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Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

Hi! Thanks for the comment!

All I can say is that the reason I don't charge more is it'd just be lining my pockets since the artists set their prices at a pretty consistent rate. I don't get lower rates from the artists than my competitors, so I just undercut them in final retail price instead.

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> the reason I don't charge more is it'd just be lining my pockets

What's wrong with lining your pockets? This is a business no?

I read it to mean that it would be excessively exploitative. "The artists set their prices at a pretty consistent rate" says to me that the artists generally hold to a price point, so OP milking the margins by raising prices on the retail end would benefit only OP and not the artist.

That's not how business works. Unless you want transitory success.

That is how business works. It's the definition of business. He is not running a charity. It is a for profit business.

Also, the intent of my question wasn't greedy-capitalism-gouge-the-customer...I meant if a business can charge more for their service and have better margins without pricing out would-be customers or losing them to lower priced competition (neither were his reasons) then why not charge more?

That extra money can be reinvested in this business or another business or used to retire early or go on vacation.

The guy runs a business, make a profit when you can. Every success is transitory here.

We're discussing how low his prices are, which is PHENOMENAL press for him. Taking a lower profit margin on a larger revenue stream is another way to get rich.

"I don't get lower rates from the artists than my competitors, so I just undercut them in final retail price instead."

I don't think this deserves the down votes - in some markets he is correct. If you gouge on price, you encourage competitors to enter the market. If you keep your profits low, it can act as a barrier to entry. I'm not saying that you should always price low, but the OPs point is worth considering.

Can you pay the artists more?

That is one strategy, but i have chosen to undercut the competition instead since I don't think paying them more would increase quality.

Unless you tie it into their feedback ratings. Presumably your system drops or deprioritizes artists with fewer than 2.5 out of 5 stars, for example. So you could set something like: 3+ stars as the default 1.0 multiplier, 4+ stars gets a 1.1 multiplier, and 4.75+ stars gets a 1.2 multiplier. This may create an incentive for the artist to put in more time and produce better quality, unless the artists are already putting in their absolute best effort rather than cranking out paintings as quickly as possible.

At the moment we mainly offer photorealistic replicas. At a certain point you. An't get more detailed or faithful to the original picture.

As we get into a more expanded marketplace with more varying products then wuality and pricing will be more of a varying point.

Why not charge more and pass it along to the artist? Maybe let the artists set the prices?

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