Thursday 15 March 2018

Yay. Aw Man! Boo.

Well, I guess I am meant to say "I learned a lesson the hard way" or something like that but... did you know it costs a lot to ship stuff?

Yeah, I didn't.

So, I sold an art print.  YAY!

Someone asked about one of my digital pieces, and if it could be printed on metal at a larger size.  I was like HUH YOU WHAT?  but only in my head, and so I looked up the price on a printing site Jason knows of and then I charged a bit more than it would cost and a bit more for shipping it from me to the person.  (I wanted to see it first hand first.)

I thought the price I quoted was silly, but the fellow said it sounded good, so I ordered the print and yay!  I sold a print!  Someone gave me money!  Yay!

I got it sent to my place and got all emotional when it arrived and then boxed it back up and took it off to be mailed to New Mexico.

By this time, I'd used the online shipping estimator and realized that any "profit" I might have been making was going to be eaten up by shipping.  But hey, I'd still make twenty or thirty bucks, that's decent, right?

Turns out it was too large for Canada post.  (You what?)  So I took it to UPS.  And then shipped it off for a hundred and twenty dollars.  (I didn't cry in the shop, I just wanted to)  Which means... I made -$7 on my sale!

Sigh.

No, it really was a learning experience.  It was weird to charge at all, and then I felt uncomfortable charging much more than what it cost to make on the printing site.  Jason pointed out after that I didn't charge for my time, or the expenditures around the material (computer and tablet in this case) or anything much at all, and that I shouldn't really have included shipping in the price, but I had no idea it would be that much and I didn't know how to say, oh, I included shipping but it ended up being about $80 more than I thought, can you... like, give me more monies?

So... yeah.  I sold some of my art, which is cool!  Someone will have it up on their wall.  That's cool.  I'm trying to process that n stuff.

But... it technically cost me money to have it made and sent to them, so, um, yeah, I'm not yet a super good businessperson.  Or like I'm a really good starving artist or something?

So yay boo and all that jazz.  D'oh.

2 comments:

Jason Langlois said...

Shipping is the killer, really. And Customs. Man, customs will hurt too.

But still, there's something to be said for having someone willing to pay for your creations. You realize this means you're now a Professional, right?

Victoria said...

Gal dangit shipping!

And... uh... oh. *scratches head*