Have you ever commented that the price of your products was “cheap for their quality”?

Or, do you feel like you are lowering and lowering the price of your items even further and that they are not selling more, despite the fact that you have a good number of visits to your website?

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If so, this article is for you! Otherwise, appease your curiosity and check if you know how to recognize your value, at its right value!

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Impostor syndrome

Do you have this " feeling" of not being as good as the others? Me, I want to ask you: what makes your job less good than that of your competitors?

In fact, your work may even be much superior to that of your competitors! Impostor syndrome is the feeling that we have no right to our success because we believe ourselves to be inferior or less good than others.

This feeling is often far too wrong and should not be listened to! This syndrome lets us understand that our products are of lower quality than those of our competitors and encourages us to lower the price of our items for no real reason except that of not feeling as good.

Knowing how to calculate

Already, in order to counter the impostor syndrome, it is necessary to make sure that you know how to calculate the real value of your products. It is not easy, I agree. On the other hand, what you can do to know if the calculation of your cost / selling price makes " common sense", is to go and check with your competitors.

YES YES! You go to their website and you see if you are " in the price" of their selling price.

If your prices resemble those of the competition, direct and indirect, that means your calculation is correct. Otherwise, either you are all wrongly calculating " equals " or you are missing parts of your calculation!

If you are significantly higher, try to determine what could cause your price to be much higher.

Here are some thoughts:

• Do you offer better quality products?
• Do you offer any warranty that would be better than that of your competitors?
• What is the hourly wage that you calculate? Is it too high?
• Could it be that your supplier is not giving you a fair discount?
• Is there a way you could do to lower your cost price?
  
  

Depending on the answer you offer to his questions and any other questions that you could explore on your own, it could very well be that your price is perfect or that it needs a revision.

If, on the contrary, your price is too low, you should review the way you calculate the price of your product.

If you don't know where to start, here are some other food for thought:

• Did you calculate all your raw materials correctly?
• Have you added in your calculation the delivery costs that you pay for the delivery of your purchases or the gasoline and the time that you put in collecting your raw materials?
• Have you included administrative costs in the price of each of your confections?
• What percentage of profit did you use?
• Have you made an overall average of what you cost an XXS sweater versus an XXL sweater, if for example you sell both?

These questions are all avenues that might make you think of something that you forgot in your calculation, but are all, all things that are radically important in this one!

One for all, all for one

When you take the step of going to see the price of your competitors, it is important that your price is not completely above their price nor in decaf But why? In order not to fluctuate the market too intensely , of course, so as not to leave false impressions on your client .

I'll give you an example (too expensive) :

The result

The bottom line is that if you are above market prices, you must, in the eyes of the consumer, have a good reason for doing so and not give the impression that you are doing money with your products. (Yes, yes, you read that right! The average Quebecer does not like others to make money or to do better than him then, if he feels that he is directly contributing to your success when you take "too much" money out of your wallet, forget about selling your overpriced products, it won't work.)

On the other hand, if you sell your products more expensive and you, for example, grow the lilac yourself that you use in your lilac soap (to use my example) , say it. NO SHOUT IT FROM ALL ROOFS!

If you do something that sets you apart and makes your product more expensive and unique, make it clear to your customer . Thus, he will not have the impression of being " having ". Rather, he will have the impression of buying a high-quality product and a product that is worth its fair price (which will be the case, we agree).

I'll give you another example (too modest) :

You sell bar soaps now at $ 6.00 / 150g bar and one of your competitors does exactly the same as you, but for $ 12.00 / 150g bar.Your competitor, after verification, is once again in the average price while you are really below

After the fact, you realize that you have trouble calculating the value of your product and you readjust or, you know too well that your prices are clearly below, but you want to sell more, precisely, than the said competitor by offering much lower prices.

The result

Once again, you need a great reason to be below market prices. If your reason is the fact that you have a better discount with your main supplier, you can significantly increase your profit margin and take the opportunity to do so, while remaining " in the price ".

In this example, we could put say, $ 10.00 or $ 11.00 per bar. Thus, you stay below the price of your competitor, but not too far anyway.

The danger in offering products that are significantly cheaper than those of our competitors is to fall into the cheap category. Not that your products will or are cheap , that's just what people will think. Then, unless your goal is to offer cheap products (which is an equally good strategy, but choose your niche well) , if that is not the goal of your approach, adjust your prices!

The explanation, in other words ...

You go to Dollarama and buy a ladle for $ 3.00. You then go to Paderno and buy another ladle for $ 19.99. You still expect your ladle Dollarama tough for a while, but if it ever breaks the day after your purchase, it's disappointing, but you're not so surprised since it is a ladle that you paid peanuts .

On the other hand, repeat the same situation in your head with the Paderno : admit that you are fru ! You ask for at least a refund or you never buy there again. You paid your ladle $ 19.99 and it only made one day, ouach!

Now do you understand where I'm going with my skis? It doesn't matter if the ladle Dollarama is factually of better quality or not than the Paderno , since we paid more for the last one, we expect better returns from it because we paid more for it.

At the same time, this is somewhat what we expect from the Quebec market.

Think about the paintings of Picasso versus the drawings of your child ... Okay okay, I'll stop with my examples!

How much> YOU

Regarding the hourly wage that you calculate in the price of your clothing, it is up to you to determine it according to a number "X" of criteria such as your experience, the number of years that 'business, the way you work, what you need as a living wage, etc.

I advise you all the same to take a tour on the site of Statistics Canada in order to raise the average hourly wage of the trade you exercise.

Example (well yes again; I'm an example girl haha):

If you are a seamstress, nutritionist, plumber, named it . Everything is on the link I slipped you above.

By the way, the median salary for a seamstress as of 2021-08-13 is $ 15.00 per hour. So that means that for each of your creations, you will calculate the number of time it will take you to multiply by your hourly wage. Also take the time to check the number of years of experience you have versus the median salary for that number of years of experience.

By the way, I want to tell you that, even if you have only had your business for 6 months, but you have been sewing for 13 years, YOU MUST take into account 13 years and not the 6 months It may be obvious for some, but for others not, so I wanted to tell you hihi

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So, are you a victim of impostor syndrome? Do you think that with these clues you will be able to better assess your value?

Then finally, after reading this article, do you know if you are calculating your value correctly?

If you ever find yourself in the fog again, know that I am offering training on October 22 and that I will discuss this morning, in much more detail, how you should calculate the price of your confections. The training will also be available for replay if you are not available at that time !