I have been thinking of increasing the prices on my shirts across the board, but just want to get some advice on the best way to go about it. Our shirts (on American Apparel stock) now sell for $16, with one of our designs (the "Intramural Zombie Hunter" custom piece) selling for $18. Time and time again, people tell me that they're really happy with the price, and one of our shirts (the "Sandwich Dinosaur") is the top-seller at a boutique in SF at $26, so people would certainly buy it for a bit more.
So, I'm thinking of increasing the prices by $2 or so across the board, so most shirts would be $18, and the custom pieces would be $20 (or possible $22). I just need to be able to keep up with my costs better.
My question is this - what would be the best way to soften this blow? I'm thinking of increasing the prices, but maybe running more coupon codes, and maybe making special prices if a person buys 3 or more shirts, stuff like that. I don't want the customer to feel like they're getting stiffed, but I also don't want there to be a huge disparity between what my product sells for online and in retail stores, and I also need to look out for my business. Any recommendations on my prices or anything would be tremendous. Thanks!!!
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Well, I definitely think you can raise your prices. If the boutique is selling for $26, you might think about selling closer to that price than $18. I'd say at least $22.
As for how to break it to your customers - you might just raise the prices on your new designs, and leave the old ones at $16 until they sell out. Or just explain it to them gently. If your designs are worth it, they will still be buying.
Also, what is a "custom piece"? Are you talking about a one-of-a-kind shirt or just limited edition? If it's one-of-a-kind you should be charging a lot more than $18.
The custom pieces are the Intramural Zombie Hunter shirt, which are made-to-order shirts for a fictional zombie hunting league - every shirt (American Apparel t-shirt) gets its own name and number (like an athletic jersey, which is cheap to do and doesn't take much time), and a customer-selected amount of hand-applied blood. I've been thinking of raising those to as high as $24, but want to keep them accessible. They're currently at $18, so I've been thinking of raising the price to $24 or so and maybe making it a "Membership Pack" that comes with the shirt, a membership card (am having those printed up and am gonna sell them for a couple bucks), and maybe some pins and/or a sticker.
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If I were you I'd be putting the Zombie shirts higher than $24. They are limited edition and have hand-applied blood! Come on now.. That is just special.
The membership pack idea sounds really nice. Definitely do that.
Here's the thing, though.. if you are going to charge more, you really have to sell them differently. When I went to your site before I didn't even notice that these shirts were different than the regular shirts.
When you do your site redesign, you should consider having a separate section for limited edition, hand-altered shirts.. and really sell all the benefits (have multiple pictures of different blood-splattered options, pictures of the membership pack, etc). If you make sure people know how special they are, they might be willing to pay the special price as well.
Great advice - thanks! I think I will make all of these changes when we do the site redesign, and maybe give Intramural Zombie Hunting League gear (I'm also going to be releasing track jackets, and selling stickers and membership cards and buttons seperately) their own category in the shop, or highlight them in some way...
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there's a fledgling community on MySpace that was started by one of our fans; I've been kicking around the idea of putting together a site seperate from my own (but linked to it). The domain name I would like to get isn't taken; I guess I should get around to that, huh?
(PS - you should get back on IndieThreads!)
__________________ SEIBEI - put a monster in your closet.
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there's a fledgling community on MySpace that was started by one of our fans; I've been kicking around the idea of putting together a site seperate from my own (but linked to it). The domain name I would like to get isn't taken; I guess I should get around to that, huh?
A separate (but linked) site would be a good idea. That way you can focus your marketing efforts a lot more. Do it!
Depending on how the Intramural Zombie concept develops it may even warrant being split off into its own label. That said, while I think the shirts are really cool, I did always just assume you'd eventually get sick of putting so much work into each shirt and stop doing them. How do you find it doing so much customisation? I guess you run the risk of digging yourself into a hole: they're your signature item (along with sandwhich dinosaur obviously), but in the long run are they going to take up too much time? Creeping up the cost is probably a good idea. Maybe put the price up a couple of bucks every six months until the end of time
Very few companies sell AA shirts for less than $18ea, so there's no reason you should be one of them It's probably not good to have such a discrepency between retail and online prices either - you don't want new Villians customers ending up on your website and being annoyed at the prices.
I think the best way to increase prices is to just increase them
Your products are a bit different than a "service company" like a telephone company sneaking in a price hike while you're not looking.
Of course, if a community driven t-shirt site like threadless were to raise prices, they would have to address it a bit more carefully, but I'm guessing that you're not at the threadless level (yet).
While you may have repeat customers, many customers will also be new, and won't have any idea that the prices have increased. If you have a blog on the site, you can briefly make an entry about the increased prices, but as Solmu said, your shirts are priced below what many people are selling the same (or lesser) quality shirts for.
I wouldn't dwell on it too much But you should definitely think about the price move before you make it so you're not always adjusting your price up and down.
Speaking as a potential customer (who would buy the sandwich dinosaur in a second if it was in XXL), I think $20 is a fair price to pay for your shirts. Fair meaning, I wouldn't think twice of paying it knowing that it's printed on an upper end shirt with a quality printing process. $22 would even work. $25 (plus shipping) would make me think twice.
I wouldn't suggest going over $20, myself. I wouldn't really consider paying more than $20 for most shirts, though opinions obviously differ a bit there.
I think you should let you EXISTING customerbase know (especially if you have a newsletter or something) ahead of time, and let them buy anything at the current prices before they go up. Might give an explanation about rising cost of doing business or whatever is appropriate, if need be. After that (give it some time, maybe 2-3 weeks?), you probably don't really want any notice on the main page about it; just raise them at that point.
I think you should let you EXISTING customerbase know (especially if you have a newsletter or something) ahead of time, and let them buy anything at the current prices before they go up.
Good point. That way your current and loyal customers can get in before the increase.
here's what I'm thinking - increase the prices, and have a coupon code on MySpace, and on my blog, for our loyal fans. also, I'm probably going to have some obvious, constant coupon codes running for if people buy like three shirts at a time or something.
__________________ SEIBEI - put a monster in your closet.
Follow me on Twitter @davidSEIBEI
how to increase prices 
If your designs are worth it, they will still be buying.
