Have You Raised Your Prices?

I thought that this would be a great question to answer because I'm sure many of you, especially if you've been a past customer, have been wondering this yourself & you deserve an answer.

Yes! I have raised my prices.

So now you're probably wondering why. There are a few reasons.

The first reason
I've had my Etsy shop for a year now & although it's making money, it's only sustaining itself. I want to take this shop, this business, to the next level in the next year & that would be for it to make money & grow from there. So that meant I had to take a long hard look at some of the ways I was running my shop...including pricing my products.

The next reason 
I had to get clear on who I was selling too. All businesses are marketing to a certain people group. You can't necessarily have a business that has something for everyone. So again, over the past year, I've decided what I want my shop to be about & who my products are for. I understand who my ideal customer is & that's who I'm marketing my products too. That too caused an issue with my prices.

The last reason
I wanted to get into dealing with boutiques & that meant getting wholesale accounts. Again, with my prices the way they were, because I'd priced my products toward the low end, I wasn't able to get any wholesale accounts because I was already practically selling my products at wholesale prices. I would be contacted by boutiques who'd want to know my wholesale pricing & the response, "it is at wholesale price" or giving them a quote for a couple dollars off each product, was not appealing. Like I said earlier, I want my business to grow & to do that, I want to get my products into local boutiques. So, again, I had to look at my prices.

So over the past year, I've grown & learned A LOT about running a business. Pricing is definitely one of the things I've learned a bit more about. If you've followed Baby Swank from the very beginning you'll know that I've upped my prices a few times when I realized I was loosing money selling my product at the price it was marked. If you have a shop & it's a hobby, all you have to do is make ends meet. If you have a business & you want it to grow, you have to make money.

So that's where I'm at. I want you all to know the reasons behind the price increase. I want to be able to offer discounts, coupons, & sells. I want to participate in giveaways & contests too. If my prices are at rock bottom & can't do that. That's no good.

Thanks for understanding!
Meagan