ferenc jakab on sun 28 jan 01
I know the 50% seems high. But don't forget the gallery also has operating
costs: rent, insurance, utilities, phone, credit card fees, wages. Even if
the employees are just "sitting... sipping cappucino" they still must be
paid. They don't make much, either.
I get sick of people saying "don't forget the gallery also has operating
costs" because I have a long memory. 20 years ago galleries were able to
make a decent profit at 10% of the sale price. I have watched this
percentage creep up and up through 20% 30% 40% etc. and now I read a post
which says 60%. Where will it stop? 100%? Are we having to settle for slave
wages? Soon all they'll offer is food and found. Say what you like Artists
are being victimised. Get together in co-ops etc. and by-pass the
parasites. It's all we can do.
Feri
My rant for the day!
Tom Wirt/Betsy Price on sun 28 jan 01
>
> Feri - Our gallery (closed now) started doing a 30/70% split, went
to
> 40/60% for fine art & craft items. Could never make profit so
changed
> to wholesale and started making money. This meant we stopped showing
> work of about 30 artisans!
> Bill
Bill,
I think here is the essence of the business. The artist should sell
the work for what they need or want to. The gallery should sell the
work for what they need or want or can. If the artist doesn't feel
that it's worth paying a gallery to do all the things that they do,
then the artist should not sell through galleries.
Plain and simple.
The artist who whines that the gallery is ripping them off at 50 or
60% forgets that he/she doesn't have a venue, generally, where he/she
can command the price that can be fetched in a gallery of repute.
I've said this over and over. The artist must work the commission
against what he/she could sell it for without the gallery. And in the
volume the gallery can sell it.
If you're not willing to pay that commission, sell it direct yourself.
Quit whining. I just can't find the logic in the argument that the
gallery gets too big a cut, but I can't/won't sell it myself and incur
the expenses and time which I'm unwilling to pay someone else to
incur.
I will guarantee your time and expenses to sell your own work will be
higher than the galleries commission, except in very few cases.
My rant
Tom Wirt
william schran on sun 28 jan 01
>I know the 50% seems high. But don't forget the gallery also has operating
>costs: rent, insurance, utilities, phone, credit card fees, wages. Even if
>the employees are just "sitting... sipping cappucino" they still must be
>paid. They don't make much, either.
>
>I get sick of people saying "don't forget the gallery also has operating
>costs" because I have a long memory. 20 years ago galleries were able to
>make a decent profit at 10% of the sale price. I have watched this
>percentage creep up and up through 20% 30% 40% etc. and now I read a post
>which says 60%. Where will it stop? 100%? Are we having to settle for slave
>wages? Soon all they'll offer is food and found. Say what you like Artists
>are being victimised. Get together in co-ops etc. and by-pass the
>parasites. It's all we can do.
>Feri
>
>My rant for the day!
>
>______________________________________________________________________________
>Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
>You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
>settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
>Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
>melpots@pclink.com.
Feri - Our gallery (closed now) started doing a 30/70% split, went to
40/60% for fine art & craft items. Could never make profit so changed
to wholesale and started making money. This meant we stopped showing
work of about 30 artisans!
Bill
lela martens on sun 28 jan 01
Sorry Ferenc, 100% plus is here, and common in shop-galleries in tourist
places. Not even that high end tourist places, in western Canada. Lela
"percentage creep up and up through 20% 30% 40% etc. and now I read a post
which says 60%. Where will it stop? 100%? Are we having to settle for slave
wages? Soon all they'll offer is food and found."
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vince pitelka on sun 28 jan 01
>I get sick of people saying "don't forget the gallery also has operating
>costs" because I have a long memory. 20 years ago galleries were able to
>make a decent profit at 10% of the sale price. I have watched this
>percentage creep up and up through 20% 30% 40% etc. and now I read a post
>which says 60%. Where will it stop? 100%? Are we having to settle for slave
>wages? Soon all they'll offer is food and found. Say what you like Artists
>are being victimised. Get together in co-ops etc. and by-pass the
>parasites. It's all we can do.
I gotta agree with Feri here. 40% is enough. No gallery can justify
charging more than that on a consignment arrangement. The idea that the
gallery's share for advertising and selling the work should be equal to the
artist's share for creating it is completely absurd.
