Click Here to return to Retail Airbrush BLOG
Why do most airbrush places and t-shirt places in general have a separate price on the artwork/design and a separate price on the blank item?….why not make it all one price?
To start with, the main thinking behind why we price artwork separate from item goes back to the basics of retail “Bait the customer with a lower price” so the can’t say NO once they already fell in love with the item.
Now I don’t want anyone to miss understand this as being a deceptive sales ploy, on the contrary it’s all psychological.
A customer walks in and sees a design they absolute love and on that design it says “$12 artwork" (or something similar)…most customers have a tendency to think that is how much the entire shirt is….and this is OK….you want them to fall in love with the design so much that once they realize they have to pay extra for the shirt they don’t care because they already made up their mind that they want it.
Having a price tag of $12 on a design is more enticing then putting $21 on that same design (which would include the price of the t-shirt)….they will shy away from the $21 and not give themselves a chance to fall in love with the design so much that the extra $9 on top of the $12 does not matter to them…it’s funny….because it all comes out to be the same price , but the psychology behind putting the prices separate is a time tested sales tactic that works on each of us EVERY DAY of our lives.
Now….here are the actual ”Practical” and business related reason why you should price art and item separate. Keeping in mind this works best for locations that sell a variety of items to paint on, with more than one artist...not typically the "one man operation".
1.) It helps you keep track of the amount of money you are making on just the artwork which in turn helps you decide on how much the”Artist” is making…(how to pay airbrush artists is another entire subject of its own) but for the sake of this topic lets just go with the old fashioned percentage pay, where the artist gets paid a percentage of all the artwork they do.
2.) It helps you know how much is being made off the sale of the items you stock….which the artist does not get anything for.
3.) Most importantly it helps you control the amount of profit you are making off the sale of a variety of blank items that cost you different amounts.
The basics of retail consist of a “wholesale” price and a “retail price. The “wholesale" price is the price we buy our blank items for. The “retail" price is the ”marked up” price that we RE-SELL these items for to our customers.
Here at Anything Airbrushed plus we carry a number of different blank items…t-shirts, sweatshirt, long sleeve t-shirts, hoodies, pillowcases, hats, sweatpants, v-neck t-shirts….and on and on… Each of these items cost us a different amount.
• Our adult white t-shirts for sizes small thru XL cost us between $1.50-$1.80 and we sell them for $9.00
• Our adult Hoodies for sizes small thru XL cost us from $6.75-$8.75 and we sell them for $20.00
• Our adult Womens v-neck t-shirts cost us between $2.25-$2.65 and we sell them for $12.00
•Tote bags cost us between $1-$1.25 and we sell them for $6.00
and it goes on and on with each item we sell….they all cost us a different amount. The prices for these items are all posted with the items themselves.
All of our standard designs cost between $10 and $20 for the artwork. These prices are posted on the designs themselves.
Here is an example of a typical sale…
A customer comes in and sees a design that says $12.00 for the artwork. They fall in love with it and decide to get it. Now they have to decide what type of item they want to put it on.
They decide to get an adult small t-shirt which cost $9.00. Which makes the total cost with the shirt and design $21.00. If we break down the sale in terms of profit, it breaks down like this. The wholesale cost of the t-shirt(the price we paid for it) was $1.50 so $21.00 minus $1.50 is a $19.50 profit.
Now lets say you had put a price of $21.00 on that design and that includes the t-shirt. However, the customer decides to get it on a Hoodie instead of a t-shirt. Now the profit numbers change. The hoodie cost us $6.75 so that same $21.00 sale becomes $21 minus $6.75 for a total profit of $14.25. Since the blank hoodie cost you more than the blank t-shirt…you just lost $5.25 profit.
Now if the prices were separated then by our pricing it would cost $12 artwork plus $20 hoodie for a total of $32.00. Break that down in profit…$32 minus the whole sale cost of the hoodie which was $6.75 = $25.25 profit. This makes $5.75 MORE profit over the sale of a t-shirt.
If you do not price them separate, you can’t control your profit as easily and therefore lose money. Hence the reason why you have the items priced separate from the t-shirts. This also allows you to raise the price of the items or the artwork at anytime separately without it looking as if the whole item(shirt and art) was effected. In reality it does effect the whole price but it doesn’t appear that way when looking at the two separate prices individually.
Now….lets break this down even further by involving the artist and how much they get paid…..as I said above, this is a complete subject in and of it self so this is just a brief re-cap.
For the sake of this example lets say your artist gets paid the old fashioned way as strictly a percentage of the artwork….we’ll go with 50%
How do you know what the artist gets paid if you do not know how much of the “One Price” system actually breaks down to being “artwork”? Lets take the $21 example above. How much of that $21 goes to the artist?
Are you giving them 50% of the whole $21?…..lets break that down….
$21 x 50% is $10.50….so the artist is getting $10.50 and you are getting $10.50 So you now minus the wholesale price of the shirt ($1.50) ….as the owner of the store you have just pocketed $9.00 from a $21.00 sale…the artist made $10.50.
Now lets say you separate the two prices….$12 art and $9 shirt….the artist gets 50% of the $12 which is $6.00…you as the owner get $6.00 plus $9.00 =$15.00 minus the whole sale price of the shirt($1.50)….you pocket $13.50 from a $21.00 sale.
As the owner who has to pay rent, utilities, insurance, buy supplies, and all the other expenses of running a business, which sounds better to you $9.00 total profit or $13.50 total profit?
Once you break things down by the numbers you can see the advantage of having the prices separated. Even a “one man show” where it is only you as the artist can profit from doing it this way because in reality you should be paying your self separate from your business. In other words this helps you decide what goes into your pocket and what goes back into the business to keep it going.
Now, with all this explained you still have shops that "claim" a one price system. Meaning the price on the display includes the t-shirt itself. However these same places have an "Up-Charge" on top of the price on the display if the customer chooses an item other than a standard size t-shirt...ie: hoodies, long sleeve Tee, V-neck, sweatshirt etc...
So, they still have a multiple price system when it all comes down to the final price. Instead of telling the customer they have to pay separate for the shirt itself, they still have to tell customers that it costs more for a Hoodie, V-neck, long sleeve tee etc...
As a business that is capable of painting on "Anything", we can't possibly list the price of every item that we sell that a customer can get a design painted on....lol....that would be a very long list hanging on the side of every display.
It really all comes down to sales tactics and how one interacts with their customers. Explaining that they have to pay a separate price for an item as opposed to telling a customer they have to pay "more" for certain items is all a matter of your customer service skills.
But what if a customer wants you to paint on their own item?...That is where the "Service Charge" comes in...and that is another topic. Click this link for our article on the “Service Charge”
As always feel free to leave comments or ask questions