**If you read one entry of mine this break, it should be this one.**

[theyellowhobbit]

Ok, I want everyone's opinion on this.

I've been thinking about the economic feasibility of my kippot. On the one hand, they are a welcome source of income- I can buy about 40 balls of kippah yarn (in Israel) for $25. So that's a lot more yarn than the kippah takes.

On the other hand, each kippah takes a long time. Shlomo's was quick, as most Hebrew letter ones are, taking roughly 6 hours.

kellev's, on the other hand, took about...umm...well I can't say I kept track, but I started it in the end of August. I'd say at least 20-30 hours. Which is a lot of time to be crocheting.

Both kellev (probably not so seriously) and cynara_linnaea (actually seriously) have suggested that I go into kippot full-time. Of course, for that to happen, I would have to charge a lot more for my kippot. Like $200, which is quite insane for a kippah. They don't last long enough to be worth it, even if they were designer kippot. The only ones that would be worth it are those wire ones, which take considerably less time, and there is a person who charges $100ish for these kippot, which are gorgeous.

Scarves are something that people actually will pay $200 for, as evidenced by Anthropologie. I could make scarves that designery, and they can take less time than a kippah, depending on the yarn.

Hats are also possible, since there are those awesome Israeli ones that I'm in love with. This one is $45. And I could charge more if I made them custom. I'd have to get a sewing machine and learn how to sew professionally, so I could make those really cool bands. It would also be a lot of effort.

So the question is- how much can I charge for a custom kippah, that people would be willing to pay? What factors would you consider in the pricing? Math formulas would be great, as well as criterion that would make the kippah worth more or less.

Comments

[plus-c.livejournal.com]

The simplest way to figure out pricing is the "cost-plus" method. It's pretty much self-explanatory - you figure out how much one costs in terms of materials, shipping, etc. - and then you add on top of that your profit margin. Here are some questions to get you thinking:
1. What are your material costs?
2. What are your shipping costs?
3. What are your other costs?
3. How much do you think an hour of your time is worth?

Being a Gentile, I can only speak from the supply side of things, since that's business and I know what I'm talking about there. I'll have to defer to others on questions of "how much will the market bear?".

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

here's the thing-

say we were paying me $8 an hour, which is pretty cheap in terms of labor.

A 20 hour kippah would then come out to $160, not including the yarn or shipping (which I could say is $2 total...)

so that would be in the unreasonable range... but suppose I charged 2$ an hour. That would be $40, which I might be able to get away with charging.

[plus-c.livejournal.com]

But a 20-hour one is really custom and outside the norm, correct?

You said most of them take you about 6 hours, which would be $48 at $8 an hour.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Really custom, yes. Outside the norm, not so much.

The flower one I did for the rabbi's daughter also took about that much time.

Everything I do is custom, since it isn't worth it to pre-make kippot and have them not get sold, especially with the amount of commissions I have lined up anyways.

Some require me to make my own pattern, though, while I can get others from books.

[plus-c.livejournal.com]

So then it's now fairly obvious the "cost-plus" method of pricing is going to be infeasible. As it stands to me right now, it doesn't seem worth it to do this full-time - like you said, $8 an hour is pretty cheap, and if your potential customers aren't going to pay that, then it won't be worth it.

At $5 an hour, you'd be at $100 each for one requiring 20 hours of work...but then you'd also only be pulling in $200 a week for a full 40-hour workweek. It would seem, then, that there would be better ways in which you could spend your time.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And I like archaeology.

What I can do is make use of time that otherwise is idle, such as class (in between notes), conferences, busrides, etc. That's what I'm doing currently. And if I'm already knitting, I might as well get paid for it.

[plus-c.livejournal.com]

The other thing you could do is significantly upgrade the materials you're using, and aim them at Very Rich Jews. Just a thought...

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

There's not much to upgrade with kippot materials, unless I were to do wire ones instead.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Actually...

http://www.headcoverings-by-devorah.com/Headcoverings_Kippot.html

Though I don't know who would want ones like this. But they'd take a lot less time.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

And http://www.chadiscrafts.com/K4large.html

and: http://www.kippahdesign.com/forms/kippah_order.html

[plus-c.livejournal.com]

Had another thought - do you think each one would take significantly less effort-time if you were focusing on its making, instead of doing it while doing other things? That might change the calculation a bit...

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Not significantly. The end of this kippah has been taking a good few hours, and I'm just crocheting. So its not worth it for me to crochet full-time.

[kellev.livejournal.com]

Are there people who make a living making kippot?

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Only the ones who make fancy reform-style kippot.

