Plants, Having hard time pricing my product

[egon]

Do you advertise?? [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[gardeningangel]

Yep, I have no problem selling the plants just pricing. Last year I was out of wave petunias before Mothers Day.

[DUMBDOG]

That is one of the reasons that I chose what I did for a retirement job, employees. After being a retail business for many years, I have gotten to the point where I do not want to have another employee ever again.

They always know more than you do, do half the work and want ten times the money. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img]

[midwilshire]

I've found that I'm selling my services more often now that I'm charging more. I just kept moving the price higher and higher gradually - I couldn't identify with my current price without the gradual increase.

I recall reading a case study where a bank offered its customers a certain service for free. Nobody used it. Then they started charging for it, and people started signing up. A lot of perceived value derives not from inspection of the product, but from inspection of the price tag.

Why not experiment by raising the price of one item in your product line? See how receptive your customer base is, and go from there.

[gardeningangel]

I had another fella tell me about his fruitstand. He had the perfect tomatoes and some others that are ugly but good flavored "Brandywine". Well the people didn't want the ugly ones because he priced them low because of their appearance. Well he finally marked them twice the price of the nice looking ones, they sold like hotcakes.

From all the advice and support lately I have gotten, I am finally realizing I am not here just to feel good about myself, I need to make money too. I have the customers, now this year I will make my move into the real world and see if they really do like my product.

I have people from Texas, Arizona, Oregon,Montana,Colorado, and other places that shop here when they are in Idaho. Those from Oregon make a special trip twice a year to get my flowers. I need to keep in mind if they will spend the money on gas they will pay a little higher price for me to be here next year.

My sister says I am jumping in front of the train. This year I feel like its a really big ship, either it runs me over or I jump on with all the other passengers. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

Thanks for your help.

Ruth

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Well the people didn't want the ugly ones because he priced them low because of their appearance. Well he finally marked them twice the price of the nice looking ones, they sold like hotcakes.

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Are you familiar with the difference in Bing Cherries vs Ranier Cherries? Same kind of thing. The Bings are much prettier, but the Ranier is ugly, tastes great, and costs more. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[gardeningangel]

Yes I have sold a few of the Ranier trees and tasted the cherries. The trees for the Ranier cost more. I did not sell many because of the price. I don't know much about fruit trees so I stopped selling them.

Hey I had 2 old pear trees at our old house, my husband called them winter pears. They stayed green and hard for a long time. They were the best, I love crunchy pears and my favorite "Nectarines"!!!!! Oh man Nectariens. Love em.
Droolin here. Anyways I havent found the pears that were like the ones at our old house.

[Bird]

I like nectarines, too. And we used to make "Pearl Honey", wash, peel, and core crisp pears, then grind them up with the food grinder (I have used a food processor grating blade which works, but not quite as well as the food grinder), then added drained crushed pineapple and sugar and simmered. It's almost dry to start with, but will make plenty of juice while cooking. We then added just a tiny bit of lemon juice before putting it into sterilized jars and sealing them. That Pear Honey was good as preserves on biscuits or toast for breakfast, it was good to spread between the layers of cakes instead of putting frosting between the layers, and it's good as a topping ice cream. And now you've made me hungry for a pear or some Pear Honey.

[gardeningangel]

Ok Bird now I am hungry for toast with jam, I think I will pull out some Huckleberry jam. Your Pear Jam sounds really good, its funny, my daughter just asked me yesterday if I ever made pear jam and I have never done that. I really like the strawberry rhubarb jam ohhhh, maybe I'll look for a jar of that.

I like the pineapple touch in your pear jam. I used to do quite a bit of canning, only do jams lately.

Gonna go look for some jam. Ummmmm [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Bird]

And I've never seen Huckleberry Jam. I found you can go to google.com and search for "Pear Honey" and find several recipes; all pretty much alike. Most that I looked at called for "chopped" pears without specifying how finely chopped they should be. With 5 kids, and living in the country, my mother did a lot of canning. We had one of the hand cranked food grinders that you clamped on the edge of a table, and I spent a lot of time turning that crank. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]