Jewelry Making Supplier
When creating a new type of art/craft, and there are no supplies except
what you have to make yourself, then would you still charge the same
hourly rate for preparing supply material as you would for making the
object? Somehow it just doesn't seem like I should be when I could hire
someone for $6.00 per hour to do it -- that is if I could afford to hire
someone for $6.00 per hour. Would it be better and fair to charge what
I'd pay someone else to do it?
Unless you actually are paying someone else to do it @ $6.00, the actual
cost of those "specialized" materials is what it costs YOU to make them.
Do you want to make $6.00/hr? If that's okay with you, then that should
be your price. I always have this same dilema with my beads that I make
and use in my jewelry. I'm my own supplier. Someone (I think it was
Howard) suggested that I start tracking making beads as a separate
business and "sell" them to the other business...jewelry. If you're not
profitable making those items that you're using, then you're losing money
on that part of your work. Think what would happen if you had lots and
lots of orders and suddenly you were spending even more of your time
making those supplies and you were only making $6.00! If it's something
that CAN be done by a near minimum wage employee, maybe that's the
solution. You'd have more time to work on the finished product.