It's been asked countless times- what is the future of digital scrapbooking?
Everyone has their own predictions- and many of those predictions take the form of hopes and dreams. We hope that Chatterbox and Autumn Leaves and SEI will come out with digital versions of their product lines (yet we don't consider that the kits from those companies are only going to cost slightly less than the paper versions- maybe a $15 kit instead of a $20 kit). We hope that more designers will start designing kits (yet we don't consider that out of all of the digital designers on the market today only a handful create high quality digital elements. If we start pushing people into designing, then instead of giving ourselves plenty of high quality designers to choose from, we flood the market with mediocre designers- lowering our standards and our prices).
We really should be careful what we wish for. While it would be wonderful to be able to purchase a digital version of Basic Grey's latest product lines, I don't want to lose my business because of it. I'm not a big name. I'm a little name- some people know who I am, but I'm willing to bet that most don't. I don't want to bet my future as a digital designer on being picked up by a big name company. I imagine that there are plenty of digital designers that are wondering what would happen to them if the big name traditional companies go digital.
The problem is there is no way to stop this. The only way to actually stop something like this is to not buy those kits. Unfortunately, there will always be someone willing to purchase a kit from a company like Chatterbox or Basic Grey- no matter the price.
2.27.2005
2.25.2005
Entitlement and the Art of Pricing
I'll admit that I have virtually no business training, whatsoever. When I first started designing digital scrapbooking elements, the act of pricing kits made me extremely nervous. What if I priced the kits too high? Would people just not buy a kit because it was priced too high? I didn't even consider what would happen if I priced my kits too low.
Last week, the digital design world exploded. Well- sorta. 2peas released their first digital kit. The kit looks good, I'm sure that there aren't any issues with quality... But the kit was priced at $15- triple, and in some cases, more than triple, the amount of what other designers are selling their kits at. One thread at 2peas got a little nasty- some were complaining that it was outrageous, others were saying that it was worth the high price tag, in their humble opinion.
That thread got me thinking. One of the posters on the thread said that maybe digital designers were selling themselves short. Maybe we are. Really- when you look at the kits that are available now, there are many high quality kits that selling for the same price as lower quality kits. It shouldn't be that way. When I go clothing shopping- I can either choose to pay more for a higher quality pair of jeans or pay less for a lower quality pair of jeans. Since I'm one of those 'self proclaimed tightwads' when it comes to clothing, I understand that when I choose to spend $20 on a pair of jeans that they probably won't last as long as a pair of $50 jeans. It isn't this way with digital scrapbooking. I can spend anywhere between $4 and $15 on high quality kits. The prices are just too far spread out.
I want to be a 'big name' in digital scrapbooking. I want to be a licensed artist for a paper scrapbooking company as well as create my own designs for digital kits. I want both paper and digital scrapbookers to drool over my designs. I'm not going to reach those goals until I start valuing myself and my work- and pricing my kits too low just sends out the message that I don't think that I'm worth it. I want to make not just 'spending money', but actual money- a second income, if you will. I'm not going to reach that goal by pricing my kits too low. On the flip side- I can't price my kits too high- then people won't buy them. Argh!
Yet another thread on 2peas got me thinking. Funny how that happens. This time- it was over a discussion on a free kit that was supposed to be released earlier this week. People started complaining that it wasn't released yet, and someone thought that everyone was only complaining because they wanted something for free. The word 'entitled' was thrown around. In reality, it was all about the communication on the site. If you say that something will be made available and give me a time frame, even a general time frame, then you do your best to make it available in that time frame. If, for some reason, you can't make that time frame- give your customers an update! Let them know that you are working on it, and you'll have it available as soon as possible! Complaining about this isn't entitlement- I could really care less if 2peas offered a free kit or not- complaining about this is pointing out a problem with their business practices.
And really- think about it. If they are this horrible about telling me when something is going to be available and then actually following through with it- if I order from them, will I be able to trust that they are going to ship me my order in a timely fashion? Or am I going to have to add 2 weeks to the shipping date that they gave me?
Last week, the digital design world exploded. Well- sorta. 2peas released their first digital kit. The kit looks good, I'm sure that there aren't any issues with quality... But the kit was priced at $15- triple, and in some cases, more than triple, the amount of what other designers are selling their kits at. One thread at 2peas got a little nasty- some were complaining that it was outrageous, others were saying that it was worth the high price tag, in their humble opinion.
That thread got me thinking. One of the posters on the thread said that maybe digital designers were selling themselves short. Maybe we are. Really- when you look at the kits that are available now, there are many high quality kits that selling for the same price as lower quality kits. It shouldn't be that way. When I go clothing shopping- I can either choose to pay more for a higher quality pair of jeans or pay less for a lower quality pair of jeans. Since I'm one of those 'self proclaimed tightwads' when it comes to clothing, I understand that when I choose to spend $20 on a pair of jeans that they probably won't last as long as a pair of $50 jeans. It isn't this way with digital scrapbooking. I can spend anywhere between $4 and $15 on high quality kits. The prices are just too far spread out.
I want to be a 'big name' in digital scrapbooking. I want to be a licensed artist for a paper scrapbooking company as well as create my own designs for digital kits. I want both paper and digital scrapbookers to drool over my designs. I'm not going to reach those goals until I start valuing myself and my work- and pricing my kits too low just sends out the message that I don't think that I'm worth it. I want to make not just 'spending money', but actual money- a second income, if you will. I'm not going to reach that goal by pricing my kits too low. On the flip side- I can't price my kits too high- then people won't buy them. Argh!
Yet another thread on 2peas got me thinking. Funny how that happens. This time- it was over a discussion on a free kit that was supposed to be released earlier this week. People started complaining that it wasn't released yet, and someone thought that everyone was only complaining because they wanted something for free. The word 'entitled' was thrown around. In reality, it was all about the communication on the site. If you say that something will be made available and give me a time frame, even a general time frame, then you do your best to make it available in that time frame. If, for some reason, you can't make that time frame- give your customers an update! Let them know that you are working on it, and you'll have it available as soon as possible! Complaining about this isn't entitlement- I could really care less if 2peas offered a free kit or not- complaining about this is pointing out a problem with their business practices.
And really- think about it. If they are this horrible about telling me when something is going to be available and then actually following through with it- if I order from them, will I be able to trust that they are going to ship me my order in a timely fashion? Or am I going to have to add 2 weeks to the shipping date that they gave me?
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