Why I think you are a #%&#+/ when you say that my prices are too high

Yes, I admit it, I take it very personal when people say that prices of my products are too high. I know that’s my problem not yours. You can’t push the buttons I don’t have and clearly, I have a button that makes me angry, sad and that brings out my emotions of not feeling worthy of your hard earned money, when you state your truth that my prices are too high. And first thing that comes to my mind is, that you are a bitch. And even though I was clearing that emotional crap that comes out and I understand, that you think this way, because you have no idea, how much time, work, money, soul, heart, brains and guts I have to put in my bussiness to keep it running and I realised that has nothing to do with me, I still feel like I have to explain why my prices are the way they are. And I asked myself, if I have this need to explain it all, because I feel guilty about my prices and I want to apologize in some way for them. Does this need to explain means that I don’t fully stand behind my work? Maybe that’s the case in some way too and I have more clearing to do. But I also find it important that you know what is behind the prices, because I believe

• you really don’t have idea about what it takes to run a small bussiness. No pun intended, it’s just that you might haven’t ever thought about it, because no player in that arena told you about it
• you wanna know, because you are open enough to be willing to get a bigger picture
• it will benefit the world. Maybe you will change the way you look at handmade products and that will benefit you and it will also benefit other fellow artists, crafters, designers out there, because there will be few more people in the world that appreaciate their work

So, let’s go on a tour. Ja, priznam, zelo osebno vzamem, ko mi nekdo reče, da so cene mojih izdelkov previsoke. Vem, da je to moj problem, ne vaš. Ne morete pritisniti na gumbe, ki jih nimam in zgleda, da imam gumbe, zaradi katerih sem jezna, žalostna in ki prinesejo na dan moje občutke, da nisem vredna vašega težko zasluženega denarja, ko stisnete na njih s tem, da mi rečete, da imam previsoke cene. Oziroma, ko to govorite drugim ljudem. In prvo pomislim, da ste prasice. In čeprav sem šla skozi težka čustva, ki pri tem nastajajo v meni in razumem, da mislite tako, ker nimate pojma, koliko časa, dela, denarja, duše, srca, možganov in jajc moram vložiti, da lahko vodim svoj posel, in da vaše mnenje nima nobene veze z mojimi cenami, imam še vedno potrebo po tem, da vam razložim, zakaj so cene takšne kot so. Sprašujem se, če imam potrebo po razlaganju morda zato, ker se počutim krivo glede svojih cen in jih želim opravičiti? Imam to potrebo po razlaganju, ker ne stojim popolnoma za svojim delom? Morda imam tudi tukaj še kaj za počistit, ja. Ampak vseeno se mi zdi pomembno, da veste kaj vse je za cenami, ker verjamem

• da res nimate pojma, kaj vse je potrebno, da vodiš svoj s.p. Prav nič žaljivo ni tole mišljeno. Morda niste nikoli sploh pomislili na to preprosto zato, ker vam noben borec iz te arene ni ničesar povedal o tem
• da želite vedeti, ker ste dovolj odprti, da želite videti večjo sliko
• da bo tale objava koristila tudi drugim. Morda boste vi spremenili svoje mnenje o unikatnih izdelkih, kar bo dobro za vas in za druge umetnike, ustvarjalce, oblikovalce tam zunaj, ker bo na svetu več ljudi, ki bodo cenili njihovo delo.