Best wishes -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Crafts
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Home - vpitelka@dtccom.net
615/597-5376
Work - wpitelka@tntech.edu
615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
http://www.craftcenter.tntech.edu/
Nanci Bishof on mon 29 jan 01
In retail venues, such as department stores, jewelry stores, bike shops,
etc., the markup is generally 100%, which is typically 50% of the ticketed
price. They buy their inventory and have all of the same expenses as a
gallery. The retailers are making a profit even though they are investing
their money or paying for the line of credit that allows them to "stock"
their store. Galleries don't have the expense of purchasing the artwork when
they are working from the 50 - 60% commission they take of the artwork's
price. What's wrong with this picture? Am I missing something in the business
aspect of running a gallery? I don't begrudge the gallery making a profit,
but it should not be financed on the back of the artist. And no, I won't
place works in a gallery on commission when the commission is 50% or greater.
They can purchase the work outright and carry it as an expense and price it
accordingly. When it is their expense a 100% markup of their purchase price
(keystone) is not unreasonable. They have assumed the risk and the cost.
nanci
Tom Wirt/Betsy Price on mon 29 jan 01
Lela...ferric...
We're confused again here between markup and margin. 100%
markup.....$1.00 wholesale (cost) becomes $2.00 retail (price)...is
the kind of base standard in the retail business. Or at least was.
Margin is the difference between. In this case margin is price minus
cost, divided by price equals 50% margin. It is impossible to have
100% unless we're giving the stuff to the shops for the glory of
selling it, and then the margin would be infinite.
I think Ferric is talking about margins and Lela is talking about
markups. Got to get on the same page if we're going to make sense of
this.
It, again, is up to you to make what you want and charge what you
need. The shop must mark up what they need or want to. You, as the
producer if you are selling consignment, cannot expect the shop to go
broke so you can produce an item that you really can't afford to
produce at the price someone's willing to pay.
There are any number of items we make and sell out of our showroom at
retail, which, if we put into the wholesale business, would not sell
at the retail price that would have to be charged, for the amount we
would have to charge wholesale.
Wade Block's post yesterday is right on...including his comments about
his desire to control final pricing.
Tom Wirt
----- Original Message -----
Tom Wirt/Betsy Price on mon 29 jan 01
From: "lela martens"
Subject: Re: Gallery pricing.
Two shop-galleries have told me this policy, varying only
> slightly. The proprieter wants $300 to $500 up front, or may take it
out of
> your initial sales.One called it an "initiation fee", and the artist
pays
> this once a year.
So what they're running is a craft store? This is absolutely insane.
If they can't run a better business than that...you're right...begone.
Tom
Ronan ORourke on mon 29 jan 01
i'm glad Janet isn't around to hear some of this!
ronan
lela martens on mon 29 jan 01
Hi, After receiving requests off list, I see I should have explained
further. Two shop-galleries have told me this policy, varying only
slightly. The proprieter wants $300 to $500 up front, or may take it out of
your initial sales.One called it an "initiation fee", and the artist pays
this once a year. Then it is a 50, 50 % split. So technicaly it isn`t 100%
plus,but seems to me could be. Suppose it all depends, but I won`t be back
there. Lela
>From: lela martens
>Reply-To: Ceramic Arts Discussion List
>To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
>Subject: Re: Gallery pricing.
>Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 19:12:39 -0000
>
>Sorry Ferenc, 100% plus is here, and common in shop-galleries in tourist
>places. Not even that high end tourist places, in western Canada. Lela
>
>"percentage creep up and up through 20% 30% 40% etc. and now I read a post
>which says 60%. Where will it stop? 100%? Are we having to settle for slave
>wages? Soon all they'll offer is food and found."
>
>
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
>
>______________________________________________________________________________
>Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
>You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
>settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
>Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
>melpots@pclink.com.
_________________________________________________________________________
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KLeSueur@AOL.COM on mon 29 jan 01
In a message dated 1/29/01 12:07:47 PM, claypot@HUTCHTEL.NET writes:
<< I will guarantee your time and expenses to sell your own work will be
higher than the galleries commission, except in very few cases.
My rant
Tom Wirt
>>
I never believed this statement until my partner started tracking our
business as two separate profit centers. When we go to a retail show we "buy"
our pots from the wholesale business and mark them up to retail prices. All
expenses of producing the pots are deducted from the wholesale sales. All
show expenses are deducted from the retail sales.
What this means is that if I go to a show and sell $5000, the first deduction
is the $2500 I had to pay for the pots. After that deduct show fees, travel,
lodging, food and incidentals. Now if you really want to make yourself
depressed divide your bottom line by the number of days you were out of the
studio. So, say I have $1500 after my expenses. With two days on the road,
one setting up, three selling, and one to recover from the show, I've lost a
week of production. If my partner has gone with me I've lost 14 man days of
production. So, I've earned about $100 for every day the show cost me.
How many pots can you make in one day, let alone 14. I make far more money
usually by staying home, making pots, putting them in a box, and letting
someone else sell them.
