binki

Was at a private conference over the last few days and they always run a marketplace. Cost is about $400 for a booth and you get 3 days for that. This is a very specialized conference and the merchandise has vendors that only market to this group.

Anyway, I was just looking at pricing. Most of it is 3X cost, some more. The most amazing part was the embroidery. There were 3 booths with embroidery machines, 2 home based machines and one commercial SWF compact 12 needle. Of course they were running round the clock. Standard for putting lettering was $15 for a name and title on a garment (4 words, about 30 letters). Most of the things we saw were not of great quality from the standpoint of artwork or craftsmanship.

We did pick up a few customers there when we mentioned that we did the same thing for quite a bit less.

As for us, I really don't want to lug a 400lb machine around to these shows but I might consider a 9 needle SWF compact if we started doing things like this. I was just more shocked at the retail+ pricing that I saw for what I would consider a substandard product.

 

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BRC

Don't forget that when you go to a show there are a lot more costs involved than just running from your shop. You have to pay for the motel at inflated costs, meals, the booth, and almost $3 a gallon gas to get there and back. In addition to whatever addons you get hit for. So if you price the same as shop work you may as well have stayed home and watched TV. The idea is to make money and if the customer will pay it for the convenience, they get what they want and you get what you want, both go away happy.

As for the quality, I would never condone poor workmanship. On the other hand the Taj Mahal was not built in a day, things like that take time. If you want to play with different fonts and colors and see 12 different layouts of the same thing, this is not where you want to be. When there are 20 people waiting for you to help them you can't take the time to paint the Mona Lisa for all of them. The secret is to know what you are doing and do the best job you can in the shortest amount of time possible. At the end of the day the artist in the studio who has done 1/3 of a small painting while thinking about colors and textures goes for a fine dinner and wine, the artist who has done 8 hours of speed painting and had 40 or 50 customers goes for a quick burger and bed. The world needs both groups to survive.

 

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