Pricing items - how?

Started by FreakAnimalFinland, May 06, 2023, 10:07:42 AM

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FreakAnimalFinland

I recent years, quite many times engaging into discussions how should be releases priced? It is interesting how different ideas or situations people have. How people relate to selling items or making them. Also background and age seems to effect. Background in ways, that it may have sort of ideological leaning.

Guys, who come from old style underground DIY, like myself, sort of grew into idea that you will lose money. That was the default. No situation where all failed, but even when all things went like "planned", you'd lose money. Perhaps mostly that money itself wasn't even agenda on table in any way. It was more about communication and cumulation of other people's creations and experiencing them. Even if all money was thrown away so to say, in return, you had something else. Experience and collection that grew with you over the years. Many early trades becoming sought after collectible of those who were not there at the time.

When you have more professional goal, such as running label. It may demand at least minimum level of sustainability. You'd need to know how much to make back, that you can sustain the label going on. Or how much you need to feed in. This sets a lot of labels apart. Some care about just getting stuff out there. Losses or not, no matter. Some prefer that label sustains itself, and is not just endless black hole. Some hope that label even cumulated income, that it is actually profitable.

Last option is interesting, since back in the day, I didn't know almost any labels who would operate them as "official business". Paying taxes and all that. Now this seems very common in underground. Perhaps simply due trouble you may get if getting caught. In Finland, depending of income, all sorts of taxes and tax-like obligations (pension etc), it can be up to 50% that they tax you. Comparing guy selling tape for 4.. 5.. 6 euro.. and next guy asking 8,9, 10.. and it is possible the latter one makes less money, simply due all things connected to official business.  As a buyer, I doubt one really think why it is so, and it comes down to "so we are asked 12 euro for C-20 now...? pfff"  Which to me, seems legit question, and also regardless of all explanations why pricing is what it is, it doesn't change fact that people may be turned away.

I see often arguments that price needs to cover the costs and trouble releases have. Dubbing tapes, folding j-cards,.. a lot of work. That manufacturing is higher than CD, so why tape should cost less. Now that it cost about same as making bigger edition bulk LP, maybe tape should cost 20 euro to make it worth of time and investment? hah.. I see point and realism, but just don't seem to have that mentality. So, there are no 20 euro tapes on my labels.

Question of topic being mainly, how you'd personally price items? What do you really consider, if anything? Most prices are sort of given by standards. You know what something generally costs, so you ask the same. But if you do consider pricing, what it is?

Manufacturing costs?
Time spend on it (dubbing, packaging..)?

If its not your own stuff, but as a label, you hope to give also artist more than bare minimum, so there are other costs than immediate manufacturing?

Or thinking what price you can recoup the costs?
Or thinking what price the actual profit is enough to keep going? That you can either afford running label (whatever level).

Price as means of arranging distribution? (as example: have significant difference between wholesale and retail price, so dealers actually WANT to sell your stuff)

Price as means of demanding "devotion"? (as example: Only people who REALLY want it, buy it. Not hoarders. Or people who appreciate the amount of labor you put into item. Sort of mutual respect and those who demand your time to be free, ain't the customers)

etc etc.... there are a lot of things you can consider.

For me personally, especially these days, it doesn't really matter so much. I have had almost same prices always. Notch up occasionally just to keep up with rising costs.
I have had guys who sell tapes for 10 euro asking how I can sell tapes for 7 euro incl. all taxes. Well... I just do it and not care if "profit" is 0 or 1 euro. Sometimes even loss. Of course, intent of label or distro is not to create loss, but I am absolutely not afraid of it either. Many times it brings something positive along it.
My two main "calculations" are how many copies I need to sell of album to break even. If it seems doable, that generally is fine. I don't release things for sake of money, but because I feel they should be out there and deserve to be out there, and like them myself, so money making comes so far behind in priorities that pricing tends to be always the same. Regardless how much album item cost to make. It is very very rare occasion that packaging, size of pressing or such things are taken into serious consideration and price increased.

