How much to sell socks for

Cathie · How much to sell socks for

Hi,

The WAHM I licence patterns from to make for resale has listed up a sock pattern which I can use under my licence. It is for ladies socks in a variety of sizes. I would like to make some for my shop as it wold decrease my sock yarn stash nicely as well as add a nother product to my catolgue.

I'm not sure on selling price though, I have a mixture of opal yarns that cost around £6 per ball, hand dyed yarns I paided £8-£10 for and various others that I have picked up along the way.

What would be a fair price do you think? I don't want to over price them or undersell them as socks take a while to make. I could possibly get 2 pairs or small socks out of a ball of yarn as they arn't long socks trainer socks with the option of making longer ones.

Really don't know where to start with it. I did think £10 per pair for opal type yarns and £15 - £18 for the hand dyed yarns, but feel it is maybe a little to much to charge

TIA
Cathie

knittingnanny

Hi Cathie

I was asked to make a pair of socks, and without mentioning copyright etc, I made a pair of plain socks in opal yarn, it cost me 6.50 and I got 10.00 for them.

I won't take another order for socks - it takes far too long for that sort of money.

I'll only make them for myself or as a gift now.

Linda

KnittingLadybird

I agree with Linda, socks aren't worth the money you get back for your hard work. Basically people don't want to pay 'that much' for socks.
Mine are for family and gifts and I normally tell lot that i'll make more if they ask but they have to buy their own yarn lol.

If you can bear to make them at a loss to use up stash that's your choice but personally unless you can find sock yarn for a quid a ball, it really isn't worth the effort.

Cathie

Thanks,

I had been thinking that. I'm not sure I could bear to have another stock line where I bearly make my money on it. All my range I supply babykind with I only make between £3 and £12 on. The bigger the size the less I make on it when they have had their cut. Not a lot for somthing that might take 6 hours of my time to make really, on the other hand though it has given me a couple of new customers that I wouldn't have normally had.

I might make up a few pairs in my friends and familys sizes list them up for what I want for them, then if they don't go I can just take them out of stock for gifts when needed. I don't think for one minute that I will achieve the prices but it's worth a go I suppose.

Cathie

probablyjane

To recoup your time at minimum wage level your socks would probably have to be sold for at least £50 a pair! I do all my knitting for myself and friends as it feels to me that it is part of a personal relationship and too intimate somehow to share with strangers (I know, I'm a bit peculiar...)

I only 'sell' my knitting time through designing and teaching.

I kind of think that if we don't value our skills and sell our work for a pittance we can't really complain when non knitters look down on what we do.

cazzie

There is this seller on Etsy - if any help price guide wise

and this one

Sprite64

Cathie

Hi,

Thanks for those links will have look in a moment. I do agree that knitting wise thing should be sold for what the maker thinks they are worth and in an ideal world I would get £90 for a pair of hand knitted medium shorts and have an hourly rate for making them, but in this world I have to be happy with getting £18.99, for items I sell through my website I get between £2 and £6 per hour depending on the size of the item. The larger the item the less hourly rate I get iykwim. I do need to look at my prices and I think increase the larger items, worked out the costing on an XXL shorts I finished making and if I where selling them through babykind I would only get £1.50 profit, which is a bit scary as they took me 3 days to make them! Luckily I don't sell much of that size

All WAHM's making have simular prices knit for the love of it rather than the profit. I have seen a lady online that is knitting adult socks for around £6 with supplied wool.

Cathie

knitty, witty, woo

Do not undervalue your work!!!
We tend to do that as we homemake.
I sell beaded jewellery through a local shop and the best advice was from my husband about my pricing.
I charge for the price of the beads, and also charge £10 an hour. Sometimes things will take 15 minutes so I work it all out. Then I add on what the lady in the shop takes for selling them.

I couldn't sell my socks as they would be a fortune.
If you do sell at the price you quoted above you could end up with lots of orders and resent working for almost nothing.

Off to look at the links to etsy now.....