Gremo torej na turnejo. Handmade products: Working on my product takes lots of time. Let’s give my handpainted tote bags as an example. It usually takes me about 30 minutes to one hour and half to paint a tote bag. If I paint something for the first time it takes more, because I have to make sketches. I pay 1,30€ for one blank tote bag. I buy them at local store with products made by disabled people. I could buy them from China on ebay for a lower price, but I don’t, because this way I know I get a quality, it’s better for nature and I support local economy. After painted bag is dry, I have to fixate the colors. I do that with iron. That takes about 15 min per tote. Oh, I forgot. I also have to buy colors. One bottle with 59ml cost me around 3€. I don’t spend whole bottle for one bag, I also mix colors and so on, but let’s say I spend about 1€ of color for one tote. So, let say one hour and half of work on a tote and 2,30€ cost of material. I sell most of the totes for 15€. So, 15 minus 2,30 = 12,7€. Then I have to take pictures of my products. I use point and shoot camera, tripod (I had to pay for both) and I created myself a place for taking pictures. You have to learn and experiment a lot, to make a good product photography, because pictures sell your work in the internetz. I still have a lot of room left for improvement, but I already spent way more time than you can imagine for that. As I can’t buy myself better equipment yet, I have to do my best with what I got. That often means I can’t take pictures, if the weather is strange, because I don’t have enough light. Light also variables during a day and you have to adjust your settings to that. No matter how good you were at that, you usually have to edit your pictures on the screen too. Add some more light in the editing program (I use GIMP), crop, edit them colors… Then you have to resize the pictures, so it’s easier to upload them to web. I don’t have to go through all this for just every product that I make, but for new pieces I have to. So, that’s additional 20-30 minutes. So, I got the item and pictures ready, let’s upload this to Etsy and my web page for slovenian customers. After I upload the pictures, I have to create an item description, that will tell a story of the item and convince you, a customer, to buy it. That takes way more time than you think. And the best time to do it is, when you feel really really awesomelly good, because descriptions are more fun then. And you have to think about search engine optimization (SEO) while doing this, so that people can actually find your items in google (and as an entrepreneur you don’t get paid to learn this, you invest your own time in hope for a profit in a future). And I have to come up with keywords for my items, think like a customer, who search for something that I can offer.  Okay, so on Etsy I pay $0.20 for one listing. Reasonable price. After I sell a product, I give 3,5% of selling price to Etsy and 3,5% + 0,35€ to Paypal. Lets see. 15€ (per tote) minus those 1,55€ of those fees = 13,45€ per tote. Minus 2,30€ of material = 11,15€. Read the rest and decide how much I earn, considering all the work that I have to do. Ročno narejeni izdelki: Delo na izdelku vzame veliko časa. Dajmo moje ročno poslikane vrečke kot primer. Ponavadi potrebujem od pol ure do ene ure in pol, da poslikam eno torbico. Če slikam kaj prvič, vzame čas še pripravljanje skice. Za prazno vrečko plačam 1,30€. Kupujem jih v trgovinici lokalnega zavoda za hendikepirane. Lahko bi naročila cenejše iz Kitajske, ampak ne, ker tako vem, da dobim kvalitetne vrečke, boljše je za planet in podpiram lokalno ekonomijo. Ko se poslikana vrečka posuši, moram zafiksirati barve, da se lahko vrečke perejo. To naredim z likalnikom, vzame pa mi okrog 15min po vrečki. Aha, skoraj sem pozabila, da moram kupit barve. Ene flaškica z 59ml me stane okrog 3€. Seveda ne porabim cele stekleničke za eno vrečko, ker meša barve itd., ampak recimo, da porabim za okrog 1€ barve na vrečko. Torej, recimo da delam na vrečki eno uro in pol in da me material pride 2,30€. Večino vrečk prodajam po 15€. 