How to Price Your Leather Work | The Business Side 

This is AMAZINGLY helpful! Thank you so much 🎉

Thanks a lot for the video. Did not know about The profit margin for sure. Thanks for The worksheet as well

Very informative. Great job and great home work. A+

This is good advice

Excellent video. Very informative.

great video, really clears some thing up for me, thank you.

It;s too late in the evening for me to watch now. I am definitely looking forward to watching tomorrow. This is exactly what I needed as I've just started a leather craft business. I'll get back tomorrow. Thanks

This is great advice all around. Especially in the comments, I do custom artwork and my husband is the leather man. Your wife's suggestion is VERY helpful! Thanks

As an economics professor in a business school interested in leatherworking, I strongly approve of this video! Well done!

THANK YOU!!! this is one of the best and most helpful videos i have seen since i have started this journey. the spreadsheet is awesome and will be a very valuable tool.

Thank ya sir that was very helpful

Thanks a lot for worksheet 🙏🏾. Some points I wish to add 1) The leather cost, we need to consider 20-25% cutting waste as scrap, as we pay to for each SQDM of leather. 2) Dyes Cost, we can ask the supplier, how much dye consumption per sqft in medium shading. So we can add 50% cost for darker dyeing. 3) we need to consider the investment of tools. A high professional tool will last only 4-5 years, with daily work. So we can take it to fixed costs

Watched your video about a week ago. Downloaded the the file and added some data points to suit my wants as a custom leather worker. You are a number cruncher and value data, which allows you to improve your profitability. My career was in manufacturing where I was taught data is #1. 2nd was continuous improvement to improve profitability. 3rd was to engineer in quality vs inspecting in quality, one is proactive while the other is reactive. All of these require data, and a consistent way of gathering it to analyze. On pricing you hit valid points, yet if your widget is the same as others you can add value by service. Or you make a unique widget with superior materials and/or craftsmanship that elevates your value. Know who your target market is! A small rural farmer will have different wants and needs versus a big city executive. As a custom maker my market is smaller due to my cost, and I understand it. If I can make $100 profit off 100 items taking 100 hours of labor, or make $100 profit off of 10 items at 75 hours of labor. I am choosing the 10 items while understanding my market is smaller and many will say it is too expensive, those are not my target market, others see the value. Know your target market.

This video is more Awesome then I thought in the first place. I habe a lot of troubles mit pricing my crafts, and that will definietly help me.

Thanks for setting up this spreadsheet, its gonna come in real handy.

Thank you, this is very useful!

First off, Thanks for a very informative video and the additional spreadsheet. I use a very similar spreadsheet. Yours is by far cleaner much easier on the eyes. It also gets you the information you need. How do you take into account credit card fees? Most CC companies take a 3% fee from the seller. I find it hard to figure out. I usually just add the 3% on top of the retail price. Thank you!

Great job, Thanks

Fantastic Video & great spreadsheet!

A really great and helpful video. So many information and points mentioned which are easily forgotton. Pricing my goods is always the most difficult part, but maybe with the "scientific background" of a spreadsheet, it will give me more confidence. Thanks a lot.

Great video and very informative. If i were selling to customer directly use the retail price on spreading. If im selling wholesale the retail price on my spreadsheet become wholesale price?. Hope thats not confusing. Thank you

Αll right, this is my actual job, I price products for a living :) First up let me congratulate you, you got most concepts right, and most importantly you got the biggest one right: The competition. Always price your product based on your competition. Because ultimately no customer gives a crap about our costs, the customer will always pay what he reckons is reasonable, and how does he know what is reasonable? Based on prices he sees for similar products, ie your competition. Don't get me wrong it is good to have some sort of spreadsheet to keep tabs on your costs, but don't base your price on it. Never. If you do that, it's a certainty that you're either gonna leave money on the table, or you're gonna price yourself out of the market and fail. Both very common with leatherworkers and other craftspeople. So rule #1: always price your products based on the market, your competition. If you have a product that costs you more to make than it sells for, don't make that product. Simple. Make something else. Belts typically have a nice margin. And if you manage to sell for $1500 something that costs you $150 then more power to you, that's what Apple does :) Now I'd like to tell you the 2 most important things: 1. Your spreadsheet has a logical error, it counts labour as a cost, and then adds a profit margin on top. But assuming you work alone, your labour cost IS your profit. You're paying yourself. Congratulations, you're making a living as a leatherworker! By adding a profit on top then you're essentially paying yourself twice, which would be nice I guess, but that's probably for later when you start growing as a business and maybe you have hired someone to help you. For now paying yourself a living salary is already more than most craftspeople can say. One step at a time. 2. To understand your competition properly, first you have to understand what a product actually is. Lets assume that you have three 100% identical leather wallets. Same colour, same leather, same craftsmanship, same everything. One is sold in the Hermes shop in the centre of Paris for $1,000, the other one in an Etsy shop with good reviews for $250, and the third one on a popup stall next to a farmers market for $79.99. Why the difference in price? Because these are actually 3 different products. Because in the consumer's mind, where they bought something and who they bought it from is most definitely a part of the product. It's part of the experience, the story, the justification in their minds for paying a certain amount. You go to Hermes in Paris ready to pay through the nose, but you'd never accept a high price in Alibaba or ebay. "Where did you get this from?" "On Ebay". "Oh, it must be cheap". That's kinda how it goes, isn't it? Also, consider yourself. You have about 300 subscribers and you sell leather notes covers for $50. If you have a hundred thousand subscribers you'd be able to sell the exact same thing for $100 or more. Why? Because with 100k subscribers you are now a youtube personality, people trust you, therefore what you make MUST be good, right? I hope you're getting my point. A product is many things, and when you understand your product you will also understand your competition, and then you will set your pricing wisely and competitively without leaving money on the table. You will also then understand that improving your product doesn't mean improving your stitching, it means improving yourself instead: your internet presence, your shop (online or not), your location, your reputation, and ultimately what a consumer sees when they see you. I have a lot more to say but ultimately this is just youtube. Good luck :)

I can't open the google drive link, I think the firewall on this computer is blocking it. Should be interesting to check it out on a different device.

I’m not sure I agree with your pricing model, although it seems pretty well thought out I just don’t see it being scaleable. Have you even been doing leatherwork long enough to see what the long term market for your products really is? You really don’t want to box yourself in to a pricing model that limits your ability to expand out, like franchising the business, or even just dealing with big contracts for example on the state level. All kinds of opportunity out there

How would you price hand drawing/carving/stamping/tooling?

Are you sure it was $60 for a half of a hide (aka a side)? Perhaps it was a double shoulder for that price? Idk that Ive seen $60 sides of veg tan.