Why do people charge so much?

I know what you mean... I'm not financially secure at all, and I don't even work or have my own job. I'm just a teenager. If I get a doll, I'm going to feel bad for my parents for paying that much just for a "doll". But I want one. When will I use it? I don't know... but I want one.

 

Keep in mind that in those particular instances, you're paying for the designer name as well. Baby the Stars Shine Bright and h. Naoto are both fairly expensive brands for real people clothing, and while part of that is high quality materials, labor, etc. they are also charging from the brand name to a certain degree. I don't know about the h.Naoto sets, but the Baby outfit sets have also included a lot of pieces, all the way from undergarments to shoes and a handbag. Most of the outfits I see sold from both companies and individuals don't go that far- I can only think of a few outfit sets that I've seen sold with shoes, for example, but the Baby sets are totally complete outfits- if all you have is a nude wigged doll, you can get one of those are you're 100% ready to go.

 

nicely said. plus the pp on the hourly cost perspective

 

When I make something to sell, I always ask the buyer to give me some feedback on how I can improve, and so far everyone has liked my outfits and thought they were well made...
I do my best when making an outfit, if I won't buy it, I won't offer it. But I do try to keep my prices low...because if I start to get in the mindset of making to sell, I will no longer enjoy sewing and learning...
this happened with me when I was sculpting artdolls...I sold a couple and I thought.."ooh I could make some money doing this!" so I sculpted more, put more up for sale, sold more... and pushed myself to make things to sell....I forgot about just enjoying sculpting..and I burned out.
I sew for the joy of learning to do it and to make things for my dolls instead of buying from others..I have ideas for clothes too!, and if I happen to make something that when I put up for sale someone falls in love with and wants to buy..I am tickled...

 

Very true skwerlie. I do think the fact that shoes and the backpack were included pushed me to go for the H. Naoto set. I like that the shoes are included.
The shoes I tend to pick out are anywhere from $45-85 so with that in mind, $175 for a complete set including shoes would make me happy. $200 + gets a little hard to swallow, but I choked it down this time. lol

 

i dont think most artists charge much at all for the wonderful work they do. they mostly use high quality fabrics or paints and spend hours hunched over in cramped quarters working on tiny details, to please us discriminating buyers!
i see nothing wrong with charging a good price for this amount of work, its worth it as far as i am concerned. but i do have other problems.
i would like to make my own clothes but not many patterns are available. is there a pattern maker here somewhere?
two things i dont like:
while i am willing to pay for exceptional work, i always seem to be too late to get them! (so obviously others dont mind paying either LOL)
but the thing that really bugs me, is the hidden costs! if i buy an item for say, 100.00 shipping runs around 20.00 but then i must also pay, duty of around 20.00 plus a delivery charge from the post office of 5.00 so what you can buy is limited by the extra charges. that 100.00 item has now cost me 145.00.
a face up is a nightmare. if i buy a doll for 500. the seller charges for shipping duty is also added. then i must send to the artist, and when it is shipped back to me i pay another shipping charge to the artist and duty is charged AGAIN for me to get my own doll back. my only option is to find artists in canada so i dont have the extra charges. in the US the doll cost would be (this is an example cost only)
doll=500.00 shipping 45.00 face up 150.00 return shipping 45.00 total 740.00in canada the costs would be
doll 500.00 shipping 85.00 duty 95.00 shipping to artist 45.00 face up 150.00 return shipping 85.00 and duty again 95.00 total 960.00
so i must be very choosy in my purchases. its not the artist costs that are high for me!

 

i think alot of the time it looks like alot...but as has been mentioned, when you add up induvidual pieces + labour, its seems fair. somethings are extreme, but...dont buy them? and yes, sometimes youre paying for brand.

exchange rate effects things, because $200 (£100) for a H naoto set seems fine to me ^^; pretty clothes are expensive in england...even not very well made ones

 

I'm not sure if it was stated before or not but...

One reason I find in sewing, painting, and modding is that your models are much, much smaller than a human. Makes it very hard for the detailed stuff. Especially for the tiniest tinys.

I, personally, don't like charging for labor. I like to sew and make jewelry as a hobby. If I were to sell some of the clothing I made, it wouldn't be much at all. In fact, I once sold a basic set of clothing for $2.99.

I think it also has to deal with how long you've been in the business. If you've got a customer following, you can afford to up prices a little. If you have outfits that are unique, one-offs, or special in any way, and the customers see this, then they'll fight over it. That makes the prices go up even more and make people see you as a very 'popular' and talented seller.

You can usually find people who are just breaking through doing free faceups, giving away free clothes, and giving away free little necklaces. You just have to look for it.

Also, you have to try and do what they do to actually realize how hard it is to make stuff look so professional. I have been sewing for about two years now and I am still nowhere near the level I need to be.

 

I think some people would sonsider my items to be pricy. However I do have a good reason for putting that price on the item. Here is how I price my pieces:

1. Material.
Buying and getting various materials is expencive. Nice fabrics aren't cheap and details such as buttons, hatches, beads and lace are really expencive. The price of the materials used in the det is ofcourse a big factor.

