# retail honey prices



## beeeee (Apr 4, 2010)

I sell honey from a self service stand. This is my second year. I have lowered my prices this year but sales are about half of what they were last year. Has the price of honey went down? I sell a quart for $12.00 and 12 oz. bear for $4.00 Please help


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

Price of honey has gone up - so look for another explanation. Is there someone new serving "your" customers? What sort of rapport do you have with your customers that keeps them coming back for more? I sell quarts for $20 and am sold out for the season.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Seems fair to me, but it's all regional. Check at your local stores and see where honey is priced. Check retail prices at a grocery store and prices at health food stores and you can gauge where you need to be in your local market.

Don't automatically drop your prices just because your volume is down. Times are tough and a lot of people are tightening up. For increased volume in sales you may need to be more active in your marketing strategy rather than waiting for people to stop by.


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## Bsweet (Apr 9, 2010)

Sometimes you can price a product/service to low, folks start to wonder why is he selling it so cheap ? is something wrong with it ? bad taste ? poor quality? or is it really local honey?
Also traffic flow may have changed from last year, is/was there road construction sending to or from yor stand. How do you advertise you stand? My brother inlaw works at Wal Mart and sold my honey to his co-worker for $9. per 1/2 pint when they could buy their shelf honey at $8 for Quart. He sold all he could take in. People will buy the good stuff at a good price if they know about it and some people will buy the junk even when they know its junk. Jim


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Stick w/ the higher price whatever you do. It might not sell quickly, but it will sell and then you will have more profit. Dropping prices just because the honey doesn't seem to be moving as fast as it seemed to last year isn't wise.

Honey seems to go off the shelf in spirts, quickly all at once for no apparent reason.

I have more than ten years of monthly graphs showing how many pounds of honey I sold each month. There are hardly any two years with much similarity. Peaks seem to happen at random almost.

Keep your prices up. Set your own price. Don't respond to your competitors price changes, if you notice them, unless it is to be a bit higher. Because you make really good honey, just like me.

I had a stranger at the gas station tell me that my honey is the best she ever tasted. My delivery van has advertising all over it. You can't miss it. Made my day.

Convince your spouse to let you put something on your car or family van showing off your honey. People will call.


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## lakebilly (Aug 3, 2009)

Good advice BSweet/ Mark. 

Mark what are you getting here in NY for your small containers (1lb/2lb)?

I have found it to be true that low price makes for pessimistic customers. When I have explained/justified my rates for my remodeling bus/beef/chickens/eggs/honey that I get people thinking about quality, & I get word of mouth referals & orders. If you are in biz & running with what I call upstarts you will be a ways down the road & find that it's not worth the work. 
I am always ready to educate the consumer about the honey biz(the little that I know) & I have found an educated consumer will most always chose quality. I am passionate about quality for my family & customers & it always comes down to giving them the best that I can. If they are looking for cheap they will always find it. I'd rather go broke watching the Flinstones in front of my TV than go broke bust'n my hump @ upstart rates.
I am in my 2nd yr of selling honey & would like to hear more about a co-op of sorts; small farmers here sell their hay through the season @ retail, & @ the end of the season they sell it @ auctions.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

I have seen for myself what sqkcrk is mentioning about peaks. In both selling things and in services. I have done home repair and remodeling for many years. It seems I will go weeks with every call I get about sprinkler systems. No rhyme or reason for it either as it does not tie to spring or anything else that would make since. then just as suddenly it will be fence repairs or some other single thing. I have asked my customers if the damages was recent. "oh no we have needed to get this done for a couple of years and finally got around to it". It is almost like some invisible force has come over the entire population and if you need fence work it will compel you to get it done. I am completely convinced every household out there looks in there cabinets at one time and notices they do not have any honey. And bang you can't have enough of it to offer. next month nobody is buying honey.

I also have experience with the truth in the price needs to be right. That is another story but I will just say that all products have a sweet spot as to their price. To low is bad to high is bad. Just right will clear the shelves. I have seen this one several times myself. Hint most people tend to price to low.


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

People do tend to price too low. I concur with the higher prices for honey. If you really need to sell a fair amount of honey why dont you approach your local beer/wine clubs. Often I have sold hundreds of dollars worth of honey to the mead makers. The local beer shops here are asking 70+ bucks per gallon of honey. So the mead makers are happy to pay me $42.00 per gallon of honey and I am seriously considering raising the price to $48.00 per gallon.

Dont sell yourself short or you will not be able to afford to keep your bees for anything more than a hobby.


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## NorthernIllinoisPlumber (Aug 17, 2010)

Do not lower the price....hold on.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

lakebilly,
99% of my sales are wholesale, so I don't know how pertinent telling you what they are would be to the discussion.

That being said, every time I raise my prices I sell more honey.

Do not price to sell out. You are not "getting rid" of your honey, you are selling it. There is an important difference. It's an attitude thing.

