I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I have a job that often allows me to stitch during work, which means as some other Etsians have said, it's kind of a bonus to get a little bit of money back from that time investment. And though I haven't had sales every day, I've really done pretty well in terms of getting orders for my stitching work at a steady rate, but one that isn't overwhelming.
Still, it seems based on comparisons to other more established Etsy needlework shops, I'm underpricing my finished stitching by half. Most of what I've got up is between $8-25 (except for a few things that are less!), and many other shops sell items for twice that that might take half the time to stitch.
I've just now started digitizing my patterns so that they can be purchased separately, like many Etsy needlework shops, mainly because I fear if I don't offer a legal way for people to access them, my patterns will be copied (or it will be attempted -- they're surprisingly complex when you actually try to make 'em) without my permission or endorsement...but the process of figuring out how to price those has been difficult.
This is, I'm sure, a particular needlework issue, and not something that applies across the board.
But I'm glad to see some encouragement to keep prices relevant to the actual effort spent making the items we're offering. And any tips for how to find the correct price point (other than the simple hours x wage you pay yourself + materials) would be read and greatly appreciated. Does it "pay" ultimately to start out more inexpensive while you're building an Etsy presence, and raise prices as you go?