CD is easy. Zine and tape is confusing. LP is challenging. It is curious what people think in terms of pricing when they put out stuff.
E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: FREAK ANIMAL http://www.nhfastore.net

FreakAnimalFinland

QuotePrice as means of arranging distribution? (as example: have significant difference between wholesale and retail price, so dealers actually WANT to sell your stuff)

This is one personal reason. Of course CD could be sold cheaper, but we can see it limits possibilities of good distribution when bigger dealers have no cut to make...
E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: FREAK ANIMAL http://www.nhfastore.net

mag-maa

I like to keep my releases with nice price, so cassette fine if it´s about 5 euros. The sleeves are a mix of printed products and some "handicrafting", cutting cardboars or fabrics and foldining and gluing them. I used to have a lot of papers to cut, to make some sort of booklets also, and the sleeve system is a mix of many parts, and still trying to keep it simple enough (anyway, "a mass production" of 20-30 copies). It´s kind of a fun thing to do... first, but after all (maybe with age?) all that starts to be more stressful + dubbing tapes for extra, and burning cd's +++ of course making the packages, filling the customs declaration infos, buying stamps etc. - and trying to keep the packages under the desired grams (so that the postage wouldn't jump to the next level). So, even the material costs are not that much with that method, comparing to the method of ordering the full job (except packing) from manufacturer - the work around each release is huge, stressy, sweaty, I don´t dare to sell the products with the price of material costs only (which I is the "old-school punk-way"; unless if you want to be a "bad capitalist"). So, basically I charge also from my stress (ha!), energy and time. Then for extra, usually I don't have luck to sell all my releases, so I don't actually even get the material costs back (except maybe in 1-2 years). If I win something from "my work/time", I lose from material costs. I also see my work as "art", and still even if I have to sell the tape with 10 euros, it would be a fine price for myself (specially if it´s a small run limited edition) - but of course that wouldn't probably sell, as the potential customers may see that this type of art should be cheaper (because it's a "a mass production" ...of 10-20 copies, ehhh).

When I release sometimes other people's music, I sell again with "a nice price". If I do maximum by myself, I can keep the cassette price down to 5 euros. Everything is nowadays becoming more expensive, so probably that old 5 is nowadays 7 already (?)

HateSermon

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on May 06, 2023, 10:07:42 AMZine and tape is confusing.

Absolutely. My most recent release was difficult to price but I looked to other labels who had similar releases physically (Wrath, Fusty, BPP, etc) and used their pricing as reference for something reasonable. Does it work? I don't know. People are buying but the last thing I want is for someone to not be able to afford my god damn tape.
I've always thought that if I can break even on just the wholesale price of blank tapes then it's a success. This doesn't always happen but it's nice when those are paid for. Everything else I consider falling under the "labor of love" umbrella -- folding, printing, stapling, packing. That money I don't expect to get back. I actually really like doing it but it just eats a lot of time. But tough shit, man. You deal with it. Most of my tax return goes into buying more things for future releases. A lot of my stuff ends up as trades with the locals so that's less money I'm spending on other noise. A small amount are sent to distros (that I actually like / buy from) and the rest are direct sales.
 

AKTI Records

I price my items in a way that they wouldn`t generate too much loss. The ultimate goal is to break even, but if I don`t its not the end of the world as this is ultimately a hobby for me and I bet to most of you folks reading this. I think one interesting factor with pricing that the topic opener mentioned is what is the thought worth (I`m talking about the devotion...) of the said item. Like lets say that if you go to a bar and you are without a doubt ready to use 8 euros to buy a pint full of shitty Heineken or whatever why not pay 10-18 euros for a cd that a) can be consumed more than once b) can be reselled if its not to your liking.

After all albums that find themselves in CDs, tapes or vinyl are more or less someones thought through ideas and depending on the medium that they are on, can sustain their durability for a quite long time. And if you are not willing to spend some money to grab it maybe its just not for you.

Neons Fanzine

Quote from: magma* on May 06, 2023, 01:57:36 PM
So, basically I charge also from my stress (ha!), energy and time.

It's exactly that for me. Distribution is such a high stress for me, if I bust my ass to release a tape with cool packaging maybe i'll make it 10 bucks, if it's a regular tape then 7 or 8 (and i still think it's too much), or 5. For CDs it's usually 10 or 8 euros depending on how much it cost me, and how much time i put into it. For the double CD MIA / BU i charged 12 euros.
I think most people are trying to get even, but when you send to distros you will most of the time lose money, so you try to manage with your own sales.
I see sometimes prices get really high in some distros, I guess it can be because of the import, and the rising costs of manufacturing, but it's crazy how much a vinyl can cost nowadays.
I think paying more than 10 euros for a tape, 15 for a CD and more than 18 for a LP is too much. But I guess sometimes you can't do otherwise.
I'm personally willing to pay more if there is a lot of personal work into it, like a zine, a handrawn stuff, or weird object, something special that makes it worth the price and more "intimate" with the label or artist, in lack of other words