15 minus 2,30 = 12,7€ Nato moram nove izdelke pofotografirati. Uporabljam navadni digitalni fotoaparat, stojalo (za oboje sem morala plačati), uredila pa sem si tudi prostor za fotografiranje. Za fotografiranje izdelkov se je potrebno kar nekaj naučiti, saj fotografija prodaja tvoje izdelke po internetu. Ogromno prostora še imam za izboljšave, ampak lahko mi verjamete, da sem porabila več časa, kot si predstavljate, da sem prišla do te stopnje. Ker si še ne morem privoščiti boljše opreme, moram tisto kar imam, uporabiti kolikor dobro le lahko. To pogosto pomeni, da ne morem fotografirat, ko vreme ni primerno, ker nimam dovolj svetlobe. Barva svetlobe se prav tako čez dan spreminja in moram temu prilagajati nastavitve. Ne glede na to, kako dobro mi to uspe, moram v večini primerov urejati fotografije še potem, ko jih dam na računalnik. V programu za urejanje fotografij (uporabljam GIMP), dodam malo svetlobe, obrežem, uredim barve… Potem fotografije pomanjšam, da jih lahko hitreje naložim na internet. K sreči ne rabim skozi vse to pri čisto vsakem izdelku, moram pa pri novih motivih. To je torej dodatnih 20 do 30 minut. Torej, izdelek in fotografije so pripravljeni, dajmo to na Etsy in na 3ptice.com Potem ko naložim fotke, moram napisati opis izdelka, ki bo povedal zgodbo in prepričal vas, kupce, da si to želite. To vzame več časa, kot se zdi. In najboljše je, da to počnem, ko se počutim res noro dobro, ker so opisi potem bolj zabavni. Ob tem je potrebno razmišljati še o optimizaciji za brskalnike, da ljudje dejansko najdejo moje produkte v googlu (kot samostojnemu podjetniku ti nihče ne plača tečaja za to, sam moraš vložit svoj čas v upanju, da se ti bo enkrat v prihodnosti obrestovalo). Na Etsyju se moram potem domislit še ključnih besed, razmišljati moram kot kupec, ki išče izdelek. Kako je s provizijami na Etsyju si lahko preberete v angleškem delu objave. Za 3ptice.com plačam lastno domeno okrog 24€ na leto. Ko prodam vrečko, mi paypal vzame 3,5% + 0,35€ od transakcije. Ostane 14,13€. Minus material 2,30€ =11,83€. Kupcem, ki plačajo preko spleta, častim poštnino, ki me pride 40centov = 11,43€. Preberite še ostalo in se odločite, kako velik je moj zaslužek, glede na vloženo delo.  Shipping: When you sell the item, you have to ship it. You have to attach labels and caring instructions to your item, You have to make a package or pay for it. I make my own eco friendly packages from magazines and old calendars. I sew them with a thread (that I have to buy). You have to write a bill. You have to write down the adress. I add two eco friendly handmade bussienes cards to every package. One for a customer and one for a friend (I hope you’ll be so happy about the product and the service you’ll want to tell others about it). I have to take time to make those nice bussiness cards (thanks god my boyfriend helps me a bit here). I also add a hanwritten thank you note for customer to every package. I have to go to the post office and ship it. Because I live on the countryside I have to drive to the post office and I have to pay the gas for my car. Pošiljanje: Ko izdelek prodam, ga moram poslat. Dodat moram etikete. Narediti moram embalažo. Sama to naredim okolju prijazno tako, da recikliram stare revije in koledarje. Paketek zašijem s sukancem (ki ga je tudi potrebno kupit). Napisat moram račun (blokez z računi je tudi potrebno kupit). Napisat moram naslov. K vsakemu paketku dodam dve ročno izdelani okolju prijazni vizitki. Eno za kupca in eno za njegovega prijatelja (upam, da o kupec tako navdušen nad izdelkom in odnosom, da bo želel o tem povedat še drugim). Delanje vizitk zahteva kar nekaj časa, še sreča, da mi fant malo pomaga pri tem. K paketku dodam še ročno napisano zahvalno sporočilce za kupca z njegovim imenom. Potem moram na pošto. Ker živim na vasi, se moram peljati do mesta, za kar moram plačati bencin. Art markets: So, you might say, why my prices (and prices of other sellers out there) are so high on the art markets, where I don’t have to pay fee for every item that I sell and I don’t have to take care of the shipping. Let’s see. You have to pay for the stall. The prices for a stall in Slovenia goes from 1€ to 70€ per day. So, to all of you who gives grumpy looks to those craft sellers at stalls out there while thinking ‘Everybody is just trying to sell me something everywhere I go’, please consider that we try to sell you something, because we have to live somehow too. Be compassionate. Oh, what I meant to tell is, that if you get a job as a hostess for some company, you probably get paid per hour. We don’t get paid per hour when we represent our products. We have to pay to be there, to get in front of people (I don’t complain about that, because I know that organisation of art markets takes lots of time, calls, answering the e-mails, marketing and everything else I don’t know about, because I don’t organise events). While you sit there for hours you get hungry and thirsty and sleepy and you need food, water and coffee. Which you have to pay. I take water from home. You have to pay gas to come there and back home and parking hours too. You have to prepare and label your products at home, you have to arrange them on a stall. You also have to make or buy displays for your items.. At the end you have to put you products back in the suitcase and drive home. Happy with few euros of profit or so disappointed you wanna cry. Sejmi: Morda se po tem sprašujete, zakaj so cene tako visoke, ko ustvarjalci prodajamo na sejmih, kjer