BenFabulous's:
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just wondering, who here ice skates.?. im a obsessive ice skater, and im lonely on this site lol. I love to design, and sometimes i even help design my custom skating dresses!
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1026430 asked if her prices were expensive. It got me to thinking about FFG and why everyone is always broke.. here is my answer.
to 1026430: Everything is relative. To me your prices are fine. I have more fbz than most, though. Your prices don't seem very hiked up from what you're paying, so I think that they're reasonable. Many people are becoming accustomed to bargain basement prices and don't understand what it takes to keep a store afloat in profits without price gouging. At FABrique, I try to have a variety of prices but keep most of the items around 75 to 90fbz. I have a handfull of 500-900fbz outfits and a few handfulls of 1 to 20fbz outfits.
Try to think of it this way:
The average American is a middle income family member. They are accustomed to having many many things in their homes and at their fingertips. Instead of one or two gifts for christmas/birthdays they usually recieve many. Since they are from middle income families they cannot afford to shop at high end stores. Since they want so MANY items they often cannot afford to shop at medium stores either. This is why Walmart is the most successful business in the USA. People want MANY DISPOSABLE items for CHEAP prices.
People from higher social classes do not USUALLY think/shop this way. They have more means but also shop for items that have more long-term value (wardrobe staples, jewelry, investment items like vintage designer clothing and paintings that will appreciate in value.) We shop either because we intend to enjoy an item before reselling it for a profit or give it to charity or because we intend to keep the item for a long time. Of course, trend clothing is different, but since ffg is a small closed economy that doesn't count for much here.. with the exception of limited time contest items like berries/flowers/clover etc.
So you don't have expensive prices.. people have cheap expectations. Every time that a new 1fbz store opens, confused ffg members expect prices to lower a little more. If you look at old accounts you can see that their prices are HUGE. I imagine that when ffg started, their suggested pricing was actually what people used. Slowly, people began to trim down prices to beat competition and now we have an economy that is difficult to maintain. We're like Mexico. Labor is cheap and exports are.. halted. We're beginning to feel the purse strings tighten and most are worried that they won't be able to afford tortillas.. or sleeve trim.
There are ways to combat this problem but our government (aka nancy ganz) has to implement most of them in order for anything to change.
1 Raise minimum wage.. aka the bank's interest rate and the new user fbz. It may work but it may be a bandaid fix.. like the stimulus checks or Obama's work program. It may inject fbz into stores for a short time but if the stores aren't careful and designers aren't very good then they'll return to the same problem.
2 Give everyone a one time stimulus and then set minimum prices for everything that is not library/my stuff related.
FFG already has a minimum of 50fbz on vip & $2 store items in order to keep their value from flat-lining. The bloated/forced high prices of certain library and $2 store items (like horses and men) keeps almost everyone from ever buying or selling them. If that were brought down to a more reasonable price (even 200fbz) then more would find their way into stores and closets. Same goes for the fbz wigs.
Obviously the minimum for nonvip base items has to be very cheap, but trim should cost less. It is difficult to turn a profit while using details on a non vip, non library design and this makes profits even slimmer for designers who already struggle.
3 Stores should have the ability to change the prices of items already in their stock. they should also be able to delete out of stock items from their inventory. This would allow stores to run sales to attract business on a day by day basis, thus allowing them to clear out old designs, attract new customers and support different designers or purchase new designs from old designers. Deleting empty stock records from inventory makes it more likely that store owners will want to sell out of an item and stock new ones instead of restocking old designs over and over again.
4 Is not for Nancy, but for all FFG PLAYERS.
We have to take the time to think about our designs before producing them. How much will it cost us to make? What price will allow us to make a profit while being cheap enough to allow stores to make a profit and sell our designs? If we have reasonable prices and expectations, we may just manage to stay in business.
--------------Original Message-----------------
From: 1026430
Date: July 11, 2011, 9:49 pm
Subject: Is My Clothing Expensive?
Hey everyone, I want to ask if my clothing is expensive. is it? I wondering about your opinions because !Hail-down-on-me! said this:
Trust me a whole bunch of people don't hav the money!!! Ur too expensive for me so I'm sorry but i really can't afford ur stuff
Is my clothing really expensive?
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BenFabulous is my design account.
FABrique is my store.
I'm also a designer in the Schoo1ofFashion. That is an account with Kouture Katt, Pugschoo1, Rosebud Designs, TreasureRocks, Crimsworld, Dark Arts Store (my cousin), Cowgirl1966 and hannahtrinh. We are currently holding a contest to find our next 2 members.. 12 are in the running. Good luck contestants!
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I love the showroom changes.. but I wish that the selected design would move over to the left so that it didn't cover a few of the designs below (and the cost!) and the item availability number sometimes gets lost in a long item name.
The new accessory category and shoe category have me singing songs! I LOVE THAT. I couldn't tell you how much I wanted to separate my wigs from my outfits. YAY! Now I'm waiting the 14 days for my new mannequin to arrive. Antici............... pation!
Now the only update that I am crying for (as a designer) is the ability to delete and categorize uploaded fabrics in my design studio. I now have to click the little arrow over 150 times just to find my uploaded hair textures.. I'm getting carpal tunnel.
GO FFG. You can do it. Keep me singing! :)
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killerbeesqaud instead of squad
ohmygod399 instead of omygoditskeri
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