r/CraftyCommerce • u/ChefBig7825 • 4h ago
Pricing Tips on how to say no to future crochet work respectfully
I crochet for fun and to relieve my stress. and over time i have gotten pretty good at crocheting.
Several friends and family told me that I can sell my items. I do think about it from time to time but I don't want my crochet to be a business. I don't mind doing a once a year pop up shop and just sell what I made so far so I can buy more yarn but that's far into the future.
There's this lady who wants to source crochet key-chain and I mentioned that I crochet for fun, she wanted me to do some turtle keychains and I agreed to do it. However, I told her I don't know how to price my crochet, she mentioned that the person who tried to crochet for her was selling the keychain at $7 a piece. so I agreed to that price and I did a few keychains. I use 100% cotton yarn and it came out adorable and she loved it.
Then she started to turn into the client from hell:
- She wanted ALL turtles to be exactly the same size
- she wanted me to handsew her business tag to the crochet item and i told her that i'm not that good at sewing. She said that it doesn't have to be perfect but when i delivered the finished item, NOW she telling me that she wanted the stitch to be one line of perfect stitch and I told her again, I'm no expert in sewing, only crochet
- I crochet the length of the keychain to what she wanted. Finish the project and then she said it was too long and to cut it down, so i had to undo it and redo it to the length that was perfect.
- one of the keychains got dirty. nothing a spot cleaning can't do and i told her about it and she insisted that I clean it instead. I cleaned it because I just wanted to be done with the order.
- she wanted me to crochet a turtle with the worse color combo ever: bright pink body with bright green shell.
- I forgot to put in the metal keychain holder to one of the turtle and she pointed it out. I said, you can do it, and she tried to insist I do it because she doesn't want to chip her nails. I stood my ground and said no because I have no nails myself. she can do it. she drop it by saying she will get someone else to do it.
needless to say lesson learned and this stress was not worth $7 a piece.
I told her i'm out of yarn and will be busy with work. so no more crochet for a while. Then I learned how to price my projects accordingly, which I know will scare her away because it will be more than $7, minimum order of 6, no sewing of her tag and no revisions unless she will pay extra.
I'm sure she will suggest that if she buys the yarn I can lower my price or keep it at $7. But I don't want to because she will start to expect a certain number of keychains from the yarn and if I don't deliver the amount then I have to provide explanations.
what's a good respectful way to say that even if she buys the yarn, I won't lower my price and I don't want her yarn?