Kathi LeSueur
Richard Jeffery on mon 29 jan 01
she's in Germany having a well-earned break.
Don't fret, she'll read it......
-----Original Message-----
From: Ceramic Arts Discussion List [mailto:CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG]On
Behalf Of Ronan ORourke
Sent: 29 January 2001 09:23
To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
Subject: Re: Gallery pricing.
i'm glad Janet isn't around to hear some of this!
ronan
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Rhonda Oldland on mon 29 jan 01
God Bless America !!! it's about time someone said it now it is time for us
barking Artist to enforce it. You can be apart of the problem or a part of
the solution. I think we should form a union, or boycott, so we are not
working just for exposure and our lazy, fearful attitudes about not selling
our own work. After all how much money could it take to type up a flyer
stick a stamp on it and mail it out !!! not 40 percent ??? Give me a break
!! ( as John Stossel says ) Rhonda S.C.
At 19:38 1/28/01 -0600, you wrote:
>>I get sick of people saying "don't forget the gallery also has operating
>>costs" because I have a long memory. 20 years ago galleries were able to
>>make a decent profit at 10% of the sale price. I have watched this
>>percentage creep up and up through 20% 30% 40% etc. and now I read a post
>>which says 60%. Where will it stop? 100%? Are we having to settle for slave
>>wages? Soon all they'll offer is food and found. Say what you like Artists
>>are being victimised. Get together in co-ops etc. and by-pass the
>>parasites. It's all we can do.
>
>I gotta agree with Feri here. 40% is enough. No gallery can justify
>charging more than that on a consignment arrangement. The idea that the
>gallery's share for advertising and selling the work should be equal to the
>artist's share for creating it is completely absurd.
>Best wishes -
>- Vince
>
>Vince Pitelka
>Appalachian Center for Crafts
>Tennessee Technological University
>1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
>Home - vpitelka@dtccom.net
>615/597-5376
>Work - wpitelka@tntech.edu
>615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
>http://www.craftcenter.tntech.edu/
>
>___________________________________________________________________________
___
>Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
>You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
>settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
>Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
melpots@pclink.com.
>
>
Katie Cordrey on tue 30 jan 01
My husband is a woodworker. I work with clay. We make our living from our
production. We have been doing most of our marketing via direct sales for
the past two years. This includes, shows, artists markets, and direct
selling from our home studios. Not counting time, our marketing costs;
running a few ads, flyers we make with our desktop publishing software and
print ourselves, hard costs for travel expense, show, booth and space fees,
run just about 20%. The time it takes to pack, unpack, setup, deliver,
travel, staff the sales, prepare and produce flyers, find venues and place
free ads, write press releases, etc., works out to about 2.5 (ten hour)
days per week. (At least one of us showing or staffing the sales booth one
day a week and at least one of us doing everything else.) We both use a
shop rate of $20/hr as a minimum for calculating our sales price needs. So,
let's say we have huge cumulative time savings and spend about 1000 hours a
year on marketing tasks. If we each worked a 50 hour week, 19% of our time
would have been spent on marketing. Assuming we sell 80% of what we make
using these methods, the time cost is now more than 23%. Add that to hard
costs of 20%. The real cost of our very own direct marketing is now at 43%.
Galleries and other professional sales avenues have real paid employees. If
I were to add employer's tax match and insurance costs to that 43% figure,
I'd be at about 47%. To be honest, I have the skills, but I do not like the
sales activities... OK, it's fun a couple times a year, but I'd much rather
be playing with clay. Even a whopping 50% doesn't seem outrageous to me to
be rid of the headache. Without sales, all the production in the world
won't pay the bills.
-----Original Message-----
From: Rhonda Oldland [SMTP:potr@SCCOAST.NET]
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 3:44 PM
To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
Subject: Re: Gallery pricing.
God Bless America !!! it's about time someone said it now it is time for us
barking Artist to enforce it. You can be apart of the problem or a part of
the solution. I think we should form a union, or boycott, so we are not
working just for exposure and our lazy, fearful attitudes about not selling
our own work. After all how much money could it take to type up a flyer
stick a stamp on it and mail it out !!! not 40 percent ??? Give me a break
!! ( as John Stossel says ) Rhonda S.C.
At 19:38 1/28/01 -0600, you wrote:
>>I get sick of people saying "don't forget the gallery also has operating
>>costs" because I have a long memory. 20 years ago galleries were able to
>>make a decent profit at 10% of the sale price. I have watched this
>>percentage creep up and up through 20% 30% 40% etc. and now I read a post
>>which says 60%. Where will it stop? 100%? Are we having to settle for
slave
>>wages? Soon all they'll offer is food and found. Say what you like
Artists
>>are being victimised. Get together in co-ops etc. and by-pass the
>>parasites. It's all we can do.
