Price tag placement

[Piedmont Pottery]

I read years ago that if price tags were not readily visible it resulted in lost sales.  Since then I always put my price tags on the sides or tops of pots so they were easy to find, both when we were still doing shows and since we've opened our gallery.  I was getting some advice from a marketing consultant this afternoon who suggested putting the tags where they don't show so as not to detract from the overall look of the pot.  I'm curious as to what others do with regard to price tag placement, and whether you think it makes any difference.

 

Thanks,

Jeff Ross

 

[neilestrick]

Marketing people don't always know what they're talking about. Price is a major issue for people when buying pots, especially because prices can vary widely from artist to artist. I used to hide them so they didn't distract, but that caused all sorts of problems. I found that many people are wary of picking up the piece to find it, and many people just don't want to ask, so they'd walk away unless it was something they were really, really interested in. Others assume it's expensive if there's not an easily visible tag- people make a lot of assumptions when looking at art. I've even had people assume it wasn't for sale if the tag wasn't visible. So I always put tags front and center where they're easy to see without having to handle the pots. I love when people handle my work, but the average person is nervous about possibly breaking something so they only pick things up if they really need to.

[oldlady]

agree  totally with neil.  (sorry, neil.)  i remember a marketing person telling me that the group of 9 potters needed to buy black tablecloths that matched for a sale that was one day in a small park from 10 until 4 o'clock.   totally stupid since black was not available anyhow.    all 9 of us had a good time and made some sales that made all of us happy.

my prices are visible on the front of each pot, even the expensive ones.  

[LinR]

Totally agree with Neil.  Let the price tag show and let the information on it be big enough for anyone to read!  Lin

[Callie Beller Diesel]

My personal observation is that if someone is too nervous to handle an everyday sort of pot, they’re unlikely to buy it whether the price tag is visible or not. Larger pieces are a bit different. Most people don’t pick up large serving platters or jars.

That said, I do make them visible. Either I’ll put a legible tag on the shelf, or a sticker on the rim. Mugs I put the tag on the bottom, but my display is for the most part, a large mug tree. For some reason, I seem to encounter a lot of people who are uncertain of the function of things like a berry bowl, so a sign with what the item is, along with the price seems to let people browse in comfort.

[Mark C.]

(Marketing people don't always know what they're talking about)

This statement  is very understated forme but this a very nice way to say it Neil

Prices need to be seen if you want some  sales

[LeeU]

As a shopper, I hate it when the price is not readily visible/super easy to find. On any product. When I go to a store and the cost of something is actually missing--which is becoming more common these days, maybe due to workforce issues, I just mutter "they don't want to tell me what it costs, fine, I ain't gonna buy it". If it is missing from a quantity display & I have a few minutes to spare I will let the customer service person or a store manager know that there is no price signage "on the Seattle Dark roast"...but usually I just leave and they lose the sale.

With ceramics, the not-visible price generally comes across to me as snooty & I do tend to assume it will be more than I want to pay and just move on, even tho that is often not the case if I bother to turn the thing over. 

[GEP]

Totally agree that prices need to be in plain sight! Making a customer search or ask only leads to lost sales. 

I also agree that I’ve heard advice from marketing “experts” who are clearly just making things up and don’t have any real experience about what works and doesn’t work. 

Here’s my solution for displaying prices that doesn’t distract from the look of the pot:

https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/daily/article/Quick-Tips-Two-Great-Ceramic-Business-Ideas

[neilestrick]

13 hours ago, Callie Beller Diesel said:

My personal observation is that if someone is too nervous to handle an everyday sort of pot, they’re unlikely to buy it whether the price tag is visible or not.

I think that's true in some cases, but a lot of people just get nervous about the displays, as every booth has s different setup and they don't know how stable things are (and know that some aren't very stable at all).

[Piedmont Pottery]

Thanks to everyone who has replied!  It appears that everyone is in agreement with the way I've been doing things, with price tags visible without having to pick a pot up.  I think that the marketing consultant had quite a few good suggestions, but the price tag idea wasn't one that felt right to me.  When I shop, if I can't easily tell what the price is on an item I leave without it.  And I agree that many people are hesitant to handle pottery on a shelf.  Whenever I see someone trying to see a price on an upper shelf I always offer to take the piece down so they can look at it.

[Mark C.]

I sell mugs and glasses in a bagel/bakery shop past 20+ years. They decided a few years ago to stop pricing items. They thought it did not matter. I kept pricing my work and now its the only priced item in those two shops.That business  for me has more than doubled  or even tripled in past few years.I'm sure the price stickers are part of that.

[Callie Beller Diesel]

I think the matter of price tags is on that weird point in between sales and marketing, so there’s crossover for them to be considered from both angles. The presence of some kind of pricing is sales, and I don’t really think it’s optional. How you present that price is marketing

Marketing is getting your product in front of the right people, and making them feel comfortable enough to make a purchase from you. So we design our booths to feel a certain way to the customer, we choose logos and fonts and colours for websites and potter’s marks,  we tell stories online, we pick wrapping material for shipping and in person, we design business cards and email sign up lists, etc. Etc. Tag design is a small detail in all that, but having the cost out there *somehow* isn’t really optional. 

If you want a fancier option of displaying prices, or your handwriting gets misread on a sticker easily, there’s all kinds of things you can do.