2. Number of items.
I usually sell my clothes in sets, for example, a dress and a shirt. So the value of all the items in the set combined form the final price.

3. Effort.
It takes a lot of dedication and skill to make a good set of clothing for a doll. It's a combination of pattern-making, design, hard work and tiny details that needs to be executed with great patience and perfection. It's fun work but it takes a lot of effort! To make a really good piece of clothing for a doll isn't easy.

4. Time.
It takes a lot of time to make a good item of clothing. Time that could have been spent on other things such as making the same item for oneself, or playing with ones dolls, or eating ice-cream! Who knows? what matters is that the time spent is valuable and that shows on the pricetag of the item.

The price of items for dolls sometimes overcomes the price of items for humans, why is this? Well the answer is simple. The items are hand-made by people who do it in their spare-time. Not by machines in a factory, made in thousands of copies. It's important to keep in mind that there is a person behind the item (or painting or customizing) that has put down loads of time, energy and creativity to be able to give it to you.

 

I just want to say that it's harder to sew small clothing because it's easier to stich your fingers (base on experience)
OUCH!!
So that might explain why doll clothing cost more than (some) regular clothing

 

I know all about that "i-gotta-have-that" fabric sickness. Oh man ... I think i'm on a first name basis with the folks at my fabric store ... LOL
And finding things to scale ... sometimes you only need one ... you've got to buy 4 or 5 that you may never use. Buttons, clasps, and buckles are good for that.
And zippers are always the wrong scale, not matter how small you manage to find them. And those forgotten little things like padding, lining and interfacing.
Someone mentioned machines, but no one mentioned the expenses of maintaining those machines, using quality needles, quality threads (that cheap stuff from walmart costs you more than you know), and finding a good service man for those cleanings & upgrades.
The thing that can really take the cake, though, is the person who buys the nice outfit and then expects you to dump it into a manila envelope and mail it to them, uninsured, but then wants you to replace custom work for free because they wanted to be cheap on shipping (and it didn't arrive, got lost, the postman ate it or gets mad because it took 12 days to get there, the post office sent it to Canton, NJ instead of Canton, OH). Those who've been shipping stuff around the globe can probably quote the shipping rates to the post office folks ...
I try to make things in sets rather than bits and pieces. I also try to keep my things priced in a range so that a middle range of BJD owners can afford them. I think that a complex multi-pieced outfit should run more as a general rule than a t-shirt & shorts set. I think pricing is always the hardest part of selling an item.

 

I couldn't explain better than Enmi, and agree with machine stuff too; the machine itself can't be a cheap one if you dont want to fight with it constantly to be able to do good details. I'm a lot happier working with a professional one ^^

Anyway, I believe in hand-made clothes is not ever seen the correct price. if you worked a lot on the outfit but the results are not good its not fair asking a high price; but this most depends on buyers criteria too ^^

 

While not doll-based, I take commissions for other, more traditional forms of art. I'd have to say I've either "scared off" or turned away at least 80% of those I've attracted due to some...shall we say difference of opinion? Yes. Difference of opinion as to what my time is worth.

Story time!

Best example thus far; in school I double majored, so half of my classes were in fine art, and I spent the rest surrounded by current and to-be business people. One of the women in one of my classes saw me doodling (Micro economics? So boring.) and asked if I did portraits. I said yes, in fact, I did...and in the end she wanted me to create some portraits of her spawnlings/kidlets/children, whatever you choose to call them. So I said sure, took down some details, and then said I'd need to do some math out before I could tell her the cost.

Now, I work fast. Two slightly-larger-than-life-sized busts of her kids would likely only take me about 14-18 hours, give or take. Chalk pastels, which i already owned, so I'd only charge for paper (not very expensive paper at that, so maybe $10? $12?) But...hourly rate. Asked my prof, and given that I was a student (yes a lot of artists work on "the old system", students cost you a lot less than artists with degrees) It was going to turn into something like $150-200 for the set, no frames or mounting or anything. She freaked, raved awhile, and avoided me for the rest of the semester. This same woman always wore designer everything, blah blah blah fishcakes.

Art, particularly good, unique, commissioned art, is expensive. The artist needs to make more than they could make flipping burgers or waiting tables at Hooters for it to be worth their while. In comparison, $40 for doll shoes? Pricey hand-made one-off outfit? Not nearly so bad for me to wrap my brain around. My wallet however, is an entirely different matter. *cringe*

 

You definitely get what you pay for most of the time, IMO. Sometimes you'll get lucky and find a bargain, I suppose, but if we're talking buying new, I think it's obvious which is the $10 dress and which is the $200.

As for eyes, I love them. I've bought many, ranging from very cheap acrylic, up to expensive glass. My favourite are a pair of green-blue graduation eyes from Silver that I bought here on DoA for over $100. They are worth to me, both in quality and sheer beauty, far far more than 100 pairs of cheap acrylic.

