ELM Giving it al away for peanuts?

[HiGirlsRHot]

Copied and pasted from my blog.
Breaking down the cost of panties since some girls sell them for less and some guys think mine are too expensive.

1000tokens for panties

After MFC takes 50%

$50, another 50% goes to taxes/savings.

$25

Packaging & shipping $5

$20

Buying panties $5

$15

Gas to go far to ship them $3+

=$12 in my pocket

That’s what we make off our panties. Ladies and buyers, consider this. 

I agree with Megan's larger point there is very little profit selling panties at $15. But since it is near tax time I did want to point out a minor error in her calculations.

1000 tokens = $50

$50 (Gross Revenue)
Postage $5
Panty cost $5
Mileage 55.5 cents per mile to post office (say 4 miles each way) = $4.44
Cost of goods sold = $14.44
Gross profit = $35.56
Taxes plus minor saving 50%= $17.78
Net profit = $17.78

The important point is you should not be paying tax on any of the costs associated with mailing the panties, or anything else like the nice picture you sent me the other day.

 

[LadyLuna]

Mileage 55.5 cents per mile to post office (say 4 miles each way) = $4.44

Post offices put this postage thing over the package before they send it out. Because of this, most models drive to the next town over to ship it out. so put the mileage at about 20 miles each way, or 40 miles total. That's $22.20 in mileage, according to your numbers.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

The business mileage deduction is 55.5 per mile in 2012, it will go up this year. I assume most models collects several things to mail before going to the post office (especially a 20 mile trip) so if you are mailing 3 panties and an autographed picture you'd divide by 4.

 

[LadyLuna]

The business mileage deduction is 55.5 per mile in 2012, it will go up this year. I assume most models collects several things to mail before going to the post office (especially a 20 mile trip) so if you are mailing 3 panties and an autographed picture you'd divide by 4.

You'd hope that, but some models don't sell things often enough, even at low-enough prices, to take things to the post office more than one, occasionally two, packages at a time. I should know. Back when I was selling panties for 200 tokens, I got an average of 1 purchase every month. I, however, combined the sending of it with my weekly checking of my PO Box, so it wasn't like I was taking the trip just for the panties themselves. I also used to be able to get them in packs of 10 for $5, so the price of the panties was only 50 cents a pair. Therefore, I did actually make a profit on them, when you don't take into the mileage, as I was going there anyway.

I no longer have a PO Box, so now I'd have to take the mileage into account. I also can't get those panties for that cheap anymore, so I have to up the cost of the panties. My current method of pricing panties is:

$10 shipping/handling + current market price of panties x 2 + difficulty acquiring replacements + chances I'll be missing that particular pair of panties

example: there's one pair that's no longer on the market. I bought it for $5 and I use it fairly often in my room.

Thus, 10 + 10 + 100 + 100 = $220 is what I would be needing to be willing to let go of it (on MFC, that translates into 4400 tokens, on streamate, 630 gold).

On the other hand, the black and white cotton panties that I used to sell for 200 tokens are now packs of 3 for $11. I have a bunch of them, and can get them online (but add $5 to the cost of panties for shipping). So, market cost is $4

Thus, 10 + 8 + 10 + 20 = $48. I'd round that up to $50, and ask for 2000 tokens on MFC, or 150 gold on Streamate. Since I sell panties once in a blue moon, if it so happens that this is the pair that will make me buy a new pack, I end up with 50 - 10(taxes) - 5(savings) - 5(s/h) - 16(new) = $14 profit. Otherwise, I make $30 of profit on the panties (notice how that's the amount I put for difficulty finding panties and how much I'll miss them? that's actually a bit of coincidence for you, totally didn't do it on purpose. )

 

[JerryBoBerry]

If you spend $3 or $4 on underwear and $2 or $3 for shipping, you're still making eight to ten dollars.

Buying bulk panties and mailing them out seems like a pretty easy way to make money, especially if no custom video or photoset is attached. If these models are selling a few sets a day, I'd say that's some nice pocket money.

Some members want to buy expensive sex. They don't want ten exclusive shows at a dollar a minute; they want one exclusive show at seven dollars a minute. Some members are going to seek out a model with high-priced, "classy" underwear; some members are going to look for the cheapest discount panties they can find.

