Hello friends!

Just a few days after launching my limited edition bags, I have decided to drop their price by about 30%, from $68 to $49. Why? Because I am new at this. I am learning, and making mistakes all the damn time.

I agonized about the pricing for weeks before settling on the $68 mark. How much are my bags worth? They cost $17 from my factory in California (a company called Printful.) I could get them from China for about a dollar. But I want to support American businesses with this project and provide an American-made product.

I’ve talked to a few (but in retrospect, not nearly enough) business owners about pricing and selling apparel. A businesswoman on Orcas told me that the standard notion of doubling the price of a product for retail sale is bad advice. That your markup really must be 4x or more to operate a sustainable business. Tim Ferriss talks about starting at 8x…

So $68 was a 3x markup. When I settled on the price I also settled on selling as limited editions. Individuality is important to me and I like the idea of owning something that (almost) nobody else has. I also consider these bags more art than consumer product.

Art pricing is a mysterious black cloud that I haven’t even begun to navigate. Clearly, an area I need to research more. I think it is further complicated by the fact that artists are not typically skilled businesspeople. Art is a painfully personal endeavor. What is it worth? What are you, the artist, worth?

So I had a meeting with me, myself, and Anxiety, and we all agreed that 49 American dollars is the perfect price for my limited edition bags. I feel better about telling my friends about this price, as *most* of my friends are not high income art patrons. I want these bags to find homes.

So come on down! Everything must gooooooo!