I'm fucking frustrated with my lil business.
Let me explain: I make jewelry. Not the gold and silver expensive fucking classy shit, but not the low-quality, plastic and glass crap that you find in every store either. I have to find stores to sell it.
The one I've been last week wanted to rip me off. I sell a necklace with earrings around 30 bucks. It's all genuine gemstones and real Swarovskis. She wanted to have me drop my prices to 21 or 24$. So far, not too bad, maybe. Then we talk about commission... She wanted 60 fucking percent!
. Let's make a rapid calculation... 24$ - 60%= mmm what, 8 bucks... ok so 16 bucks for her, she has no risk, if she doesn't sell, I come pick them back. I only need a bit of counter space, that's all. I understand she has a lot of stuff to pay BUT
8$ for me, it costs me around 3 to 4 bucks of material. So let's say I have 5$ clear per necklace... It usually takes me an hour or so for one of medium complexity... So it's a fucking shitty salary. On top of it, she wanted more really complex ones, less simple ones. For the same salary. She was telling me she would want me to watch what is "in", to make fashionable stuff... I left on a promise to call, but I never did. I'm too fucking pissed-off.
I have a display in a small jewelry place, but there's not a lot of people that go there. But the owner is cool, so it's fine for me. I'm building my site (well, my boyfriend is doing most of it) so I can sell on the net but everything takes so much time , I feel like I'll never see the end of it.
I wonder if it's gonna work. I thought it was such a good idea to make original, sometimes custom-designed jewelry. I rarely make the same piece more than once, so it is also an unique piece, or almost unique... for the same price pretty much than what you'd find in a store, except it would be hand-made here with good quality materials instead of made in China by children with a big company making all the profits of the cheap-labor. I also thought to put a 1-year warranty on every piece, because it is well-made, I know it lasts.
I need some cheering up today, my faith is faltering.
Oh, I almost forgot the good news. I do some occasional coloring for BDs (for fun). One is now online, you can go check it at:
Divine authority
It's the first cover you see, the one for Midnight Warriors #9.
I'm very happy for that.
Let me explain: I make jewelry. Not the gold and silver expensive fucking classy shit, but not the low-quality, plastic and glass crap that you find in every store either. I have to find stores to sell it.
The one I've been last week wanted to rip me off. I sell a necklace with earrings around 30 bucks. It's all genuine gemstones and real Swarovskis. She wanted to have me drop my prices to 21 or 24$. So far, not too bad, maybe. Then we talk about commission... She wanted 60 fucking percent!
. Let's make a rapid calculation... 24$ - 60%= mmm what, 8 bucks... ok so 16 bucks for her, she has no risk, if she doesn't sell, I come pick them back. I only need a bit of counter space, that's all. I understand she has a lot of stuff to pay BUT
8$ for me, it costs me around 3 to 4 bucks of material. So let's say I have 5$ clear per necklace... It usually takes me an hour or so for one of medium complexity... So it's a fucking shitty salary. On top of it, she wanted more really complex ones, less simple ones. For the same salary. She was telling me she would want me to watch what is "in", to make fashionable stuff... I left on a promise to call, but I never did. I'm too fucking pissed-off.
I have a display in a small jewelry place, but there's not a lot of people that go there. But the owner is cool, so it's fine for me. I'm building my site (well, my boyfriend is doing most of it) so I can sell on the net but everything takes so much time , I feel like I'll never see the end of it.
I wonder if it's gonna work. I thought it was such a good idea to make original, sometimes custom-designed jewelry. I rarely make the same piece more than once, so it is also an unique piece, or almost unique... for the same price pretty much than what you'd find in a store, except it would be hand-made here with good quality materials instead of made in China by children with a big company making all the profits of the cheap-labor. I also thought to put a 1-year warranty on every piece, because it is well-made, I know it lasts.
I need some cheering up today, my faith is faltering.
Oh, I almost forgot the good news. I do some occasional coloring for BDs (for fun). One is now online, you can go check it at:
Divine authority
It's the first cover you see, the one for Midnight Warriors #9.
I'm very happy for that.VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
I'm not doing so great with jewellery, it's very difficult. It's hard to compete with imports and with the sheer amount of stuff on the internet.
Anyway, I'd suggest giving www.etsy.com a try, it's easy to set up and very cheap with a pretty big user base. It means you don't have to wait until your boyfriend sets up your site, and once he has set it up you can link to it from etsy and etsy from your main site.
Good luck!