Sometimes it feels frustrating - how can we compete with those prices? But in reality, I think many members do not want bottom line prices. Many models find that they sell more shows when their prices increase, after all. Some models will find that what is easiest for them is selling bulk underwear at markup prices, but that doesn't mean any of us have to do that to compete with them. In the end, there will always be a market looking for the cheapest at cost of quality; I think it is a smart plan for models to target that group.

I sell my panties for 1,000tkns on MFC and only walk away with $12 when it's all said and done. I'm sorry, but your math is way off. And those girl are actually SPENDING money to sell those panties.

I have lots of panties I sell that never cost me any more than $5 out of pocket. I can ship them for around another $5 or less. Granted I don't personally sale mine that cheap, but I can definitely vouch for Evvies math.

Copied and pasted from my blog.
Breaking down the cost of panties since some girls sell them for less and some guys think mine are too expensive.

1000tokens for panties

After MFC takes 50%

$50, another 50% goes to taxes/savings.

$25

Packaging & shipping $5

$20

Buying panties $5

$15

Gas to go far to ship them $3+

=$12 in my pocket

That’s what we make off our panties. Ladies and buyers, consider this. 

To be honest though the person selling them cheaper isn't doing it this way. They are buying cheap panties in bulk (or using ones their fans have sent them for free) and using the cheapest mailers and shipping. I've gotten panties that were simply shoved in a baggie, tossed in an envelope and standard shipping slapped on.

So. Less than $2 per pair of panties. This can be easily bought off amazon or yandy right now. I'll be generous and say a $0.25 baggie. Forget the envelope, let's go full out 6"X9" manilla envelope. That's 12.3 cents (staples has 100 count box for $12.29 right now). And then standard mail rates. I've gotten them here with shipping marked as little as $1.87 one time, and that had bubble wrap inside. Toss that in your mailbox to let the postal worker pick up the next day and you have no gas money involved.

Total cost with rounding up shipping cause i'm being lazy is $4.37 for panties on a budget by someone doing it cheap. Even if you up it to 3 panties and make shipping $4 it's still only $10.37. So at $25 for three pair there's still considerable profit to be made for someone that is sending them out on the cheap. At that rate it's a 41% profit margin. That's excellent by any retail stores standard for what's needed to keep in operation.

Consider that if someone were doing the single pair at the $4.37 they would only need to charge $6.12 to have a 40% profit margin.

 

[LadyLuna]

Once again, the point of the gas is to go far enough to ship them that the post office's stamp doesn't give away our location.

So sure, if she did it your way she could do it, but she's taking a huge risk that the guys will track her postal code. And some of us don't buy panties in bulk like that. A 7 pack of hanes has become $11, so we're getting close to $2/pair of panties for the really cheap stuff.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Once again, the point of the gas is to go far enough to ship them that the post office's stamp doesn't give away our location.

So sure, if she did it your way she could do it, but she's taking a huge risk that the guys will track her postal code. And some of us don't buy panties in bulk like that. A 7 pack of hanes has become $11, so we're getting close to $2/pair of panties for the really cheap stuff.

It would depend on her situation. If she lived out in the country near a small town of population 342. Then I would definitely say go far away to mail stuff. But if she lives downtown Minneapolis where you've got 400,000 people inside a 4 mile radius...eh, not so much to be worried about.

But I was really just pointing out how it 'could' be done for that little and still be profitable. Individual circumstances will of course dictate widely differing rates.

 

[DanniShimmers]

I think that the super cheap videos are basically loss-leaders. A model might put up one or two videos (or pair of panties) super cheap at a loss, hoping it will drive more sales by hooking in customers who might normally never have bought something from her at all. In my experience, on a site like ELM once a customer buys something from you he's likely to buy more in the future.

It's a sales strategy that retail stores use a lot. They'll have a sale on something, make it super cheap, and basically take a loss on it because they're hoping that while you're in their store you'll buy some other stuff that makes up the loss. If you looked through the profiles of the girls selling a 3 minute video for 1 credit or a pair of panties for 10, I'd wager that the rest of their products are priced higher.