Have you ever wondered how the price of a handmade product actually comes together?
At Z.ART Tides, the story of a product often begins long before you see it in the webshop or at a market. Between an oyster shell found on the beach and the finished piece, there are many small steps – creative, practical and organisational ones.
So I’d like to take you behind the scenes for a little while and show you what actually goes into it.
🌊 It all starts with preparation
I collect many of my oyster shells myself along the coast of Zeeland. Afterwards, they are carefully selected, thoroughly cleaned and left to dry. Depending on what I want to create with them, they may need some additional preparation too.
The work on a product has already begun at this point – even though the actual creative process hasn’t started yet.
🎨 Then comes the creative part
Which colours work well together? Which design suits which shell? Which beads, charms or other materials do I want to use?
Then it’s time to create: painting, gluing, sealing, adding gold details, drilling or assembling – depending on the piece I’m working on.
A lot of the process also involves experimenting. Sometimes an idea works perfectly on the first try; another might take several attempts before everything comes together the way I imagined it.
That, too, is part of the creative process.
📸 From finished piece to webshop
Once a product is finished, the next part begins: giving it its place in the webshop.
Photos need to be taken and edited, measurements recorded, product information collected, names created and descriptions written. At Z.ART Tides, there are also multiple languages to take into account.
Then the price is calculated, the product is added to the right collection, and everything is uploaded to the webshop.
📦 And after a purchase, the work continues
When an online order comes in, the product is checked once more, carefully packaged and prepared for shipping.
That means packaging and shipping materials are needed as well. On top of that, there are costs for running the webshop, payment providers, transaction fees and all the other ongoing expenses that come with running a small business.
🛍️ And what about buying at a market?
A market stall comes with its own costs – and, of course, quite a bit of preparation too.
Products have to be selected, packed safely and transported to the event. The stall needs to be planned, decorations and equipment have to come along, everything has to be set up and, once the market is over, packed down and transported home again.
Depending on the event, there may also be a stall fee. At other events, instead of a fixed fee, there might be a commission on sales – meaning that a certain percentage of every sale goes to the organiser.
There can also be travel and parking costs, card payment fees and, of course, all the time spent preparing, setting up, selling and packing everything away again.
So even when a product is bought at a market, there is quite a lot happening behind that one sale.
💶 So how does all of this become a price?
The price of a handmade product is made up of much more than just the materials used to create it.
It includes things like materials, working time, packaging, webshop and payment fees, tools, consumable supplies, ongoing business expenses, market and event costs, and taxes.
Taxes are naturally part of running and pricing a business too. For many of my sales, for example, 21% Dutch VAT (BTW) is included in the selling price. On top of that, income tax also plays a role when it comes to the taxable profit of the business.
That’s why the selling price and the amount that actually remains as earnings at the end are two very different things.
💡 And then there are all the little things around it
Developing new ideas, looking for inspiration, finding and buying materials, trying new techniques, testing products, maintaining the webshop, doing bookkeeping, preparing for markets, organising orders or creating content for social media.
All of these things are just as much a part of Z.ART Tides as the actual creative work itself.
As a customer, what you see in the end is mainly the finished product – and of course, that’s exactly how it should be. You discover something you like, choose your favourite piece and look forward to taking it home with you.
What isn’t always visible are all the little steps that happened before that moment: collecting and preparing the materials, the actual handcrafting, photography, the webshop, packaging, markets, fees and taxes.
And perhaps that’s exactly what makes handmade so special: every single piece carries a little part of the story behind it. An idea, many careful steps, time, patience and so much attention to detail. 🤍
In the end, you’re not simply holding a product in your hands. You’re holding something that was created with love, grew through many small steps and was consciously made by hand.
And that is exactly what makes handmade so special to me.
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