To answer lakebilly, I sell 1lb jars of honey for $3.75 each $45.00/case of 12. Two pound jars go for $6.75 each, which is $81.00/case of 12. From here at home I sell those same sizes at store prices of $6.00/1lb jar and $10.00/2lb jar. But I don't sell many of those from the house. 5lb jars I sell for $20.00 each. Going to charge $24.00 soon, since I have such a tight supply.

For me, and others in NY and New England this has been a poor honey year. I'm somewhat surprised to see that barrel price of honey isn't higher than it is, but not really. The amount of the domestic honey produced in a certain year doesn't seem to effect the market. We ain't producing oil here folks.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

sorry, duplicate Post.


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## lakebilly (Aug 3, 2009)

Mark, Your @ home price is the same as mine. I don't understand your 1st sentence. Thx for the info. I would rather see everyone raise their prices to where they can make a decent living selling a quality product(s). I think truth in labeling would beneficially affect our industry, not having China flooding the shelves w/their crappy honey(if u can call it honey)LB


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Since I don't retail much honey, my prices are apt to be lower than most others in this Thread. That's what I meant.


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## Happy Honey Farm (Feb 14, 2010)

Hey sqkcrk and lakebilly I'm selling about the same 1lb 5.00 2lb 10.00 5lb 20.00 but the price will go up next year.


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## lakebilly (Aug 3, 2009)

Mark, what I meant was I didn't understand the 1st sentence of your priceing. $3.75....is that a wholesale case price?

I didn't give enough thought to variety prices such as; 1lb in glass/plastic, 2lb glass/plastic, gallon, etc.

Depending on how many hives make it through the winter I may be looking to wholesale some of what I get.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

The first sentence refers to wholesale prices and the "at home" sentence refers to retail.


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## TWall (May 19, 2010)

Pricing is always a struggle. I concur with Mark, don't ever lower price. Your price is probably too low to start with! Think about your product, is there any better honey out there? Maybe from another local honey producer, but that's it! But, I will never concede that anyone has better honey than I do! For most of us on here our supply is very limited. These are all things that lead to higher pricing. You have a specialty product, treat it that way!

Tom


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## lupester (Mar 12, 2008)

You have to build and sell your market. People who are concerned about their food supply are looking for local, healthy food. I live in the D/FW metroplex and we cannot get enough raw honey here. I sell NON-local raw honey for $8 a pint, $15 a quart. Since the drought we did not have any local honey but I plan to sell that at $10 pint, $20 a quart next year. I work in an office so people may have more disposable income so it might not be a big of a deal for them to pay a few bucks extra.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Here's one way of looking at marketing your product at the "right" price, the price which is right for you.

I used to price my honey by the pound according to what I thought I wanted per pound. An Business Instructor got me to look at things differently. What do you want to make/earn? What do you have to sell what you sell to make that income? Think about it from that point of view and you may come up w/ a different price.

What does it cost you to produce a pound of saleable honey? Can you tell me? Do you know? Once you have determined that, is your honey priced w/ that in mind? 

Do you sell your honey so you can grow your BUSINESS? Or, are you so well off you can run at a lose? Maybe you have other sources of income and don't need to replace youir investment. Good for you, bad for me. Bad for me because you are helping to keep the shelf price low.

I say all this to get you, who ever reads this, to think about how pricing your honey effects you and others. Giving honey away does more harm than good. For all the good it does do. I donate to food banks too and give honey as gifts too. Selling cheaply is right behind, because it doesn't reflect the true cost of the product.


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## lazy shooter (Jun 3, 2011)

I don't know squat about beekeeping or selling honey, but I have been to many negotiating seminars. And, the thing all negotiators stress is you don't earn what you get, you get what you negotiate. I'm not a commercial beekeeper, nor do I intend to become one, but if I was in the business I would sell each pound for the maximum the market would bear. Don't believe for one minute you can sell cheap and build up a business. Maximizing your price will buy you more respect than rolling over to clients.


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## tommyt (Aug 7, 2010)

I will sell for $10 a Quart but nowI am going to weigh one 
Think in this area we are selling to low 
I saw a guy selling raw last month for 28 a gallon 
thats works out too $7 a quart:no:
:ws:
If he corners the market 


Funning thing is he wanted to buy bulk 
and choked when I asked for $2 a pound
I had it @ $120 a 5 gal bucket

Tommyt


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## tineseeker (Jan 28, 2012)

I started beekping again last year after a 25 year break.. Boy have things changed. I was lucky enough to get 5 gallons of alfalfa honey from my 2, 4lb pakages I started with this year .. I sold 1lb Muthjars for $10 and 12oz Bears for $8. I sold out very quickly and I still have people asking if I have any honey left..I will probably sell a little cheaper next year if i get a darker honey and I wll probably give my return customers a $1 off cupon for their next purchace... I'm hoping to have a little more honey next year. I am cautiously optomistic.. I do know that there are Verro mites in my hives. I did a late split in July (unheard of 25 years ago) to try and knock back the mites.. All four of my hives are still alive


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