Hello Etsy: Thoughts from the Team

Etsy Germany Street Team bei Etsy mit Daniellexo (Danielle von Etsy). Von rechts: Van von Kirschbits, Anke von Anartisland, Katherine von Katheyl, April von Swagg Jewelry, Neon Morgan (Morgan von Etsy), Eva & Johanna von Nauli, Cathrin von Walk Collection und Tabea von Tiripitiri. Photo von Matthias von Matkirsch Photo.

Seit fast zwei Wochen ist das Hello Etsy Konferenz vorbei. Endlich hat manchen von uns Zeit gehabt, ein paar Gedanken und Impressionen davon zu teilen!

It's been almost two weeks since the Hello Etsy conference. Most of us who have attended have finally caught up and have been able to digest it all and share some thoughts, take a read!

Von Tabea: "Es waren zwei Tage voller Spaß, lehrreichen Sessions und neuen Ideen. Tolle Location, trotz der Staus vor dem Aufzug. Lecker Verpflegung - das nächste Mal dürfte auch ein Frühstück vor der ersten Session dabei sein. Idee am Rande: es wäre toll, beim nächsten Mal den Shopnamen mit auf dem Batch zu haben - viele Leute kennt man nicht mit Namen sondern nur den Shop. Ansonsten vielen Dank an Etsy für ein fantastisches Wochenende!"

Von April: "Hello Etsy was such an awesome experience to be a part of and such a ground breaking event. I think it's just the start to something huge for the years to come."

Es gibt viel mehr zu lesen auf unsere individuellen team mitglieder blogs:

Von Lou - Happy Serendipity:
http://happyserendipity.com/events/on-small-business-and-sustainability/

Von Katherine - Katheyl:
http://katheyl.tumblr.com/post/10402427045/when-i-first-got-to-know-that-the-first-etsy

Von Eleanor - e.m.papers
http://www.empapers.com/hello-etsy-debrief

Von Stephanie Levy - Stephanie Levy:
http://stephanielevy.blogspot.com/2011/09/hello-etsy-in-berlin.html

Van - Kirschbits:
http://kirschbits.de/2011/09/hello-etsy/

Live from Hello Etsy!

Hallo Zusammen!
Wir sind live bei der Hello Etsy Konferenz, auf unserem Flickr pool kann man Bilder sehen. Wir versuchen so viel und so oft wie möglich was Aktuelles zu posten!

Hi Everyone, we are live at Hello Etsy! You can see pix on the team Flickr pool. We are going to post as much and as often the event as it's happening!

Eleanor and the rest of the team....

Hello Etsy Presentation Sneak Peak In München

The week before last, partly to test out my presentation and partly to get a jump on finishing early, I presented the workshop on project management that I will be giving next month at the Hello Etsy conference in Berlin. A small group of about eight showed up at the Glockenbach Werkstatt where the presentation was hosted, and much to my great joy (and relief) the presentation not only went well, it was well-received and according to the participants very useful.

My husband sat in the back jotting down feedback all the while (4 pages!) so there are still some aspects of the session that I need to tweak. So for all of those that didn't make it to the presentation in Munich, I'll be giving it again next month in Berlin!

Debrief: Finding The Right Price Meet-Up

[UPDATE] Jetzt findet ihr hier dieses Artikel auf Deutsch.

Last night 9 Munich Etsians had the first of (hopefully) many meet-ups where we gathered together to talk business! Using the Fragebogen put together by MissusD we had a fruitful and open discussion about pricing our work.

Some of our key takeaways:

• When determining your hourly rate, you need to not only factor in your hourly rate but also your costs such as insurance, marketing time, space rental, and taxes (Gewerbe, Einkommen, Mehrwert, usw.)

• Ignore what other people are charging on Etsy (or any other marketplace) and determine your price based on value and your costs
  
  
• Factors such as methods of payment may impact what people are willing to pay. For example, if you are selling your products at a fair, and only accept cash people may not be as willing to pay for an item that costs over €100, whereas if you accept EC cards, people are not limited to the amount of cash they have in their wallets
  
  
• We need to think about pricing on value, and educating customers not only about the costs of handmade, but the stories behind our products and the fact that many of our items are OOAK (one of a kind) or unique in ways that mass-produced items aren't. As one participant said: "People don't have to be rich to purchase something, they just have to fall in love with it"
  
  
• Sometimes items can be priced to cheaply, and raising the price can actually increase sales. At least two of the group participants had this experience

It was very hard to separate the discussion from other aspects of being a small business, especially marketing. We realized we definitely need more meet-ups soon around topics such as blogging, Google, social media, time management, productivity and basic business best practices. A lot of these themes are being tackled at the Hello Etsy conference in September, but we'd like to get a jump on them ahead of time!