[jtersesk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, doesn't seem like it's feasible to make it a full-time job, unless you can start knitting/crocheting a lot faster than you already do. If that's even humanly possible, hehe. But it seems like it's a good occupation for extra pocket money, since you can pretty much do it anywhere at any time and when you want. You can do it on a train, you can do it on a plane, you can do it here or there, you can do it anywhere! (Sorry, we were reading Green Eggs and Ham yesterday and I couldn't resist.)

I think you should draw up some kind of standard pricing model, though. Have like three tiers - plain kippot, kippot with lettering, and fancy custom patterns - and charge more for the ones that you have to design the pattern yourself, for example. That way if someone says, "Hey, can you make me a kippah?" you'll be able to show them what they can choose from and how much it will cost them depending on what they want. And then you don't have to worry that anyone will feel like you're playing favorites or anything. :)

I'm getting this from looking at Work-at-Home-Moms-who-make-baby-carriers' websites. Yes, it's always about the baby! They have, like, "in-stock" carriers (which I assume are mostly ones that were custom-ordered and then returned) and custom ones. For the custom ones, you can choose from a set of fabrics or get something even more customized than that. Each additional custom option adds $5 or $10 to the price. Makes sense, right? You can also feel comfortable charging for postage and shipping materials if you want to, since I'm sure you know exactly how much shipping will cost you.

Could you make a whole bunch of like really simple solid or 2- or 3- colored ones in just a few hours so you'd have some ready-made to sell if someone just wanted a basic kippah? Or is the whole point of this that they get a custom pattern? Can you make a bunch with the same pattern, since I assume it would go quicker the second or third time than it did the first? Or again, maybe that isn't worth it, since the machine-generated ones are like $12 and yours would only be specialer because they're handmade, and not because they have a special pattern... I don't know. I'm just throwing out ideas.

Ok, back to looking at custom baby carriers. Lol.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Even solid 2-3 colored kippot would take a while to make. For me it isn't worth it to make them. If someone wants a plain boring kippah I would rather they go buy it than commission me to make it.

It doesn't go that much faster when I make a bunch with the same pattern...

Really, it doesn't seem worth it to pre-make kippot that might not get sold. Maybe if I were selling stuff at a craft fair... Though I did that sophomore year, when I made 10 of them for my mom to sell, and none of them sold, but fortunately I was eventually able to sell them all after the fact.

If only I could buy a kippah machine...

[ploni-bat-ploni.livejournal.com]

The thing with cottage industries done by highly educated people in the Western world is that it is simply not economically feasible. Our labour is simply too expensive. So it's going to be hard to figure out a way to make it productive and economic.

Kellev's kippah is gorgeous, but I don't think it is realistic than anyone will pay more than 50$ for a kippah, when the standard price is around $10 for nice crocheted ones.

As for the cool israeli women's hats/kippot: you could probably figure out a cheaper way to produce those. I guess sewing on bands of lace and ribbon is more cost and time efficient than crocheting intricate patterns from scratch, if you keep the hat-part real simple.

Maybe you should check out www.diasporagirl.com for ideas on patterns and efficiency. Somehow, they make it work in an economically viable way.

Gorgeous stuff though! I am well impressed!

[ploni-bat-ploni.livejournal.com]

Also: would it be possible to buy cheap, "base", plain kippot in bulk and then crochet or stich patterns on top of them as a way to customise? Would save you tons of time and money...

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Probably not, cause the base kippot would cost half the price I would be charging, though it could save me time in theory.

[polydad.livejournal.com]

I think kippoterie is a fine self-liquidating hobby. A profession? Don't quit your day job.

best,

Joel

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's possible to make a full-time living doing kippot. You certainly can't charge enough for them to make that feasible. And if you were to do it full time, you'd need to be branching out away from mostly (or exclusively) custom orders. I pay about $15-20 for my husband's crocheted kippot. (I don't remember what I paid you for the red one that you made, but he loves that one, FWIW) I wouldn't really be willing to pay much more than that, because since he wears a kippah every day, they just don't last that long.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

I think that's why the women's kippot I've seen online can cost a lot more- most women who wear kippot only wear them for services and stuff, so the kippah will last a lot longer. I agree with you on not wanting to pay a lot for something that won't last a long time.

[masteraleph.livejournal.com]

I think it's also because for many women, they're not just kippot for services but also fashion accessories. Note that the (few) women you see wearing kippot every day typically wear something that looks a lot more like typical kippot than like the ones you're talking about. For a kippah, $50-60 would be considered exhorbitant. But for a fashion accessory....

[trempnvt.livejournal.com]

Hey, I know the girl in that picture (with the black and purple hat)! That's crazy!

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is crazy! The Jewish world is tiny.