Sometimes we are our own greatest enemy when it comes to custom orders. We often bend so hard to our customers that we make our lives harder in the process. It’s important to weigh these things when looking at the total price vs. the amount of time you are having to spend to complete the project. Your time is money and it is very valuable. Remember this when a customer comes to you with a bulk order.
Bulk orders are very appealing because you make a big chunk of money at one time, but at what cost? We are not machines as much as we would love to believe that. It’s important to look at the scope of the entire project before committing to a bulk order. I’m going to use my latest bulk order as an example.
My sister came to me because she was just offered a Principal job (yay sister so proud of you!). She wanted to arrive at her new school and give her teachers a little gift, so she asked if I could make some keychains for her. Of course this is my sister so there was no way I was going to say no to her.
When I do an order for someone like my sister, I don’t charge her for my time, some people may think I am silly for that, but she is family! I told her I would get her a cost of the materials we would need. so while we will go through the process of figuring out pricing here, the part where you value your time will be up to you.
DESIGN
Probably one of the most important things is figuring out the size and complexity of the design. Sometimes your customer will come to you with the design exactly as they want it and sometimes you will need to design it for them. Be sure to figure in your time if you are the one having to design the product. In my case, I came up with a design and decided that I was going to cut acrylic in an oval shape, and overlay the logo in vinyl. Be sure to find out exactly what colors your customer wants.
The colors in this project are red, gray and black and the logo is a mustang.
MOCK-UP
When doing a bulk order, creating a completed piece of the final product is crucial. You will be able to see how long it will take you to complete the project which will allow you to give your customer an appropriate time-line but also allows you to figure in your time in the final cost. You will also be able to see if there are any flaws in the design, things that will cause the project to take way too long to be beneficial. if this happens, you can go back to your client and let them know that you will have to change some aspect of the design.
In my case, due to the size of the keychains being so small, the vinyl lettering was so tiny, trying to weed that tiny vinyl was more than I was going to be able to tolerate for 100 keychains. I made the giant mistake of cutting out too many supplies, luckily vinyl isn’t too expensive, but the acrylic is, Since it’s an oval I can always use it for other things! I came up with a solution, went to my sister and showed her my new design, and thankfully she loved it!
Here was the old design:
Imagine doing all of that weeding 100 times, and then trying to get all of that vinyl on to transfer tape without random letters flying in random directions, I promise you, it wasn’t easy.
I decided to go with engraving and instead of a boring oval, I went with the shape of the mustang head, and engraved the school name in. I added some white enamel into the engraving and called it a day!
Now that I have the design and plan in place I can figure out the materials I will need. What I purchased
4. sheets of red acrylic from Houston Acrylics $7.99 per sheet $31.96 Total
300 16mm beads from The Bumble Bead Company 15 bags of 20 beads at $2.99 for a total of $44.85
2 packages of swivel clasps from Amazon at $9.99 each for a total of $19.98
Paint for the engraving – I just use acrylic paint and seal it with clear I didn’t even put this in the cost because I always have it in my craft room.
Crystal-Tec elastic string for beading from Amazon – 8mm for $7.99
My total cost of materials is $104.78
I will have to run my laser for about 8 total hours to complete this project. If you have a laser you should already have some sort of equation you use to decide what the cost of running your laser is. In this case I am not charging my sister for laser time, but you should most definitely charge. Remember you have to be present while running a laser for safety reasons, it puts wear and tear on your laser and it takes up electricity so take those things into consideration when creating your charge. I typically charge $2.76 per hour to run my laser.
You will need to decide what you feel like your time per hour is worth. This may vary from person to person. This project took me about 16 hours to complete in total.
IS IT WORTH IT
Taking all of the above into consideration, you will need to determine if taking on a bulk order is going to be beneficial for you. remember it will take time away from any other orders you have to do, causing you to get a bit behind. My suggestion is giving yourself a very realistic timeline on your bulk order so you can take breaks and work on it in smaller increments, doing the same thing over and over can cause burnout really quickly. Ultimately your time is so valuable, it’s okay to say no if it’s not something that will be worth your time. The last thing you want to do is burn yourself out from the thing you love!
happy creating friends!