Questions for the 'Finding the Right Price' Meet-up

Tomorrow is the 'Finding the Right Price' Meet-up, in cooperation with Hello Etsy at the HEI in München. We thought it would be a good idea to share the questions we will be asking each other. Vielen Dank to Missus D and Matkirschphoto for developing and translating the questions!

We have a few spaces left for the meet-up/Wir haben noch platz! if interested, RSVP on the event Facebook Page!

Hello Etsy Event: Finding the Right Price

Questionaire

1. How are you currently pricing your work?
Apart from including the materials and labour costs, what other factors would you consider when you determine a price for your work?

*Here’s a simplified formula and a good place to start.*

Cost price (Labour and material cost) x 2 = Wholesale price

Wholesale price x 2 = Retail Price

Using the formula above, spend a few minutes re-calculating the price of one of your products. Are you in shock? You have not even added the 19% tax if you are registered for tax!

If the price seems high, you could be relating the price to your own disposable income, or comparing your work to mass produced goods.

2. Share with your group members who your target market is.
What is the disposable income of your target market?

Something to think about: You are not always your target market.

3. Sometimes, your target market and actual audience may be different.
Have you tried to figure out who your actual audience is?

Have you checked pricing for similar items in your niche/target market? On other marketplaces? Are your prices higher or lower?

Note: Another question to ask is have you performed surveys or interviewed people to find out the kind of people who are interested and understand your work?


Other questions you might want to discuss:

• Have you experimented with raising or lowering your prices?
• What are your biggest challenges regarding pricing?
• Any lessons learned?

Finally,
If you have additional questions to ask, feel free to raise it!


Good Reading
http://www.ohboydenterprises.com/HowToPriceHandmadeGoods.html
http://www.etsy.com/storque/seller-handbook/the-art-of-pricing-three-helpful-pricing-exercises-3788/
http://www.etsy.com/storque/seller-handbook/etsy-success-reevaluating-your-prices-11033/
http://www.etsy.com/storque/seller-handbook/daily-worth-profits-come-from-business-models-not-ideas-8100/


Hello Etsy Event: Den richtigen Preis finden

Fragebogen

1. Wie gestaltest du derzeit deine Preise?
Von Material- und Arbeitskosten einmal abgesehen - welche anderen Faktoren spielen eine Rolle, wenn du einen Preis für deine Arbeit berechnest?

*Hier ist eine vereinfachte Formel und ein guter Ausgangspunkt.*

Kosten (Arbeit und Material) x 2 = Großhandelspreis
Großhandelspreis x 2 = Einzelverkaufspreis

Nimm dir einige Minuten, um mit der obigen Formel den Preis eines deiner Produkte neu zu berechnen. Bist du schockiert? Du hast noch nichtmal die 19% Mehrwertsteuer eingerechnet, wenn du dafür registriert bist!

Wenn der Preis dir hoch erscheint, könntest du den Preis in Relation zu deinem eigenen verfügbaren Einkommen stellen oder mit Preisen für Massenware vergleichen.

2. Erzähle deinen Gruppenmitgliedern, wer deine Zielgruppe ist. Was ist das verfügbare Einkommen deiner Zielgruppe?

Denk daran: Du bist nicht immer deine eigene Zielgruppe.

3. Manchmal können deine Zielgruppe und deine eigentlichen Kunden unterschiedlich sein. Hast du einmal versucht herauszufinden, wer deine Kundschaft ist?

Hast du dir einmal die Preise für ähnliche Produkte in deiner Nische/deinem Bereich angesehen? Auf anderen Marktplätzen? Sind deine Preise höher oder niedriger?

Beachte: Eine weitere Frage sollte sein, ob du Umfragen gemacht hast oder Leute interviewt hast, um herauszufinden, wer an deiner Arbeit interessiert ist und Verständnis für sie hat.

Andere mögliche Fragen für eine Diskussion:

• Hast du schon mit höheren oder niedrigeren Preisen experimentiert?
• Was sind deine größten Herausforderungen bei der Preisberechnung?
• Was hast du bisher für Erfahrungen gemacht?

Und zu guter Letzt:
Wenn du noch irgendwelche Fragen hast, hab keine Angst, sie zu stellen!

Guter Lesestoff
http://www.ohboydenterprises.com/HowToPriceHandmadeGoods.html
http://www.etsy.com/storque/seller-handbook/the-art-of-pricing-three-helpful-pricing-exercises-3788/
http://www.etsy.com/storque/seller-handbook/etsy-success-reevaluating-your-prices-11033/
http://www.etsy.com/storque/seller-handbook/daily-worth-profits-come-from-business-models-not-ideas-8100/