>
>I gotta agree with Feri here. 40% is enough. No gallery can justify
>charging more than that on a consignment arrangement. The idea that the
>gallery's share for advertising and selling the work should be equal to
the
>artist's share for creating it is completely absurd.
>Best wishes -
>- Vince
>
>Vince Pitelka
>Appalachian Center for Crafts
>Tennessee Technological University
>1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
>Home - vpitelka@dtccom.net
>615/597-5376
>Work - wpitelka@tntech.edu
>615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
>http://www.craftcenter.tntech.edu/
>
>_______________________________________________________________________
____
___
>Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
>You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
>settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
>Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
melpots@pclink.com.
>
>
________________________________________________________________________
______
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You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
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David Hendley on tue 30 jan 01
----- Original Message -----
| In retail venues, such as department stores, jewelry stores, bike shops,
| etc., the markup is generally 100%, which is typically 50% of the ticketed
| price. They buy their inventory and have all of the same expenses as a
| gallery.
I have to disagree with this statement and offer it up as a
reason why craft galleries have such a hard time making it
as profitable businesses.
This misconception also contributes to the hard feelings that
we've been reading all week from potters on Clayart.
The markup in department stores, home centers, and the like
can be huge. I mean 500% or more. How do you think department
stores are able to regularly offer 50%-off sales and spend a lot of
money on advertising to let you know about it? I promise you
they are not selling merchandise for the same price or less than
they paid when they purchased it.
There are several items I buy from wholesalers for resale with my
pottery. I'm not talking about the 'supposed wholesalers' who cater
to potters with candles, glaswick, and lotion pumps, but real
wholesale suppliers. For example, my $1.50 lamp shades are priced
at $5.95 at Lowes. That's what, a 2 or 300% markup? And, because
they buy in such huge volume, Lowes probably did not pay $1.50 to
start with.
Get into areas like cosmetics, and the markups can be mind boggling.
Start talking about food items, and the markups become absurd.
How much did the movie theater pay for that $7.00 cup of Coke
and popcorn you bought last Friday? Maybe a quarter or two.
The point is, we are used to paying huge markups on things and
stores need and expect big markups.
As in the art gallery business, expenses for 'regular stores' have
increased through the years and their markup margins have grown
to keep up. The galleries, however, are kind of stuck, because
they have a bunch of under-paid, over-worked artists looking over
their shoulders. Raise the margins too much, and they raise the ire
of the artists.
This my sound like an endorsement of high markups at craft and art
galleries, but it's not, it's just to point out that these stores are
not just like any old business, they are different.
Face it, we handmakers are anachronisms who do not fit in the
normal flow of the delivery of goods.
Likewise, no one will try to open up a shop to retail crafts unless
they love what they are doing.
What we are all looking for is a way to 'short circuit' the system,
a way to sell things without incurring the costs associated with
selling. Well, sorry, there's no free lunch, and you just have to
decide what works for you. Neither we nor art galleries can compete
with 'regular' type stores and merchandise because they DO get
a free lunch: the makers of their products in China or Bulgaria or
where ever are paid poverty wages for their work.
'When bankers get together they talk about art,
when artists get together they talk about money.'
--
David Hendley
Maydelle, Texas
hendley@tyler.net
http://www.farmpots.com/
ferenc jakab on tue 30 jan 01
>
> We're confused again here between markup and margin. 100%
> markup.....$1.00 wholesale (cost) becomes $2.00 retail (price)...is
> the kind of base standard in the retail business. Or at least was.
The kind of situation I am ranting about is probably more relevant to fine
art sales, i.e. the selling of "one off" items such as a sculptural piece
or a high end crystalline glazed platter etc. Here in Australia you approach
a fine art gallery and if they like your work then they sell at what you and
they agree the market will pay. Twenty years ago the galleries charged 10%
COMMISSION on your selling price and now they charge as much as 60% and that
is really what my rant is about.
I have a bread and butter line of garden ceramics which I sell through
retail outlets. They have to pay my "wholesale" price. (Occasionally I will
sell on a consignment basis if I',I'm introducing a new product or
approaching
a potentially lucrative retail outlet .) But after that the retailer can
charge what they think they will get, and some charge as much as 200%. I got
what I asked for the rest is their business.
Feri.
P.S. I now do one man shows in public art spaces and avoid commercial
galleries altogether. My sales of fine art pieces have doubled. Which isn't
saying much as my pieces take along time to make and I sell an average of
two per year. The market for sculpture in Australia is very limited.
| |
|
