Small Shop Lab
Category: Pricing & Profit
Every number in this section comes from one of two places: a real shop’s own books, or a platform’s published rate card with the date it was read. Nothing here is a guess dressed up as a benchmark.
The shop is rupanjalibd.com — silver, made and sold in Bangladesh, where almost every piece sells exactly once. That makes it a useful place to test pricing ideas, because there is no restock to average the mistakes away.
These posts work through the formulas sellers actually use, what Etsy’s published fees do to one specific order, where free shipping quietly goes, and the gap between a price that feels fair and one that leaves a margin. Where a figure is computed rather than measured, it says so.
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Three Handmade Pricing Formulas, One Identical Product: $27, $43 and $90
The same product priced by the three formulas handmade sellers actually use. One returns $90, one $43.39, and one loses $5.47 on every sale — and the losing one is the formula…
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Is Etsy Still Worth It in 2026? Ask It Per Listing, Not Per Shop
A listing costs $0.60 a year in fees and about $6 of your time, and has to return roughly one sale ever to justify itself. The break-even test that answers the question…
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The Handmade Pricing Formula (With a Free Calculator)
My material is 84% of my selling price and my customer can look up what it costs. The one-line formula I actually use, the four layers it left out, and a calculator…
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How to Cost Your Own Labour, When Someone Else Makes It and Sends You the Bill
I do not make what I sell — a karigor does, and he invoices me 300 to 1,000 taka a piece. What happens to your pricing when the labour in every item…
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I Ran the Numbers on My Own Shop. My Margin Was 6% — and Shipping Ate Two-Thirds of It
My silver costs 84% of what I charge and my customer knows the rate. Gross margin 6.3%, net per delivered order 2.2%, break-even 20 to 53 orders a month — every figure…
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Free Shipping on Etsy: What It Actually Costs You in 2026
Etsy charges its 6.5% transaction fee on shipping whether you show it or hide it, so free shipping does not cost more in fees. A $38 order, worked through three ways, shows…