Dear Gigante: Why Not Match the Cheaper Etsy Cardigans?
By Fernando Santos
“Dear Gigante, I’ve seen chunky cardigans on Etsy for £185, and wool for £1.40. Why don’t you just undercut them?”
I’d love to, and I’ll come to my own numbers at the end. But the more useful answer is how to read those listings, because the price on the page is rarely the price you pay. Three things to check before you buy, wherever you buy.
1. What weight is that price for?
You’ll see it on Etsy: super bulky wool, £1.40. Next to £26 for 500 grams it looks like a bargain. That £1.40 is the price of the tiniest bag on offer, a few grams, and the small + after it means “and up”. Choose a weight you could actually knit with and watch the number change. I tried one such listing this afternoon: £1.40 on the page, £42.57 including postage once I’d chosen a real amount, and £14 of that was the postage. It’s the same psychology as buy two get one free when two singles would have cost you less.
A cardigan takes about 2.8 kilos. Work the dropdown up to that before you compare anyone.
2. Where is it posted from?
If it’s coming from outside the UK and costs more than £135, the price you pay Etsy isn’t the whole price. The courier bills you the tax at the border: duty, VAT and a handling fee, before the parcel moves again. On a £185 cardigan that’s £50 to £80. The parcel isn’t slow. It’s waiting for you to pay. Under £135 the VAT is added at checkout and you’ll see it before you buy.
3. What does the postage do to it?
Postage is where a low price earns its money back. Read the “incl. postage” line, not the headline, and check whether there’s a free-delivery threshold and what it is. Two shops can show the same price for a ball of wool and be £14 apart by the time it’s in your hands.
So why don’t I match them?
Because the sum doesn’t. A medium is 2.8 kilos of wool, £150 at my own shop price. It takes about eight hours to knit, evenings and weekends in my case, and at the UK living wage that’s £102. Etsy’s cut, a box and the postage take it to about £280. Sell it at £185 and I’m £95 out of pocket on every one. And yes, I buy the wool for less than I sell it. Run the same sum with my wholesale discount and I’d still be paying to work.
Where those cardigans are made, an hour of knitting costs a third of what it does in Worthing, or less. The knitters are as good as I am and deserve every penny. I just can’t knit here for that.
What I can do, I’ve done. Prices are down to £235 for a one-colour cardigan and £269 for the merino blends, which is as far as the maths will stretch. UK delivery is free over £30, and I’ll hold that as long as I can. Abroad, you pay postage and nothing hidden: US orders go duties paid, and Canada, California and New Zealand have all had their parcels within a week. The EU is paused until I can send there without losing money or handing you the bill.
Other UK shops may well beat me on price. Good. Read the small print wherever you buy.
Cheap becomes expensive
My mum has a saying for all of it: cheap becomes expensive. It isn’t always true. It’s true often enough that the three checks above are worth a minute of your time.
If the cheaper one still wins, fair enough, and I hope it’s lovely. I just wanted you to have the real number before you buy it.
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