 

My question is, if I could do a faceup or make an outfit as good as the top sellers on DoA and then I charged newbie prices forever, why would those top artists be mad at me? I get vibes from some folks they'd be almost morally offended and mortally wounded. Why would MY prices be anyone ELSE'S business? Some people say, "I charge so high because I'm WORTH it! It's RUDE for you to question my prices! No Price Police!", yet would have NO trouble telling me MY prices are TOO LOW? What if I said I priced low because I believe owners deserved a chance to own nice things they can AFFORD easily? Am I not allowed to think of the customer first? This is where the cry of "Greedy!" can come in. It's ONE thing to charge whatever YOU want, but to bristle when someone does a good job and charges LESS than you? It sounds like artificial inflation and price fixing to keep the money flowing in, such as it may.

I fully believe some people are worth what they charge and it's THEIR business to charge so high. Why isn't it MY own business to charge LOW if I want?

 

Sometimes though, the $10 dress looks better than the $200, because it was made by someone who loves to create rather than to make money.

Here, here! I wish I could sell some of my chains and things that I make. They are good enough, but the problem is that I want to sell them at a low cost. Low Cost usually equals Cheap in this hobby, unfortunately. It's not that they're cheaply made or that I didn't spend time on them, but that I want to sell them to people who'll actually use them that might not be able to afford the other people's things. But because I would be setting my prices too low (without charging for labor, because this is a hobby, not a job for me, even though it may be for other people) I can't sell.

Ah well. I have quite the jewlery box~! :3

 

I would LOVE to see links to a $10 dress that's made as well and with such fine detailing as an Ospirit or Phantom Creations or Val Zeitler--or Dollheart--outfit. I'd be all over it like a duck on a June bug!

 

Well....see, theres a little problem with that line of though. I mean, sure, i'm sure there are some seamstresses and faceup artists out there who have become popular enough and have a wonderful range of experience and are amazing and possibly professional in what they do, and due to their skill level its okay for them to charge a little more. Its not cool when they charge an extra 100$ because of the name tacked onto the service, but a little is okay. (other example, think of those expensive handbags. Serioulsy, you're paying for the name, not the quality there.)

And while the idea of offering the services for less and thinking of the customer before yourself is awesome, you'll feel the negative effects sooner or later. Selling crafts is a double edged sword, and you have to keep both edges sharp enough otherwise someone--most likely you--is going to get hurt. Lets say you made an outfit to sell. A really detailed outfit. Lets say it included a quarter yard of material (for easy calculation shh), some chain, buttons, snaps, ribon, elastic, and thread, and that you spent ooh, i dunno. Lets be inexpensive here. 20$ for materials. So you make this wonderful dress, and it takes you hmm....8 hours. because its THAT effing detailed. (and i dont even know if the 8 hours is realistic or not, but its for the sake of the example ^^;; ) NOW. You spent 20$ on materials, and this dress is absolutly stunning. What do you charge?

You can easily charge 20$, and the dress would sell fast to a very happy customer. However, was all your work worthless? No, of course not. So, how does your work factor in? You have to set a rate for yourself. If you've just begun, lets say close to minimum wage here. Your work is worth more than pennies, after all. Lets say 7$. So 8 hours, 7$ an hour, thats 56$...added to the initial 20$ for materials, and suddenly your dress is worth 76$. Overpricing? not at all. But lets not even get into the economics of profit here. You have to at least break even, right? You arent offering stuff up for free, and you arent working for free, so you deserve at leastthat much for your effort, right?

It'd be awesome to be able to sell more affordable clothing, but unfortunatly someones going to lose, be it the customer on quality for their 5$ pair of pants, or the seller on being paid properly for their work. So i can undersatnd why a pair of jeans would cost 30-40$, if they're really detailed. The craftsmanship that goes into them is amazing.

also, its not like machines are making 90% of this stuff. All usermade clothing is handmade, and by right should be more expensive. Thats why human clothing and items can be so cheap, because they're made by quick machines, rather than steady hands.

 

I used to wonder why hand made things were so expensive myself - until I tried to make something by hand. Time is definately a factor - and the smaller an item is the harder it is to get the details down to scale in a clean and finished way.
Minimum wage where I live is about $8. If a doll shirt took two hours to complete than the base cost would be $16. ~ then add to that the cost of materials and packaging. Some people custom order their materials from other sources: african trade beads, vintage lace, miniature buttons and zippers which can not be bought from regular fabric stores ect.
The finished product is unique like a work of art unlike your clothes which are normally constructed on an assembly line. I guarantee that if you went to a seamstress to have something custom made it would cost triple what you'd pay for a regular outfit. ^^

 

I think most accessories like boots,belts etc..are really well priced
When i see a handmade dress with inticate detail like corsets with overstitched panels, i think of how difficult this is for a human size then times it be about 50%!! It is close up and pricise work and an art that needs to be valued. I would be offended if anyone ever tried to pay me peanuts for a comissioned painting so i respect artists who have taken the time to learn their craft and take pride in dolls outfits.
I agre that some of the factory made mass produced items could be cheaper and also that sometimes people try and cash in on inflated prices of sold out outfits...but hey! You find that in all walks of life right?