All of these are time and energy and space permitting, of course.

-mark the shelves of your displays somehow (I write on the edges of my dark wooden shelves with chalk)

-design hang tags for certain pieces and print off batches of them and keep them in your travel kit. (I like Canva for this.)

-Make small signs out of card stock you run through the printer. (Canva is a godsend!)

-I saw one vendor who had sunk tiny magnets into the front of their shelves, and used them to attach business card sized chalkboard tags that they could change easily

-Mea did some small thumb sized, round placards out of ceramic that she writes the item price on with permanent markers. You can see them in the background of a few images in her branding, marketing and salesmanship blog post here.  You could do larger ones if you want short product descriptions on there too. Listen to the former graphic designer! She knows things. 

-Have a printed price list of some kind, either large cafe style for the whole booth, framed neatly, or drawn out on some larger more casual form of paper product

-Print  small shelf tags that can be moved around as you rearrange product. These will likely be better in indoor settings.

 

Also, there’s nothing wrong with handwritten stickers. They’re cheap and cheerful, and they work just fine. You don’t have to brand everything within an inch of its life. But I know some people like to play with little details like this.

 

 

[neilestrick]

28 minutes ago, Callie Beller Diesel said:

I saw one vendor who had sunk tiny magnets into the front of their shelves, and used them to attach business card sized chalkboard tags that they could change easily

I thought of doing this a few years back but never got around to it. I tend to display my work in batches of the same type (mugs, bowls, etc), so I could just put a couple tags on the shelf instead of tagging the mugs on that shelf.

[Mark C.]

I use small 1/2 inch round removable white stickers

I shop these very hard for best price now that our local shop went away after suppling me for decades.

MACO MR-808 White 1/2" Diameter Circle Labels they come a 1,000 in a box 

I buy them in 18 box lots from Macolables.com

cost is $3 a box at that quainity-I just ordered a casae of 18 seems to alst about 5-7 years

I place them near the bottom on all pots that stand up. Easy to remove

I used to use Avery but they went to the moon on cost. As I have said a zillion times I buy in quantity and save no matter what it is. I go thru stickers like crazy at times. 

The removable ones are the ticket.

 

[kswan]

I don't like having stickers directly on items, so I use  a system similar to the wall tags in a gallery. They are framing matboard that I cut to be a little larger than the sticker, with white putty on the back to stick them to my shelves or tabletop. They are reusable and let people know what the piece is for (like a garlic jar).  I also use one tag per group like bowls or mugs. I put them back on an empty  sheet the stickers came off and store them in a ziplock bag. Not sure how any sales have been affected, but I like the way it looks and it would make me feel comfortable if I'm the one shopping and saw prices displayed like this. 

 

 

[Min]

@kswan, I like your system of having the name of the pot on the price tag. I'm guessing it saves getting all those "what is this used for" questions which I like answering but am not always able to depending on how many people are in my booth at the time. I don't mind having price stickers on my pots but I can see using your system to save having to price each pot separately. Also like the idea of using museum putty to hold them down. I might have to borrow your method .

[kswan]

@Piedmont Pottery When I was in a gallery, we printed out labels with the artist, medium, and price then put that on a credit card sized placard. That stuck with the white putty to a wall or surface near the piece. In your gallery, something like that could give it a nice look. The placards were reusable and repositionable with the putty if you have to rearrange. Those were plastic but you can cut them from matboard as well to fit the label.

@Min It's definitely a big time saver not to have to write labels over and over. People do still ask what a garlic jar is or why a big fruit bowl has cutouts!

[Callie Beller Diesel]

@kswan @Min Agreed. I started doing a few handwritten price cards when I have things like yarn jars or berry bowls in my booth. In addition to the price, it eliminates confusion, especially if someone hasn’t seen a thing before. 

@neilestrickthe magnet tag thing does indeed look really nice. I never think to do it when I have the time to, though. 

 

[Piedmont Pottery]

My situation is a bit different than most, in that we are more than just a pottery gallery/studio.  We also have a variety of 2D art, jewelry, gift items, etc., totalling over 800 different items in our inventory system at the moment.  We use small self-adhesive labels with the item name, price, and barcode for scanning at check-out.  The picture below shows an example, with a AAA battery for a size comparison.  While I think hand-written more decorative tags would be nice, it's not really feasible for our current model.  I do have shelf placards for unusal items, e.g. yarn bowls, butter bells, egg separators, apple bakers and the like.

[bridgespottery]

I have a different approach here . I don’t generally use any price tags. On very small items sometimes, or for a big group of mugs but generally I find ~sales work  for me without. With out a price Tag  I can start a conversation about a piece.  In my area I find people are not shy to ask how much.  For me it is An interaction with a customers vs. someone looking  at a tag and walking away. I want to engage with the individual and help they see why   they need that pot or better understand what they are looking for or their style.  I know this seems contrary to what most of you have said but there is good reason not to show a price. I am a seasoned studio potter and have been selling my work for years and also have many years as a professional Marketer under belt. We all have different methods that work.  It’s interesting to see different perspectives. 

[Mark C.]

All of my organic supoer market labels  look like the above bar coded ones except they have my business name in front of the form item -so

Liscom Pottery -Mug $28.99

 For example