I'm currently working on my first items using alligator. When I purchased the hide, I noticed a lot of other hides vary in price greatly, even ones that were the same size and color.
My question is, how would I go about pricing an item I make when the materials vary in price every time? If I had a wallet design that was popular, it doesn't seem I would be able to have a set price when the cost of the alligator changes.
Just looking for some insight. Thanks.
Thanks for the responses fellas. DDunn, I can see what you are talking about already. I had made a card wallet with alligator on the lower pocket face only. Someone saw it, liked it and asked me about it so I shot back a price and it was almost as if they were offended. I am by no means a big name in the game but the price was reasonable I thought. I told myself “oh well” and moved on. ill post a pic of the finished item. I did sell the one in the pic and that person was happy with it. There’s a few things I forgot to do before finishing it up but I’ll remember those things on the next one.
If you are making pieces out of any kind of exotic, and you have people actually interested in buying them, price on the high side of the spectrum. Generally speaking, the people who can afford to be seriously considering buying an item made from exotics have no real issue with the money. It's almost irrelevant to them.
In my opinion, when pricing exotics made leather goods, there should be a shift in the craftsman's mindset. We talk about special products here, made to satisfy a niche which thinks and acts differently than regular consumers. We are next to luxury here, so the craftsman must get out of the cost based pricing paradigm and move to the perceived value one.
in addtion, price of alligator hides varies according to the quality level, alligator hide ususally is classfied A, B, C level according to the condition of scars in key belly area and the way of processing dying. so price can end up differnce even with same size and color of hide.there could be a relatively stable price within same quality class.
building up inventory :) to minimize cost variation is a solution for mess producted industry. but for a small studio, the price is mainly come from the charge of labor, material cost is only small part of your price setting, so cost variation will influence less from my understanding.