# Going price for 8oz honey bear



## D Coates (Jan 6, 2006)

I charge $2.50 for them.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Lance, what did the bears cost you? How much do the caps and label cost you? How much do you want to get for your honey? How much does it cost you to make a lb of honey? Do the math and add some for "profit". Then, if they don't sell, increase the price. You'll sell fewer, but make more income per container. And you'll help your fellow local beekeepers sell more honey at a better price.

You could also check out what they sell for at your local grocery store and sell yours for a little more. I'm assuming that you are retailing these bears to individual customers, right? Wholesale pricing is another story.


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## feith (May 20, 2009)

The plastic bottles cost 22.95 per 50 at Walter T Kellys and the shipping was 12.00 I'm thinking I got close to .75 per container,maybe a little bit more by the time I go and buy printer ink to make labels with.Does anyone know where to get these cheaper.And I believe 2.50 a jar is really cheap I was getting 6.00 for a pint last year and 10.00 a quart and sold out of every thing. And 8oz is half a pint.So if I can get it I may try 4.00 per 8oz bear.


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## Gregg (Dec 22, 2003)

Don't sell many of those, but when I do it's usually in bulk to a company that gives them as gifts to their customers. I charge $2 for them.


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## daknoodle (Dec 8, 2005)

Seems to me the price would be governed by the local market. I would start polling local beeks to see what prices they are getting.


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## NewbeeNnc (May 21, 2009)

I would say at least $3.50 to $4.00.

One off topic thing that this reminds me of. My in-laws run an orchard business, and we have a local apple festival every year in town. Huge event. They buy these little red plastic apples and fill them with store bought Apple Cider. The plastic apples cost about .28 a piece and they sell them for like a $1.50. They put them on ice, and every year they sell out of them in the first 2 hours. Every year they buy more containers thinking they haven't hit the limit yet, and every year they sell out before anything else. Funny how marketing works.

t:


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## scottsbees (Dec 19, 2007)

I sell them for $4.00. last year was my first year for honey and I sold out before I got em filled up. about 300 of them.


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## chief (Apr 19, 2005)

I agree on the $3.50-$4.00 range. I sold mine last year at $3.50 and wished I would have charged $4.00. Here in my area it sells fine for that price. Most people around here charge $5-7 for a pound of honey retail. So let’s say you charged $6/lb that would mean 8oz would be $3 worth of honey and .75 cents for the container to put you at $3.75 then round up to make it an even $4.00.

Sqkcrk,
You gave good sensible advice but I am afraid if I used your method including profit then an 8oz honey bear would be in the double if not triple digits!


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## D Coates (Jan 6, 2006)

feith said:


> The plastic bottles cost 22.95 per 50 at Walter T Kellys and the shipping was 12.00 I'm thinking I got close to .75 per container,maybe a little bit more by the time I go and buy printer ink to make labels with.Does anyone know where to get these cheaper.And I believe 2.50 a jar is really cheap I was getting 6.00 for a pint last year and 10.00 a quart and sold out of every thing. And 8oz is half a pint.So if I can get it I may try 4.00 per 8oz bear.


I get my containers in bulk at betterbee. http://www.betterbee.com/products.asp?dept=1394 Free freight when ordered in bulk. It ends up at .44 per container for 8 oz., .46 per 12 oz container, .50 per 16 oz container, and .82 per 32 oz container. I wish I had read this post yesterday. I just sent out my Sping '09 price list this morning. I lowered my wholesale discounts percentages but kept my list prices the same. I'll see how things go but will definately consider raising it to $3.00 for 8 oz (and everything else respectively) when I introduce the Fall price list.


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## Brent Bean (Jun 30, 2005)

American Bee Journal and Bee Culture magazines list retail and wholesale prices for honey in your region that’s how I base my prices. I buy my bottles from Sailor Plastics. They have competitive bulk rates.