nam ni potrebno plačati provizije za vsak izdelek in skrbeti za pošiljanje. Pa poglejmo. Plačati je potrebno stojnico. Te so pri nas od 1€ do 70€ na dan. Tako da vsi, ki zlovoljno pogledate na nas stojničarje misleč ‘Vsi mi samo hočejo nekaj prodat, kamorkoli grem’, prosim upoštevajte, da vam skušamo nekaj prodati, zato ker moramo od nečesa živeti. Sočustvujte malo. Ah, kar sem mislila povedati je, da če dobiš delo za promocijo nekega produkta, si verjetno plačan na uro. Mi nismo plačani za ure, ki jih porabimo na stojnicah. Pravzaprav moramo plačati, da smo lahko tam, da promoviramo svoje delo (ne pritožujem se glede tega, ker vem, da organizacija sejmov vzame veliko časa, klicev, odgovarjanja na maile, marketinga in vsega ostalega, kar ne poznam, ker ne organiziram teh dogodkov). Ko nekaj ur sediš/stojiš tam, postaneš lačen, žejen in zaspan ter potrebuješ hrano, vodo in kavo. Kar moraš plačat. Vodo si nosim od doma. Plačati moraš tudi bencin za tja pa nazaj in parkirnino. Doma si moraš spakirati izdelke, etikete, potem jih razpakiraš in razporediš na stojnico. Kupiti ali narediti si moraš tudi razna stojalca za izdelke na stojnici. Na koncu moraš vse pospravit nazaj v kovček in se odpeljat domov. Srečen zaradi parih evrov profita ali tako razočaran, da ti gre na jok. Cost of owning a small bussines: Taxes. I have to pay 320€ per month of taxes. Accountant. I pay her 40€ per month which is the cheapest you can get around here. Bussiness bank account fees. Around 13€ per month. Chamber of Artisans. 18€ per month. Office material, bills, internet, phone, gas, shipping fees, it comes to about 450€ per month. Besides money and all the paperwork, you also have to stretch yourself all the time, learn, search for opportunities and go for them. You have to handle all the insecurity this lifestyle brings. If you get sick, you don’t get paid. You don’t have paid holidays. If you screw everything, the government can take your house, give you a penalty and send you to a jail. Cena s.p.-ja: Prispevki. Sama plačam 320€ na mesec le teh. Računovodstvo. Plačam 40€ na mesec, kar je verjetno najnižja cena pri nas. Poslovni račun s provizijami. Okrog 13€ na mesec. Obrtna zbornica. 18€ na mesec. Pisarniški material, računi, internet, telefon, benz, poštnine. Vse skupaj znese okrog 450€ na mesec. Zraven denarja in vse papirologije, moraš skozi stegovati svoj vrat, biti na preži za novimi priložnostmi, jih zgrabiti, se učiti. Prenesti moraš vso negotovost, ki jo takšen življenjski stil prinaša. Če zboliš, nimaš plačane bolniške (razen če si bolan več kot en mesec). Nimaš plačanega dopusta. Ali plačanih nadur. Če vse zaserješ, lahko pride davčna, ti vzame hišo, da kazen in te vtakne v zapor. Marketing: Takes lots of time and it’s hard to measure the results. You have to learn a lot. You have to make decisions how and where you are gonna market your business. I’m in the game a year and half with my small business and still marketing takes most of my time. And there’s always the feeling ‘I haven’t done enough yet’. I have to write another blog post, another tweet, another facebook post, post a new pic on instagram, write a new e-mail campaign. And that takes time. I heard it takes 7 times to rememember some brand or person in the media. Can you imagine that? (bookmark me so you’ll remember me sooner, if you are here for the first time;). You have to be consistent. And you have to have in mind what to post on which social media chanel, what works best for this or that audience. Thanks god I’m learning to love all that hustling. Like I have a choice 😉 Marketing: Vzame ohohogromno časa, zraven tega pa je težko preverjati rezultate. Ogromno se moraš naučiti. Odločiti se moraš, kako in kje boš promoviral svoj posel. Sama imam svoj s.p. že leto in pol in še vedno mi marketing vzame največ časa. In skozi imam občutek, da še nisem dovolj naredila. Napisati moram še eno objavo, nekaj tvitnit, nekaj napisat na facebook, objavit novo fotko delovnega procesa na instagramu, napisati novo e-mail kampanjo. Si predstavljate koliko časa to vzame? Slišala sem, da moramo nekaj novega videt v povprečju 7x, preden to ozavestimo in si zapomnimo (če ste prvič tukaj, si me nekam zapišite, da si me boste prej zapomnili;). Biti moraš vztrajen in reden. Naučiti se moraš tudi, katero občinstvo kako reagira na katere objave in temu prilagajati formo svojih sporočil. Hvala bogu, da sem se odločila, da bom vzljubila vso to hustlanje. Kot da imam izbiro 😉 Blog: That’s a part of marketing, but it’s my main marketing channel and the one I love the most and spend the most time on it so it deserves its own place here. When I started blogging in 2007, I felt like Carry Bradshaw (I know, lots of female bloggers out there have this image burned inside their brains and hearts too). I hoped someone