Quantity Pricing vs Wholesale

Our pricing structure is a little bit unusual, at least in the world of jewelry supplies, because it's based entirely on actual costs. We've analyzed the costs of time and material for manufacturing each item individually (that means each ring size in each metal, etc.), added a small profit margin (profit being the term for the money we put back into the business for adding new people, new equipment, etc.) and that is our single unit price.

We've determined the smallest quantity we can make at a time (for each and every ring) and that's the order minimum. We've calculated exactly how much time we save by making more units of each item, and those break points are the quantity discount levels listed for each and every ring.

Because our prices are based on actual costs and savings, most of the traditional purchasing conventions don't apply. (See the section on wholesale below, for example.) The whole concept of marking things up so that they can be marked down, apparently to make customers feel they're getting a deal, seems manipulative and we don't like it. Since we'd have to mark things up to mark them down, we don't have wholesale accounts or sales. When we lower prices, we do so because the metals market has fallen or because we've made some production advancement that saves time (and therefore money), such as an improved design for a piece of equipment. Price reductions based on the metals market come and go but those resulting from design improvements are forever.

Wholesale?

Most people understand wholesale to mean the lowest price at which a merchant can sell an item without taking a loss. Our second price break is that lowest possible price. Usually, wholesale pricing is made available to people who can produce a business license. Because our discounts are based on actual savings resulting from manufacturing in quantity, our discount is available to anyone purchasing in the quantity that results in those savings. Since we haven't worked out a way to reduce costs based on evidence that a person is legitimately in business, we don't offer a discount based on a business license. We don't offer discounts on tools or components because we carry them as a service to our customers and mark them up only enough to cover the costs of making them available.