How Much Should I Sell Hand Mad Baby Blankets For?

1. justanot Says

   I sell handmade items. Your price depends on the quality of your materials & your craftsmanship. You normally double material costs PLUS charge for your time to construct it. So you are looking at $40-50/blanket before labor gets added. If you mostly want to do it as a hobby & don’t mind making $5/hr, don’t worry about it. If you want a profitable business, it matters. Cost of doing business is everything from your machine gets cranky & eats your trim & pokes a hole in it that you can’t fix, wear & tear on your machine ($90 service bill), you miss a pin & bend your needle – all these costs SHOULD be covered by doubling material costs & still leave you a bit of cushion. Any misstep with a machine means tedious removal of stitches, etc. this can be your fault for being not careful OR it can happen if your bobbin gets ornery or whatever. So like I said, if you just like doing it & want to sew anyway & like to get a few bucks here & there, not an issue. If you want this to be a regular gig – it matters more.
   I will give you my personal learning story. I did a beautiful quilt order for a baby (15 yrs ago). The momma picked the fabrics (I told her to pick 4 fabrics in the right quantity). I was charging an hourly service fee of assembly basically (I was also making a few other items for a baby’s room). I gave an estimate, set a price & she put half down. So I get the top all quilted, put the batting in & pinned it all. I got a phone call & left the door of my sewing room open accidentally. The call was less than 5 mins & my cat CHEWED a HOLE in every single piece of one type of fabric. Before that I was so pleased everything had gone so smooth. All I had left to do was sew top to bottom & put on the binding. The rest of the pieces were complete. The quilt top was totally done, the hardest part…and then I had to rip the WHOLE thing apart to replace each chewed piece. I couldn’t go buy new fabric or I would have been OUT the money & I ha deen cutting myself so close on profit, I had NO cushion for accidents in any of my prices. Any problems were losses *I* had to eat. I ripped every painful stitch out to replace those pieces (I had enough left to make it work). My point is, I don’t do that anymore. When it was all said & done I only charged enough to cover myself to what ended up being UNDER $2 an hour. I built in NO room for machine issues, glitches & the like, or an otherwise half comatose cat deciding today was the time to turn psycho.
   Later I actually got some business education, worked for another business (heading sales & estimating), started to understand HOW to factor true costs of doing business & THIS time around I am doing MUCH better. DOUBLE your material costs, for real or you are missing the most basic step in business. In larger scale business you slide scale it – so it can get as low as 30% (if you are talking like $5,000 in materials) – but with your close profit per item, doubling is standard. Value your own labor & your own work & others will too.
   The stuff I make now I sell to high end boutiques. No one will ever give you more than you ask for, ever. Keep in mind that there are people shopping in EVERY price bracket. Figure out if you want to compete with WalMart or with someone like this: http://www.doodlefishkids.com/crib-beddi… WalMart is the largest retailer in the world – because they sell stuff cheap – so there will ALWAYS be those that will want your blanket that cost you $25 to make for $15. WalMart stuff is generally made cheap too though, so don’ tgo for that crowd. Make sure your quality is impeccable & you can really just go for it. You make appointments with shop owners, dress the part & go in & show your wares. Some stores are willing to let you in on consignment. That is a good way to start to build your confidence & reputation. You can renegotiate later if your things sell well. You MUST have your price set before talking to shop owners.
   I know I didn’t tell you what to charge, but that is how a price is set. Don’t let others tell you what they are willing to pay or you will get discouraged OR you will loose your butt when you try to make a go of it. They will ALWAYS try to talk you down. If you can’t make the money you need to make in order to make it profitable, then there is no sense doing it at all – so go for it & set your price momma. You truly have nothing to loose. I hope ANY of that insight helped you – I wish someone had explained this to me starting off. All the best & GL!

2. Queen Says

   it all depends on the size of blanket, the look and quality.. but 25dollars for materials seems like alot. i wouldnt spend more than 20, for a baby size blanket.
   go on ebay and look up similar blankets and see what they are going for.

3. Anonymous Says

   I would be willing to pay from 35-60 for a good blanket, depending on how much I like the print and make.

4. Anonymous Says

   50

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