. I was just working happily along - selling one offs online, ebay, etsy and the like and get this email outa the blue. I was thinking of offering 12 bucks each with 20 shipping - for an even 500.00.

Tell ya what - I really wish my moms dad was still alive - he was a production turner and did this kind of batch work, stair balusters and the like all the time. Wish I had his brain to pick. I didn't get interested in turning until he was long gone. I do still think of him every time I am in the shop, as the lathe I use is his old 12 inch - an old delta/rockwell 12 incher from the late 40s.

Anyway - thanxs for the feedback - when no one responded at first - I though I screwed up and brought up a taboo subject or something.

I can look at the job also - as the first large run that I have been comisioned to do and view it as an education. I won't lose any money on the deal and will get lots of practice. LOL

Cheers! -- John

 

[Ed_McDonnell]

If you are going to have fun turning 40 of the same item or consider it a way of practicing and building skills then any money you get is a bonus. That's the way I look at it anyway.

From a more "business" point of view, your other means of selling have costs associated with them. Ebay fees, paypal fees, craft show fees, whatever. Since you won't have those costs on this transaction you could reduce the sales price by that amount.

If you have production efficiencies doing 40 of the same thing then a further discount might be appropriate. I've turned and finished a production run of 40 similar pens in about half the time it takes me to do 40 one at a time. I discounted them 25% to the purchaser. Didn't use any great logic to arrive at 25%. It's what they were willing to pay and what I was willing to accept.

Ed

 

[JWW]

It comes to mind that somewhere in the deal be sure that you let him know that you want your sig line or a tag attached telling where they came from, 40 potential new customers.

 

[KenN]

Jovan,

For 10 years back in the late 70's and early 80's I was making a few production lines of small work - not turned- and some one-of-a-kind higher end pieces. I retailed all of it at summer art fairs and sold some of the production work through galleries.

My pricing structure of the production began with a wholesale price - which is what I received from the galleries, and then doubled for retail from my booth or studio. The higher end work never saw the inside of a gallery as they wanted to take the expensive stuff on consignment and I didn't want put the best work at risk or take it out of my show work.

Back then, I made more gross from production work in galleries at wholesale prices than from the expensive unique stuff I sold myself. I'd get an order, stop whatever I had going in the studio, run the production to fill the order, send it off and get a check back in the mail. Good for the bottom line! It did not compare, however, with meeting the customer face-to-face and taking the "big money" in person let alone getting together with comrades in crime on the fair circuit.

I'm back out on the summer fair routine again (for the 5th year coming up) and no longer make production pieces - all at least beginning with the lathe - so am retailing everthing I make. Looking at my bottom-line, I sometimes long for those old orders coming in from galleries. However, I've reached that stage of life (gainfully self-unemployed) that the making and exploring forms and ideas has become the bottom-line.

I guess I'd say that if you are going to retail your own work, you just charge what your own situation requires. If are going to wholesale for resale, or sell in quantity for discount, you will need to figure what you need for your time, overhead, profit (not just for you, but for your shop, as well) and use that as a beginning price. If you wholesale, or quantity discount at that price, then remember that when you sell, you are the retailer and need the retailer's profit as well. Typically double wholesale.

All the best,