Are you thinking about wholesale?

Here is a great little post I found in the forums of Etsy world. Again, I haven't done wholesale, but who knows! Maybe I'll get approached by somebody =) Hope it helps.

Here is the link to the post where I found this great response at http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6140713.

A little about bluepiranha and her shop:
Design perspective: "From Simple to Simply Stunning". bluepiranha has been designing since 1993. bluepiranha technique is to saw, hammer, and shape metal into some awesome jewelry. Check out their blog http://bpjewelry.com/blog/. See some pictures at the bottom =)


bluepiranha says:
You actually should know your wholesale price before you retail. Typically most retail buyers are going to want to pay 50% of your retail price - that's keystone, but in recent years most people find that retailers are marking up more than 50% of wholesale just to make ends meet.

For example, if you sell and item for $25, a buyer would likely expect to pay $12.50 for it. Assuming you are doubling your wholesale price to determine your retail price. But if a buyer picks up your work and they mark it up to 2.5, that's $31.25 that they'd sell it for. If you are selling it for $25, why would anyone buy from that retailer? That's known as undercutting and is a big no-no in the wholesale arena.

Each medium is different, but I figure my pricing as follows:
COG (Cost of Goods, or your materials) = $5
labor at 15 minutes to create (say you're paying yourself $20/hr) = $5
overhead (say, 20%, so in this case, 20% of $10) = $2
profit margin (say, 30%, so 30% of $12) = $3.60

Then add them all together. So, $5 + $5 + $2 + $3.60 = $15.60. This is the *wholesale* price.Multiply that times,say, 2.5, and you get $39. This is the *retail* price.

Most people implement either a dollar minium (say, $200) or a piece minimum (say, 10 items). Some people do both. The point of having a minimum (dollar or piece) is to be sure that the buyer has enough of your goods to display appropriately in their store / gallery. If they only want three pieces, most of the time that's not going to make a great display. They need to have enough to display so that your items catch their customers' eyes.

Hope that helps. Good luck!