Blog Discontinued

By Caleb |

Friday, September 11, 2009

2 comments

I started this blog to post comments about my bead business, but I realized that I just don't have enough to say to keep a blog going.  So, for the time being, I have discontinued it.  I do have a personal blog, but it contains many controversial opinions (especially about religion).  If you would like to have the address of that blog, please write me at caleb@purebeads.com.

Prices

By Caleb |

Thursday, August 27, 2009

0 comments

Today I discovered that my main supplier increased the price for the G1515 beads (13mm amethyst cinnamon buns) by 112% – that's more than double the old price – and they did it even though those beads are old stock for them (purchased long ago, before the dollar lost value). The new price makes those beads more expensive than the 12mm polished beads! That means that I'll have to put a premium price on the G1515 beads if I restock them, and I'm concerned they won't sell at such a high price.

The supplier raised its prices for an obvious reason: The new colors they got in were much more expensive than the old colors because the dollar has lost more than half of its value since then. They didn't want to have just two colors posted with a high price, so they raised all the colors to the same high price. However, they could have compromised by raising all the prices by a moderate amount. Or they could have just simply put a note on the site saying "these colors are more expensive because they were bought when the dollar was weak". But for some reason, this supplier feels that they can't be so honest with their customers. (In fact, in the past they were more honest than they are at present – they used to indicate when a bead style was heavily cracked, but now they don't.) If they had left the old colors at the old price, it might have accelerated their sale.

My concern about prices is that they won't come down once the dollar gets stronger, as it is bound to do. Once the supplier has taken a style that cost X amount and increased the price to 2X, they aren't going to want to go back to charging X, even when it's no longer necessary. So these increases that we are seeing may be permanent. I should say that this supplier has held the line on many prices. That's good, but if they hold the line on one bead style, they have to make it up by raising the price of another bead style. Even so, raising prices on old stock is obnoxious, no matter what the circumstances.