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## JohnBeeMan (Feb 24, 2004)

I sell them for $4 but they mostly sold as samplers. They are also my primary item for gifts to family and friends.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

Around here an 8oz usually sells for $2.00 wholesale and $3.75 retail.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

NewbeeNnc said:


> I would say at least $3.50 to $4.00.
> 
> One off topic thing that this reminds me of. My in-laws run an orchard business, and we have a local apple festival every year in town. Huge event. They buy these little red plastic apples and fill them with store bought Apple Cider. The plastic apples cost about .28 a piece and they sell them for like a $1.50. They put them on ice, and every year they sell out of them in the first 2 hours. Every year they buy more containers thinking they haven't hit the limit yet, and every year they sell out before anything else. Funny how marketing works.
> 
> t:


Please don't be insulted. I would say that they aren't marketing the "apples" at all. If they were, they would order more and increase the price.

I find that whenevr I raise my prices, I sell as much if not more. But don't get greedy. You'll never know how much you can sell something for until you ask too much. But even if you sell fewer items at a higher price you will be making more profit.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

chief said:


> Sqkcrk,
> You gave good sensible advice but I am afraid if I used your method including profit then an 8oz honey bear would be in the double if not triple digits!


Let's see. Seventyfive cents per container plus, say .08 per cap, plus, say .15 per label, plus, $3.00 per pound for the honey and you come up w/ $3.98 per bear. If it costs you $1.00 per pound to make a pound of honey you should clear $2.00 per bear, not counting transportation cost. But I thought, perhaps, that the bears were being sold at ones own farm stand.

Not bad, imo. I hope you sell alot of them.

How much do you think that you could charge for them before people stopped buying them?
Try it. See what happens. What do you have to loose. You have so few, that you'll sell all of them anyway. Way before the demand for your bears runs out. If you reach the limit and they aren't selling, wait a couple of weeks or a month. Then lower your price. Let us know how it turns out.

And when someone says, "How come your honey is so expensive? So and so sells it for much less." Or, "I can get it cheaper at WalMart." Tell them that it costs more because it is better. You know it is. But they don't, unless you tell them.

I sold watermelons, by the road, for a while, a couple of seasons. I charged twice what they cost me. People who stopped to buy them were happy to pay the price. Except for that guy who stopped and told me that he could get them cheaper at the P&C in Potsdam. So, I said, "Fine. Drive the 15 or 20 miles back to Potsdam and buy one there. And then stop here again, show me the reciept for the watermelon and the gas and my price won't seem so high." He didn't do any of that.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Brent Bean said:


> American Bee Journal and Bee Culture magazines list retail and wholesale prices for honey in your region that’s how I base my prices. I buy my bottles from Sailor Plastics. They have competitive bulk rates.


I don't believe those reports. I don't trust them. Who are they getting their info from? The one guy who sold one barrel at a really high price? Who?

I base my prices on what I think it costs me to produce a pound of honey, what it would cost me to buy honey, the price of the label, cap and container and then I round the cents up to the next .50 or $1.00. I look at the store shelf price too, the store brand or national brands that they sell. And since I am wholesaling my honey I price it so that when the store marks it up it will sell for a little more than what the other honey sells for. And promote the "Locally Produced" aspect out of it.


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## Batman (Jun 7, 2009)

I have been selling the 8 fl oz bear (12 oz wt) for $5 here locally or 5 for $20. I checked the local store for honey and it varied from about $3.95 to over $5 for the same size. There is a huge difference in the quality of honey that is at the stores. All of them seemed runny compared to what I had in my bottles which makes me wonder if they cut it withs something to make it go farther plus their's doens't seem to crystalize either. I bought a bottle of honey from an apiary about 50 miles away to try it and they were selling the same size bottle for $6. At a farmers market about 30 miles away, I got reports that they were selling 8 fl oz bottle for $6.95! I only got 96 bottles and one 3 1/2 pound jar off my hives this year, not bad for a first year I think. Not counting the "family give away obligation, I think I will still have 80 bottles to sell. If everyone does the 5 for $20, I should make about $320 minus the cost of the bottles at approx .40 each which should net me about $280 for my first year, but that doesnt cover what I am into everything for, guess that'll come next year.


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## schmism (Feb 7, 2009)

the guys around my parts sell retail for roughly $5 per pound. most of the guys packages' (bears, jugs, jars etc) are labeled with weight not fluid oz.


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## Batman (Jun 7, 2009)

schmism said:


> the guys around my parts sell retail for roughly $5 per pound. most of the guys packages' (bears, jugs, jars etc) are labeled with weight not fluid oz.