Cranial Blast

#6
It can be a challenge when it comes to international shipping "pricing", as I'm either too dumb to understand how it should properly work, or if it flat out just can't be done without being overtly expensive. It seems like the international shipping prices fluctuate all of the time though here in the US, which is a bit annoying to say the least. As far as my distro is concerned, I'm not about any making money so to speak, often prices are as low as I can place them and often times I'm breaking even or even losing money when it comes to taking wholesale orders, especially from abroad, which I'm okay with and I see that as a "norm" I could mark things up and still do okay, despite any lack of social media presence or advertising, but for me it's not about making money as this is not a "job" for me, my motives are to spread music that I personally enjoy for a fair honest price, even if it might be at my own expense. It's kind of like any hobby, ask any friend who has a hobby, often hobbies you dump $ into with no $ in return, same thing could almost be said here, accept...you get rewarded by a possible legacy and or history you could potentially leave behind you for contributing to what you love and or possibly make some potential income through what you do. Playing a role into what you enjoy takes a lot of dedicated hard work and stern perseverance, but it will pay off to you in some form or another if your passion is there.

FreakAnimalFinland

I have talked with bunch of people/labels and tried to figure out how exactly the price of shipping is calculated. Over here, most people who do not have contract, have weight categories. It might be wise to figure out if ordering 1 CD and 2 CD's costs same to ship. Or same with vinyl. At least I would not feel like I'd want to buy 12 euro CD and pay 14 euro shipping.. but if I knew I can squeeze in 2-3 CD's.. suddenly postage ain't that bad.

With people who got contract with post/courier, you got weight and size based pricing. For me it is very easy to explain any customer how postage will be calculated, and what is OPTIMAL amount to order.

When I try to ask people in USA, what would be optimal amount to ship, they basically never know. Then most often you receive oversized box with lots of empty space and I keep wondering... could I have fitted more items in box to make extortionate shipping rate divided over more items to make it worthy. But, nobody seems to know.
E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: FREAK ANIMAL http://www.nhfastore.net

WCN

As far I know USPS has pretty standard and clear weight classes and prices for first class international mail. They might be buried in some PDF on the site but you can find them. Something like 32 oz = 24.50, 48 oz = $35ish. Lower weight also along those lines, but smaller packages are still really expensive. 32 oz is usually around 10 tapes, which can be an OK price per item. It's quite expensive but not impossible to calculate by any means with a cheap digital scale and the internet.

I highly recommend anyone shipping internationally from the USA sign up for a https://www.pirateship.com/ account. You get access to deeply discounted UPS prices, which is the vastly superior option when shipping larger quantities of items / heavier stuff. My trick as an EU distro was I had an account with my USA address, so I was able to just ask people the weight and dimensions of the package they were sending when I was buying wholesale from the USA, then through pirate ship I could prepare and purchase the shipping and customs labels for cheap and just send them to the seller and tell them to put them on the package and drop off. 98% idiot proof. Pirate Ship might not be possible for EU based people with no USA address, but there are other similar services where you can do the same thing. https://www.parcelmonkey.co.uk/ was another one I used for a while.
Harsh Noise label and EU based distro of American Imports
https://whitecentipedenoise.com/

lacross

When you initially build out your store you shouldn't worry about doing extensive price research. Just match the prices of one of the top retail sites in your market and that is good enough to get started.

Quote from: WCN on February 21, 2024, 12:38:45 PMAs far I know USPS has pretty standard and clear weight classes and prices for first class international mail. They might be buried in some PDF on the site but you can find them. Something like 32 oz = 24.50, 48 oz = $35ish. Lower weight also along those lines, but smaller packages are still really expensive. 32 oz is usually around 10 tapes, which can be an OK price per item. It's quite expensive but not impossible to calculate by any means with a cheap digital scale and the internet.

I highly recommend anyone shipping internationally from the USA sign up for a https://www.pirateship.com/ account. You get access to deeply discounted UPS prices, which is the vastly superior option when shipping larger quantities of items / heavier stuff. My trick as an EU distro was I had an account with my USA address, so I was able to just ask people the weight and dimensions of the package they were sending when I was buying wholesale from the USA, then through pirate ship I could prepare and purchase the shipping and customs labels for cheap and just send them to the seller and tell them to put them on the package and drop off. 98% idiot proof. Pirate Ship might not be possible for EU based people with no USA address, but there are other similar services where you can do the same thing. https://www.parcelmonkey.co.uk/ was another one I used for a while.

I have used pirateship and sendle before, very good services for shipping from usa to canada and europe. but for the domestic market I only buy labels in large quantities through https://labels.vc/ (yes, the site looks weird, but after registration it is ok, works only in usa, not available for europe) - especially for trading on ebay. it helps me to save money as well.