During this project I explored the paper making and book binding processes alongside my business plan. for me this is a totally new experience learning business concepts and the behind the scenes working of businesses and everything that needs to be considered.
The thing I found most challenging was how to make a fairly basic hand made product appeal to a higher market demographic, working on the feedback during my pitch I have tried to tell a story of the product and the company so that people can gain better understanding and knowledge of the brand and the types of customer I want to appeal to. One way I explored this was designing a higher end packaging that when people purchase or receive the products they are well presented and look luxury, hand made and special. I want people to be happy to pay a higher price because of the service, quality and look of the product they are receiving.
I have struggled to decide on an appropriate age of customer for my product. I concluded that these products sit within an age range of between 30-45, although saying that I believe there is leverage with this depending on what and who the product is intended for.
Considering the pricing my products has been challenging as these are practical things… and they are only made from paper. so how much would people pay for a bit of paper realistically. Looking at my research into competitors i have found people tend to pay that little bit more for a bespoke service and the personalized, wedding books and photo books can range between anything from £15 – £130+. Considering the cost of the production, my time making the products, the packaging, the types of stores I want to sell to (boutiques, farm shops, garden centres and local independent high end shop) the price needs to be appropriate to the customer demographic and age. Therefore I feel an appropriate price range would be between £20 – £100+ obviously this includes bespoke services and is dependent on what the customer wants and how long it would take to make. (These are only rough estimates as I haven’t figured the precise costings but this is what I would feel comfortable charging people for a hand made special occasion product).
Lara Hoad Artist Designer: Maker 