AUTHOR: Alisha TITLE: Home, Home on the Range DATE: 9/21/2004 06:30:00 AM ----- BODY:

What is your price range? This is the first (or, sometimes second) question I ask an artist whose work I am sitting down to review. You open your portfolio to slides, sometimes photos, or color prints. Then, I ask you what your price range is and you stare back blankly with, “Um… well… do you mean you want to see my price sheet?” This is a typical portfolio review. (If this was not you, I humbly apologize and kneel to thank you for knowing your price range and being able to articulately speak about it. Being the exception and not the rule, I award you today the gift of not having to read my blog. Please click on one of the ‘Links I Like’ on the right of this entry and have a beautiful, price-range-free, day.) Your price range is, in simple terms, the low and high end of your line. If you make wooden jewelry boxes and your retail prices are roughly $35, $85, and $165 – your price range is “between $35 and $165.” That was the simple explanation. Most artists, however, have erratic prices that don’t fit into those simple boxes. Let’s imagine that you make a small, attractive pins and your prices are $17, $25, and $28. Your price range is, yes, technically speaking “between $12 and $32.” But this is not the ideal way for you to discuss your line. Instead you need to step outside your studio and into the shoes of the consumer. If you were going to buy a gift for a friend and you intended to spend about $15, what amount would you pay at the cash register and still feel like you weren’t short-changing your friend? $12? With sales tax you are pretty close to $15, right? Now, what if you saw something and fell in love with it and it was $19? Wouldn’t you did into your pocket for a few more dollars for your friend? Wouldn’t you consider this to still be a purchase around $15? Now, let’s begin again with our simple wooden jewelry boxes that sell for $35, $85, and $165. Technically they range “between $35 and $165.” This is an acceptable way to speak about the work. Ideally, you would say though that they “sell in a $30 and $200 retail range.” The small pins that sell for $17, $25, and $28? This is all within a $20 price point or price range. The three prices are reasonably accessible to the person looking to spend $20. Why bother talking about your prices in terms of range? Whether you make $12,000 paintings or $12 pins, exact often sounds ficticious. Think about it. Doesn't a range of prices sound more professional and, for lack of a better term, solid? Expanding beyond the exact price listings also pads your prices to appeal to a wider range of people. Knowing your price range doesn’t just make a difference in how you talk about your work to others, it comes in handy when you are seeking to increase your prices. If you are already selling an item for $18, the jump to $19 or $20 really isn’t that great (unless, of course, you have a regular client base that will notice and be alarmed by now having to pay $2 more). Understand the range people find to be a reasonable price for your work and you will begin to understand how to use the range to your advantage.

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