BuBu Business Directory: Guest Post: Quilts For Sale - 5 Reasons Why We Wrestle With Retail Pricing

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Guest Post: Quilts For Sale - 5 Reasons Why We Wrestle With Retail Pricing

Many of us wrestle with how to price our quilting projects especially when we are first starting out in business. We have designed our personal line of quilts and we have our shelves well stocked and ready for business.

Before starting your quilting business you had probably visited many quilting stores or shops and looked at the price of their quilts. You also told yourself you could make a quilt for a more reasonable price as you thought the retailer was too expensive.

The coin has flipped. You are now the retailer and from the retailers point of view the cost looks very differently. And that is the problem...how to price your quilts for sale. You are sincerely concerned about this because you want to please the customer with a fair price but at the same time you need to make a profit. Speaking from experience, if you do not make a profit, you cannot continue to be in business. It may sound harsh, but it is true.

Here are 5 reasons why we are wrestling with retail pricing:

We love the quilts that we made.
Our quilts are our personal design.
Our fabrics and notions were costly.
We worked very hard.
It takes many hours of labor to complete a quilt.

You will need to re-evaluate your thinking. I know and understand from a personal point of view how difficult it is to part with our quilts; nonetheless, we need to think as a business person and be objective. We need to be a stranger to our quilts and discard any emotional attachment that we have for our creations.

A stranger has fallen in love with your design, your workmanship, and the types of fabrics that you used, and it is perfect for her personal use. She is willing to pay a fair and reasonable price for your quilt.

Here are 7 reasons why a customer will purchase your quilt:

It will meet her needs.
She loves it.
She recognizes the amount of work and labor that went into making it.
She could not make it herself as she does not know how to quilt.
She does not have the time to sew a quilt.
If she could quilt she could never have created what you designed.
It is perfect and she is willing to pay monies to have it for herself.

Do not hesitate to sell your creation as another person will truly enjoy and share in the love. The customer will continue to add her memories and keep your quilt alive for a very long time. It may even continue into the future as an heirloom for their family.

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