Bead Prices

All Should Be Welcome

   Yesterday evening I received an email from a customer thanking me for making a stand against over priced lampwork beads in which she mentioned how some makers seem to moan a lot about those of us who keep our prices real. Well I think most of you all know my feeling on this subject and I know a lot of you agree with me but I just wanted to use this mornings blog to make my thoughts clear to all who are interested and if any other bead makers would like to tell my why I'm wrong then please feel free to contact me.
   First of all I have to say these are just my thoughts on the subject and I'm sure some of you will think differently to me, but that's what makes life so interesting and why we are all so very unique.
   When I first started making beads there were only around a couple of dozen people making lampwork beads in the UK, the craft had been going along fine with bead prices high and the makers earning good money, then as the craft started to grow here becoming nearly as popular as it was in the US more and more people started taking up bead making. I remember a group of girls from one of the bead groups visiting us here at the barn and within a six months all but two had started making their own beads, that's how fast the craft was growing. So I guess this was always going to bring prices down and the older bead makers were going to see their sales drop off unless they lowered their prices.
   At this time I was selling my beads at bead fairs and online in my ebay shop and it wasn't long before I started hearing the gossip that my prices were far too low and it was spoiling it for other sellers etc etc ! Never once did these people have the balls to say it to me but they found it easy to chat behind my back thinking that I wouldn't know, yet did they realise most times I was told by those they were chatting to.
   We soon found that some customers at the bead fairs would tell us that they hadn't obtained lampwork beads before as they were always so expensive and that they attended the fairs to buy seed beads or findings mostly, which I thought was a real shame. After hearing these people and seeing how they enjoyed being able to buy those beads they would just admire before I knew I wanted in some way to get more people interested in lampwork beads and if this meant keeping my prices low then as long as I could still make a profit I would try to do so.
   I remember one year at the Essex bead fair a young girl around 8 or 9 years or age coming to our table with 3 pounds to buy some beads and when she walked away showing her mum the little set of pink beads in her hand I just knew I was doing right. The girls mum had told us her daughter had only ever bought odd orphan beads in the past and this was her first set she could afford, she followed this by thanking us which made me feel really humble, here was a guy who sat making beads in a barn full of boxes and cupboards full of these little glass wonders, some of which I just left to collect dust as I didn't think they were good enough to sell and this one little girl had a simple set of pink beads that meant so much to her, from that day on my outlook on beads changed and I told Yvonne that we had to let more people use my beads. I didn't care about how much we could charge I just wanted more people to get to use them and that's how I still feel to this day, it doesn't mean I only sell cheap beads, it just means I price beads with a wider range of prices, if a set of beads takes a while to make and there is a lot more work involved then they will cost more to buy, if the beads were simple to make and only took minutes to produce then they sell for far less.
   To me that's an honest way to price my beads and even though I know I'll never get rich this way, I don't care and I'll never change it. I know there will be hundreds of buyers who don't like the type of beads I make and they will always prefer the work of other makers and won't mind paying big bucks for them but even if there are a few who feel they get good value from my beads then I'm happy.
   So even if the odd bead maker moans about the likes of me selling too low, you know what, I don't care, if my prices mean just one more person can afford to start using lampwork beads in their jewellery then that's great news, don't you find it funny, those same bead makers who moan about low priced beads being bad for their trade are found shopping in supermarkets all over the country because it's cheaper than buying from their local village baker, butcher or corner shop, talk about double standards !!!