Spreadsheets can be as simple, or complex, as you want/need them to be.
From creating a list that can be reordered at the click of a button, to one with lots of formulas and links between sheets, enabling you to do calculations quickly and easily; once it’s all set up.
I’m currently working on new decals to add to my Printz and Cuts store.
Whilst setting everything up, I’m trying to come up with a better, standardised way to price them.
Obviously, the main item is the vinyl and costs can vary depending on the quantity you buy it in.
It could be A4/letter or 12×12 inch sheets, or rolls that are 12 inches wide and between 1 to 12 meters long. And then you have your “fancy” vinyl like Glitter, Holographic, and Metallic, which are more expensive.
After spending 20-odd years as an information analyst, I know my way around spreadsheets fairly well. I learnt pretty much everything from the “Universities of Google and YouTube”; especially from Mr Excel.
I no longer use Excel, but the spreadsheet included in the free open-source suite LibreOffice. I’ve found I can use the same formulas I used in Excel, and the layout is very similar.
Google Sheets is also another option, but I do get lost when navigating around the site, and it does have some limitations. For ease, I save my spreadsheets on my Google Drive, so if necessary I can open them using Google Sheets if I’m not on my PC.
I spent some time recently going through all my vinyl orders and created a spreadsheet with details of where I’ve purchased them from, prices paid, and the sizes. I then added a formula to calculate the cost per square inch.
I’ll use the same spreadsheet to track my orders so I know what the most popular decals and colours requested are. So it’s ideal to also help me manage my inventory.
Of course, there isn’t just the cost of the vinyl you have to take into account.
Transfer tape has to be applied to each decal, and then you have consumables like replacement cutting blades and mats; or the cutting strip, if like me you use a Silhouette Cameo and regularly don’t use a mat. Also, regardless of what platform you sell on, whether it be Etsy or your own site, there are fees involved.
You also have you have the time needed to remove the areas of vinyl that aren’t needed for the finished design, this is called weeding. Some are very simple and take a few minutes, but others are a lot more intricate so more time-consuming.
And you would have spent time and resources designing and testing the decal, taking photos and creating the listing.
The cost of electricity also has to be a factor, especially with the prices we are paying here in the UK. Often I’ll use my tablet to save booting up the PC, and cut using the Silhouette Go app, but it does have some limitations, like if I need to use the PixScan mat, which I’ll talk about in a future blog post.
Now, I want to make my life as easy as possible, who doesn’t. When thinking about the cost of supplies, consumables etc. needed to make a decal, I got rather overwhelmed and realised I needed to come up with a simpler way.
I decided to still do a cost per square inch based on the size of the decal, and use a rate to hopefully account for all supplies/ and consumables, and make a profit.
For example, if my decal is 6 x 6 inches, and I looked to charge 0.04 per square inch, my calculation would be (6 x 6) x 0.04 = £1.44.
But that doesn’t leave you with a lot of profit, if any, and you also need to account for some extra vinyl around all the edges of the decal, which means I can’t cut 2 of these decals across the width of the 12″ wide vinyl.
The other option is to always use 12 inches as the width when calculating the cost per square inch.
This would change the calculation to (6 x 12) x 0.04 = £2.88.
I’m not a fan of prices like .88, so I added a formula to another cell to round it up to the nearest 10p =CEILING(2.88, 0.1) = £2.90.
In my spreadsheet, I’ve used the cell references in my formulas ie if my result of 2.88 is in cell E7. the formula would be =CEILING(E7, 0.1).
I know, you are thinking it does seem like a lot of faffing around, and you could just use pen and paper, with a calculator if needed. But once it’s all set up, it really can make things a lot quicker and easier, if costs change, you can simply update the spreadsheet, and you’ll have everything logged for accounts etc.
Spreadsheets will automatically increase the cell numbers each time you copy the formula to a new cell, so if you have in cell F7 =E7*A1, and you copy and paste it to the row below, it will automatically change the calculation to =E8*A2 .
If I want it to always use the value in A1 for your calculation, you simply have to add a $ sign next to each value of the cell, in this case, =E7*$A$1
Then, if I copy and paste it to the row below it will only change 1st part of the formula =E8*$A$1
This means if I put my cost per square inch rate into Cell A1, but change my mind and alter it, it will automatically recalculate the cells where $A$1 has been used in the formula.
I’m still deciding on what my final rate for my cost per square inch will be, I need to complete my spreadsheet with the measurements for all my decals and then make sure I don’t price myself out of the market. And a few of the new decals I’ll be adding will be layered, so more than one colour of vinyl used; the layers will vary in size – some approximately the same size as the main layer, and others will be a lot smaller accent pieces. But at least now I have a starting point that I can build on
I could also look to do similar for items I sew and sell in my other store. There are more supplies involved for sewn items, it’s not just fabric and thread, but it will definitely help.
Penguin and the Bee 