Raised my prices by $15 at the last fair and sold more. Still not sure how I feel about that.
I'd been holding my small acrylics at $85 for two years because I was scared of being "too expensive" for a church hall craft fair. This past Saturday I put them at $100, mostly because canvas costs went up and I was tired of barely covering the frame.
Sold five instead of the usual two. Three people didn't even blink.
Which is nice, but it also means I was undercharging for years and nobody told me, and honestly I'm a little annoyed about the two years I spent apologizing for the price with a whole speech about drying time. One woman said "oh that's reasonable" and I nearly hugged her.
The part I can't figure out: was it the price or was it that I stopped doing the speech? Because I do think people read the apology and decide something's wrong with it.
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The drying time speech is the real thing here. You were not apologizing for the price, you were apologizing for taking up space. I did a version of this for years with bigger work, explaining the salvage, the hours, all of it, as if the object needed a defense lawyer. It did not. The price is the price.
The annoying part is true too, but I would not spend much on it. Two years of selling cheap taught you who actually buys, and that is worth something. What I would watch now is the opposite trap, the quiet feeling that $100 must be the ceiling because it worked. It is not a ceiling, it is just where you stopped being scared. Next fair, put one piece at $150 and see who bites. Usually the same people.
The defence lawyer line is exactly right, and I would go a step further: the speech was doing the opposite of what you intended. Every word of explanation tells the buyer there is something to justify, and they start looking for it. I stopped explaining years ago, not out of confidence but because I noticed the customers who bought never asked and the ones who asked never did.
The ceiling point is the one worth keeping. I would only add that the next raise is easier if you make it about something concrete, a better board, a slightly larger format. Not because the work needs the excuse, but because it gives you something to say that is not an apology.
That's a good point about the ones who asked never buying. I hadn't thought about it that way but it matches what I saw Saturday. The people who bought just said "oh that's reasonable" and got out their wallet. The ones who wanted the whole breakdown didn't buy anything. I'm going to try keeping my mouth shut next time and see how it goes.
And making the next raise about something concrete is smart. I've got a set of birch panels I've been too nervous to use because they cost more than my usual boards, so that might be the excuse in the spring. Not that it's really an excuse, I just know I'll need something to point at in my own head.
"Apologizing for taking up space" stopped me for a second, because you're right and I hadn't put it that way. The speech wasn't really about drying time at all, was it. I think I was bracing for someone to tell me it wasn't worth it, so I'd get there first.
The ceiling thing is fair too and it's already nibbling at me a little. I keep thinking, well, $100 worked, better not push it. But that's the same scared math I was doing at $85. So I'm writing down my actual costs this time, canvas, frame, the hours, all of it, before the next fair and letting the number come out of that instead of out of my nerves.