Determining Pricing ** Quality + Origin + Competition + This & That = Price

[Guest guest]

Hey Steph .. other good folks ..

 

Lemme give you my opinion on this .. and I'll bet a purty that any of

the folks who have been in the business a long time will agree. ;-)

 

> When you price your items take into consideration what it costs you,

> your time, and then usually triple that cost to get retail value. Also

> check your local community to see what things sell for. You might be

> able to get more than someone in a different area. Or you might find

> that you can't sell your stuff for as much as others can.

 

Ideally .. twould be nice if we could use such a rule of thumb .. but in

the real world of competition for sale of EO and such .. that's a luxury

I've yet to be able to enjoy. Seeing as I put in 80+ hours a week just

confirming orders and replying on line (like this list) and off line to

individual e-mail questions .. if I figgered in my time, my prices would

be so far above the norm that I would not have to spend more than an

hour or two a week confirming orders. ;-)

 

> You can also go peek at other's sites to see what people are selling

> their stuff for.

 

Yep .. and you BETTER do this .. you might find out that you are not

able to compete .. might be that you are setting yourself up to run an

expensive hobby. The problem with competition in the EO business is

that everyone is not into quality .. they buy low quality for a low

price and sell low quality for a price less than many of us can buy

quality even with large bulk orders. I was in the commodities business

for a time .. before getting into EO in 1995. Back then .. I would get

requests for quotes and they would include a " target price " . One can

deal with this when selling multi-tons of wheat or Portland cement and

such cause they have access to various stocks and volume can drive the

train when we're talking 300 metric tons and such. But lemme tell you

that when someone tries to sell you EO in bulk and they use such terms

you need to run like a scalded dawg cause they will sell you the level

of quality you are willing to pay for.

 

Nor do many sellers give sufficient information so that a knowledgeable

buyer can make a decision. Even more of a problem for retail sales (but

not for wholesale) is that too many buyers are NOT knowledgeable!

 

Examples .. I (and the other professional companies) have to compete

with folks who sell oils but don't list what we call the " critical " info

about their oils ..

 

Origin .. if we don't not know the Origin of an oil then we know nothing

about it .. or the quality .. or what the price should be. Its not

possible to know that if they don't list the Origin of the oil. Some

Examples .. my Pepper, Black (Piper nigrum) is from Madagascar but the

lower quality oil from India is half the cost .. my Bay Rum (Pimenta

racemosa) is from Jamaica .. the lower quality oil from the Dominican

Republic is half the cost .. my Bergamot is from Italy .. the lower

quality oil from Ivory coast is half the cost and the lower quality oil

from China is a third of that cost .. my Rose Otto is from Turkey .. the

MUCH lower quality Rose Oils from Russia and China are one third of the

cost but not worth one tenth of the cost .. I can go on and on with

50-60 other oils but I think you have the point.

 

Date of Distillation .. we can't begin to determine the relative shelf

life (there are no SPECIFIC shelf lives .. depends on proper or improper

storage) unless we know the date of distillation .. not the date of

bottling.

 

Plant Part Used .. knowing the part of the aromatic plant used is very

critical cause different parts of various aromatics can be used and we

get a different product .. and a different cost.

 

Method of Extraction .. knowing the method of distillation or other form

of extraction is also critical because you can get different results

with different (or the same) botanical parts with different forms of

extraction.

 

Botanical Speak .. if one does not speak Botanical names then we can get

shafted by the con artists and there is no shortage of them out there ..

if I could critique half the web sites of those selling oils and had the

power to make them come clean and tell it like it really is .. they

would be very busy critters.

 

There are other criteria I apply but I won't go into them here and I'm

not saying that those who don't apply them are falling short .. its just

my thing and its maybe one of the reasons I spent so dang much time in

the past taking care of business. I think that now I am no longer alone

I gotta learn to work a lot smarter .. instead of a lot longer. ;-)

 

It might surprise some to know how many people selling oils have NO IDEA

at all what they are selling .. they know nothing about the products ..

and in some cases .. they don't care about learning. We have to compete

with these folks .. like it or not.

 

I have a pretty knowledgeable customer base .. largely due to the many

questions they ask off line .. and to their being on this list .. and I

have some who are not so knowledgeable (yet) but they trust me to be

knowledgeable .. and I can prove the purity and quality of my products

with more than lip service .. you will note that each and every oil is

GC or GC/MS tested and each batch is Lot Number controlled. Even a pure

oil can be low quality ... a pure .. mediocre oil. I have no oils in

that class.

 

Anyway .. for retail sales .. me and all the other professional dealers

gotta compete with the prices of folks who should not be considered as

credible competitors .. we have to do this due to a lack of knowledge in

many (not all) retail buyers. This is rarely the case with wholesale

buyers (in my case one must be a seller of products to purchase from my

wholesale site) because they are NOT running an expensive hobby and must

pay close attention to what they do if they wanna stay in business.

 

> Steph })

> " A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour. "

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-) Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

 

Wholesale/Retail GC Tested EO, Tested Hydrosols and other nice things

sent from our store in Downtown Friendsville, MD. Pop: 597