I have decided to start making feather earrings to sell, specifically peacock-feather earrings. I believe that I could turn a profit with these earrings, marketing to festival goers in California off of Etsy.
My adventure started by looking up how to make feather earrings, finding a simple tutorial off of WikiHow. I then ventured to Michael’s craft store to do some price research. It appears that I’m going to need the following:
1. Pliers (to crimp the crimp beads)-already own
2. French hooks-pkg. of 40 for $3.99-.10/unit
3. Crimp beads-pkg. of 56 for $2.99-.05/unit
4. Eye pins-pkg. of 120 for $3.99-.03/unit
5. Feathers-6 peacock feathers for $2.99-.50/unit While this wouldn’t change the per-unit cost, I would purchase 3 packages of French …show more content…
I’m going to market on Instagram, which is a free social-media app so there will not be any advertising costs. The fee breakdown for listing on Etsy includes a listing fee of .20/four months (or until sold), a 3.5% commission fee, and 3% plus .25 payment processing fee. I will have the buyer pay for shipping. Now, realistically, if I’m making only 1 kind of feather earrings, I expect each customer to only buy 1 pair. They don’t need 6 pairs of the same type of earring. Since they will also have to pay for shipping, I’m going to price my earrings at $4.99 per pair. That’s an initial markup of $3.53 per pair. Once I subtract Etsy’s fees, which total $.57 per pair sold ($4.99 x 6.5% + .25). I will have a one-time fee of .20 for the four-month listing. If I am estimating this business out for 5 years, that is a fee of $3.00. These expenses are all fixed as my price is set, even though half of the fees are a percentage (so usually the percentage costs would be variable). Again, I also don’t expect to sell more than 1 pair at a time. So my profit would be $2.96 per pair of earrings. If I sold my goal of 56 pair, that would be $165.76 total, then I’d have to subtract the $3.00 if this took 5 years to complete, but I’d like to sell them in the four months, so I’d subtract .20, giving me a profit of $165.56. If I had to subtract for new pliers, my profit would be …show more content…
I didn’t really know how fees on Etsy worked before this project. I think that in order to market something not locally, an artist would need a variety of items or a very unique product that would take a lot of time and high-quality materials. If I indeed sold my earrings I would more than break even, but I almost don’t think it’d be worth my time with such a simple product. I’m not concerned about advertising as Instagram does wonders for people, but I think that the market for cheap costume jewelry might be a little saturated. I’ve just always wanted to actually make feather
My adventure started by looking up how to make feather earrings, finding a simple tutorial off of WikiHow. I then ventured to Michael’s craft store to do some price research. It appears that I’m going to need the following:
1. Pliers (to crimp the crimp beads)-already own
2. French hooks-pkg. of 40 for $3.99-.10/unit
3. Crimp beads-pkg. of 56 for $2.99-.05/unit
4. Eye pins-pkg. of 120 for $3.99-.03/unit
5. Feathers-6 peacock feathers for $2.99-.50/unit While this wouldn’t change the per-unit cost, I would purchase 3 packages of French …show more content…
I’m going to market on Instagram, which is a free social-media app so there will not be any advertising costs. The fee breakdown for listing on Etsy includes a listing fee of .20/four months (or until sold), a 3.5% commission fee, and 3% plus .25 payment processing fee. I will have the buyer pay for shipping. Now, realistically, if I’m making only 1 kind of feather earrings, I expect each customer to only buy 1 pair. They don’t need 6 pairs of the same type of earring. Since they will also have to pay for shipping, I’m going to price my earrings at $4.99 per pair. That’s an initial markup of $3.53 per pair. Once I subtract Etsy’s fees, which total $.57 per pair sold ($4.99 x 6.5% + .25). I will have a one-time fee of .20 for the four-month listing. If I am estimating this business out for 5 years, that is a fee of $3.00. These expenses are all fixed as my price is set, even though half of the fees are a percentage (so usually the percentage costs would be variable). Again, I also don’t expect to sell more than 1 pair at a time. So my profit would be $2.96 per pair of earrings. If I sold my goal of 56 pair, that would be $165.76 total, then I’d have to subtract the $3.00 if this took 5 years to complete, but I’d like to sell them in the four months, so I’d subtract .20, giving me a profit of $165.56. If I had to subtract for new pliers, my profit would be …show more content…
I didn’t really know how fees on Etsy worked before this project. I think that in order to market something not locally, an artist would need a variety of items or a very unique product that would take a lot of time and high-quality materials. If I indeed sold my earrings I would more than break even, but I almost don’t think it’d be worth my time with such a simple product. I’m not concerned about advertising as Instagram does wonders for people, but I think that the market for cheap costume jewelry might be a little saturated. I’ve just always wanted to actually make feather