will notice my writting and offer me my own column in a magazine. (I still hope this will happen). I think I made quite some sales thanks to this blog, because people can feel connected to me, thanks to my honesty. But on the other hand, I don’t get paid for writing. I spent my whole Monday writing this post and I don’t have any guarantee I will be paid off for my effort. Those few ads you can see on my blog? I earned 3€ in two years of having Adsense running. That donate button in the right sidebar? No one ever used it. Blog: Je moj glavni kanal za marketing, si pa zasluži svoje mesto, ker mi je najljubši in zanj porabim največ časa. Ko sem začela z bloganjem v 2007, sem se počutila kot Carry Bradshaw (vem, da ima ogromno ženskih blogerk njeno podobo vžgano v srce in možgane). Upala sem, da bo nekdo nekoč opazil moje pisanje in mi ponudil kolumno v reviji. (Še vedno upam, da se bo to zgodilo). Mislim, da sem kar nekaj izdelkov prodala zahvaljujoč temu blogu, ker se preko le tega ljudje počutijo povezani z mano, saj sem precej iskrena v izražanju. Ampak po drugi strani, nič ne dobim plačano. Cel dan že pišem tole objavo in zdaj je že čez polnoč in nobene garancije nimam, da se mi bo moj trud povrnil. (Glede na dolžino objave, sploh ne vem, če bo kdo to prebral). Teh par reklam, ki jih vidite na na levi strani? V dveh letih odkar imam adsense na strani, sem zaslužila 3€. Donate gumbek, ki ga vidite na desni strani? Nihče še ni nikdar stisnil nanj. So, if you read all this, you might changed your mind about my prices and prices of other artists, young designer etc. as well. You can see that after you take all this work in consideration that my prices aren’t  even close to too high and the same with prices of other artists/artisans.  And if you still think after I explained all this to you, that our prices are too high, then you are too cheap. Cruel but true. You might have to ask yourself, why you don’t feel worthy and special enough to afford a special and unique handmade item from time to time, rather than buy mass production all the time. Well, why am I still doing this, if I don’t get any profit? Because I love being creative, I like how I am constantly pushed out of my comfort zone and how am I developing as a person thanks to running a small business. I think I am contributing something to the world with my work and with how I work. I hope I make world a little better place for us all. I also hope more and more people will get to know me and my work and they will love it and happily pay me and I’ll be able to pay my bills and buy something from other artisan who will be able to pay their bills and someday I could offer someone a job and they will be able to pay their bills too. I also love all the awesome people I met along the way, online and offline, my life is better, because you exist. Thank you so much for giving me nice messages of support, thank you for making me feel connected, thank you for sharing my products and content and huge thanks to all of you who appreaciate me, my work and my contribution to the world so much, that you are happy to give me your money! You are awesome! Torej, če ste prebrali vse to, ste si morda premislili glede mojih cen in cen drugih umetnikov, mladih oblikovalcev, obrtnikov itd. pravtako. Če upoštevate vse napisano, verjetno pridete do logičnega zaključka, da moje cene niso niti blizu previsokim in enako s cenami ostalih umetnikov/obrtnikov. In če še vedno mislite, da so naše stvari predrage, ste sami preveč ceneni. Malo kruto, ampak res. Morda se morate vprašati, zakaj se ne počutite dovolj vredni in posebni, da bi si tu in tam privoščili nekaj, kar je unikatno in rajši kupite izdelek iz masovne proizvodnje? No, zakaj še torej delam vse to, če nimam nič profita? Ker sem rada kreativna, všeč mi je, da moram slej ko prej iz cone udobja, všeč mi je, kako se zahvaljujoč podjetništvu razvijam tudi kot oseba, Mislim, da prispevam nekaj k svetu svojim delom in s tem, kako ga opravljam. Upam, da delam svet malo lepši za vse nas. Upam tudi, da bo vse več ljudi spoznalo mene in moje delo, da jim bo všeč in da mi bodo z veseljem plačali, s čimer bom jaz lahko plačala svoje življenjske stroške in si kaj privoščila tudi pri drugih ustvarjalcih, s čimer bodo tudi oni lažje plačali stroške in nekoč bom lahko nekomu ponudila službo, od katere bo lahko tudi on živel. Obožujem tudi to, da sem na tej poti spoznala toliko čudovitih ljudi, preko neta in v živo. Moje življenje je boljše, ker obstajate. Hvala vam za sporočila podpore, hvala, da mi daste občutek povezanosti, hvala, da delite moje izdelke in zgodbe in ogromen hvala vsem, ki tako cenite mene, moje delo in moj prispevek k svetu, da mi z veseljem daste svoj denar! Čudoviti ste!   All pics from my instagram | | Vse fotke iz mojega instagrama.

With Love,