I know that it is sold by weight, not fluid ounces, but a lot of people confuse the two, especially new people. They do not know that a bottle that weighs 12 oz, is only 8 fluid ounces. I have seen people selling both 8 oz net weight bottles and 12 net weight oz bottles.


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## franktrujillo (Jan 22, 2009)

hello when heated to a certain temp the properties of the honey change and all the benifits are gone and won't cristalize.some honey is cheap knock off syurp added. I consider that $5.00 honey now real honey no heat applied cristilzed honey i put mine at $10.00 per 8oz bear.Of course i want to build my hives up so honey is valuabe to me.I currently have 4 started with 1 wintered over 3# package.one wall removal this year.Bee aware eat honey like a bear...The bee man


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## HONEYDEW (Mar 9, 2007)

In Oregon City Or. I get 4.00 for them


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## DRUR (May 24, 2009)

Everyone seems to complain about the co-ops and the wholesale honey packers. I wonder if we don't make their business. We sell wholesale honey to them for $1.50-$1.75 per lb. The bottle cost is for 30 cents (assumed cheaper by volume purchases) and they sell it (12 oz. honeybear at WalMart) for $3.49 for a net price of about $4.35 per lb.

Wonder what would happen to the wholesalers, if we spent less time producing, more time marketing our own honey and charged a fair markup, say 30% above wholesale price and costs of bottling? I think we would sell more, and keep more of what we have produced.

Let me figure. $1.75 x 75% (8oz honeybear, 12oz weight)=$1.32 + .40 (cost of honeybear) X 1.30 (30% markup for marketing) = $2.24 would be a fair price. Anything above this is gravy, so if you are getting $3.50 per honeybear, less .40 for the bottle nets $3.10=$4.13 per pound ($3.10 divided by.75) for your honey as opposed to $1.50-$1.75. Produce half as much and still make more money?

Most of the advertised sites want $6-$8 for 8-12oz. of honey, and they wonder why they can't sell all they produce, but then will give it away to the wholesalers!


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## Jer733 (Oct 5, 2008)

You have to know what the local market will bear for pricing. That said retail selling is all about marketing- the packaging, good label, informational poster.... You have to tell people why the honey is good, why should they buy yours. What is different from your product to other people. If you cannot bee there to tell them the story you have to rely on the packaging.

I work a lot of farmers markets and this gives me the chance to see and talk to customers- To SELL to them. I tell stories, talk about bee removals, how many hives I have, where I live (like local products). I set out an empty hive three deeps high with a little display- Old smoker, some melted wax and frame with comb for the kids to play with (expect the comb to get pinched by the little tikes). I took a single frame observation hive once and was so overwhelmed with people wanting to look at it I stopped taking it.

If you sell off a roadside stand- Put up signs down the road, bigger the better- Raw Natural Honey, Local Beekeeper and Honey. Amazed how many people my way have bees in house, shed, water box.... and need them removed and not exterminated.

Make the stand look country- Straw bales, barrel, wooden boxes for display- an old wagon would be great.

There are lots of things that you have that you can to sell your customers on besides honey- sell yourself, your bees, the importance of pollination, all the crops that we depend on bees for, loss of legume crops= major reduction of meat and dairy animals.... 


My two, or fifteen, or six hundred & twenty eight cents


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## franktrujillo (Jan 22, 2009)

whole sale do you get taxed whole sale..my bees don't get pollen or nector wholesale so i will not sell wholesale we the keeper need to stick together or be over run by big buisness.we need to start doing quality not quanity leave more for the bees stop sugar substitutes beside another savings.bees feed there selves and you did less work and that honey law needs to pass in all states.


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## Bradley_Bee (May 21, 2008)

I charge 4.00 for them at a palm springs farmers market.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

franktrujillo said:


> whole sale do you get taxed whole sale..my bees don't get pollen or nector wholesale so i will not sell wholesale we the keeper need to stick together or be over run by big buisness.we need to start doing quality not quanity leave more for the bees stop sugar substitutes beside another savings.bees feed there selves and you did less work and that honey law needs to pass in all states.


What does this have to do with the price of honey bears. 
I wholesale 12 oz bears for 2 for $5. which is better then the $1.70 a lb. to the packers. I don't sell 8 oz bears.


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