How to compete?

[Heintz88]

I'm relatively new to beekeeping, running 20 hives and planning to double again this year. Here's what i noticed about pricing my honey this season. Starting the year i can maintain a reasonable price per lb of $6.00. As the size of the container gets bigger i only give a small discount on the money I'm saving from not having to use the equivalent amount of small jars. So after getting into some festivals this year to move some product i seen a few things. 1. It gets very competitive when multiple people are selling honey close to each other. I maintained my price and had little problem selling any of my honey. 2. As the container gets bigger lets say a gallon of honey, why do people give it such a heavy discount as bulk? When your selling a gallon of honey at 30$, that hardly has to cover any of your expenses for the year. 3. Its fun to watch people start at 8.00/lb and drop down to 3.00/lb just to try to sell some honey. But i guess it isnt all about the money and some people just want to unload as much of their honey as they can and be done with it in 1 or 2 festivals. I guess i see value in honey and figure that everyone in the area would kind of stay around a average price and not try to under cute each other. Who knows.

[jmgi]

I sell mine at the same price per pound as you do, and do a discount on larger sizes also. Don't worry about those who give their honey away just to be able to move it faster than everyone else. I know I could get more for my honey if I wanted to, but I feel that at the current price I keep everyone happy including me, I won't go any lower though. John

[Rader Sidetrack]

Heintz88 - One technique that can be used to sell at a higher average price is product differentiation. In other words, don't just sell honey, sell a concept that includes honey. Consider how chocolate products are sold. You can find ordinary candy bars at a gas station, and also exclusive chocolatier shops that sell very expensive chocolate confections. Its all the same basic product, just with fancier packaging and promotion. Let the others sell basic honey. You want to sell a story that has honey as part of it.

In terms of honey, I was very impressed with Broke-T's marketing efforts shown in an earlier thread:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/show...-Honey-display
Note in particular the honey packaged in wine bottles, and marketed as "gift" items.

[Daniel Y]

If you set a price per lb on the honey and then add the cost of the bottle it has somewhat of a built in discount.

For example a 1 lb plastic honey bear costs 79 cents so if the honey price is set a $6 per lb the final price is $6.79

A 1 gallon (12 lb jug) costs $1.79 the final price would be $73.79 per gallon. not $81.48 which would be the total if you multiplied 6.79 times 12.

Other things to consider charging for.
Cost of label
The time required to fill the bottle in the first place.
cost of market fees, transportation and your time to make the honey available.

taking materials times two is a good way to add these extra charges. so a $0.79 cent jar actually adds $1.58 to the cost of a lb of honey. $1.79 adds $3.58 to a gallon jug of honey.
this is just a rule of thumb way to account for these additional expenses. it also makes an automatic discount if a customer provides their own jar and comes to my house to buy the honey. In that case the entire price drops to simply $6 a lb and I wave any other costs to myself just because of convenience to me. I avoid a lot of time, work and hassle by selling it at my door.