Monday, August 30, 2010

When the pricing is perfect...

Pricing is considered an art form by some. Not so much the art of crunching numbers and making sure that a business can be feasible with the price point it sets for each individual product, and the price range it offers to customers of various buying powers or whims... But more so: which price will be the winning number, which price tag will get more bottles off the shelf at the right pace - not painfully slow - but not exuberantly fast either.

After some soul-searching, there have been some price adjustments to some of the products. The main change is to the 10ml roll-ons and the 9ml extrait in the pretty French flacons... I decided to give them both the same price.
While the price increase ($120 instead of $110) for the flacons might be a little devastating to some, it reflects the exclusivity of the bottles (they are more hard to find than I can being to tell you... And I'm running very low on stock and having really hard time to re-stock). The 10ml roll-on bottles, on the other hand, went down by $10 (they are now $120 as well, but used to be $130 till recently). I have decided to change the price to make it more attractive in comparison to the 5ml roll-on. Getting the larger size saves me the trouble of packaging and labeling 2 bottles instead of just one - and you get $10 off!

Another labeling and packaging woe always goes to samples. From an introductory $8 a sample some 6 years ago, the price went gradually up to $10, $11 and finally, the actual price it costs me to put a sample together - considering the natural raw materials, alcohol, labels, vials and last but not least - labour!
It takes just as much work to bottle a sample that it is a full bottle. It is also just as much work to put together an order for a single sample (print order, do the customs form for the package, etc.). My prices now reflect that. And while I'm happy to send individual samples, I'm happier to put together a sample package which contributes more to the cashflow and is just about the same amount of work - so these will still be offered at a slight discount. Another reason, which actually more important, is that most of my customers like to have a fragrance wardrobe, so the sample package is an important step to help them choose this wardrobe. And for those who can't afford a full wardrobe just as yet - the sample package gives a little taste of the experience in a small portable size...

These days I'm working slowly but surely on restocking all my perfumes for the fall. The holiday rush seems to already have began, believe it or not! I am already getting fragrance wardrobe orders, and the holiday markets are going to begin in no time.

Therefore, I've decided to pre-package some of my 10ml roll-ons in some scents that are extremely popular in the oil base. I'm aiming to have everything in that size come fall, but for now, you will be happy to know that there are a few of them awaiting you in the abundance of 10ml pure perfume based in jojoba oil:
ArbitRary
Autumn
Bon Zai
Cabaret
Megumi
Rebellius
Rosebud
Roses et Chocolat
Tamya
White Potion

And of course, if you want to order anything else, I will gladly prepare it for you, but it might require a maturing time of 7-30 days (it depends on what materials are in each perfume - some require a longer aging process and even filtration, while other do not).

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1 Comments:

At August 30, 2010 3:16 PM, Blogger Lisa said...

I find these sorts of posts so fascinating from independent business owners. Do you read Wendy Brandes Jewelry (http://wendybrandes.com/blog)? She has posts about the high cost of manufacturing in North America and the cost of labour, and explains why her pieces cost as much as they do. Posts like yours and Wendy's really highlight the sorts of challenges that independent designers and business owners encounter.

 

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