Pricing question

English Spreadshop
#1

I have a question about pricing under the new model - why is it that I am unable to offer my products on my own site at the same price as on the marketplace and get the same margin?

For example for a Mens T-shirt :-

Marketplace selling price = £14.99 and I get £2.50 design price (flat fee under new model)

BUT

In my own store pricing table, the same Mens T-shirt has a base price of £13.49 - so if I want to make the same margin as I would get on the marketplace, I have to offer it at £15.99 - which is immediately more expensive than the marketplace, even though I am incurring extra costs to host my own website - which means in reality that my profit would be lower even at the same gross margin.

To match the marketplace price, I’d only be getting a £1.50 margin on my own site.

Yes, I know you can earn volume discounts but right now I’m trying to get my first sales, let alone earning volume discounts and if any of my target audience discover my designs on the marketplace they would be understandably annoyed that they are cheaper on there than on my own site.

How are other (successful) shop owners dealing with this? Are you simply removing your designs from the marketplace?

#2

Thanks for your feedback. Indeed at times the base prices in the shop are higher but at most times they are lower since of course you’re responsible for bringing the traffic. The Marketplace Team and the Spreadshop Team are two different business units with very different strategies and therefore also different price models.

This is a behavior we cannot confirm. I know that for you as a shop owner you might think that of course the customer will clearly see that those designs belong to the same person but on the Marketplace the Designer is very anonymous and the customer couldn’t really care less by whom the design is (sorry… honest truth) and won’t make any connection to your shop.

Who is your target audience exactly? What’s the niche of your shop?

#3

Hmmm - disappointing that the marketplace team and the spreadshop team do not align on a common strategy when it comes to pricing - but if that’s how it is then not much I can do about it huh?

I’m still finding my “niche” right now - as with all launches it take a while to focus on a specific niche - my starting point was sarcastic / funny inspirational sayings picked up across a wide range of my own interests since my base starting point for an audience is my existing friends and followers across social channels, professional and leisure persona’s.

I’ve boosted a couple of recent posts with designs that have been topical due to COVID - the posts have had good engagement (for the tiny amount of money I’ve spent on them so far) so they are attracting attention from the audience they were designed to engage.

I suspect sales are down for everyone right now - so launching in this time is going to be a tough call anyway - the best I can do is to continue to build a community of people that engage on social channels right now and hopefully I’ll be able to convert those to buyers at some point.

In light of the pricing conversation, I’m going to review my pricing strategy and cut margins on the basic t-shirts - right down to £1.50 in an attempt for those to be a catalyst to kick off sales of any sort - it’s basic pricing theory and I’m just going to keep iterating until I find something that works for me.

Thanks for your response :+1:

#4

Thanks for sharing some insights. Indeed times are weird right now. By the way, we also recenty published a blogpost about pricing strategy, might be worth a read:

And of course if you have any other questions we’re here to help.

#5

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