How could someone ever make a living selling a dress like this for $150? The answer is…no one could make a living selling that dress for $150.  Let’s think about the expenses associated with making and selling that dress:

1. 8 hours of sewing
2. Fabric
3. Any trims (zipper, buttons, hook and eye, elastic, label, etc)
4. Packaging for shipping
5. Platform fees (whether it’s sold on Etsy, Shopify, Square, or any other platform, someone is taking a cut)
6. The time spent creating the listing, doing customer service, posting on social media, sending out marketing emails, taking photos, sourcing fabric, creating a pattern, testing the pattern, and so on.

If somehow 2-6 were free (spoiler: that’s just not possible), that means that someone was paid $18.75 for the highly skilled, physically demanding work of sewing that dress.  That’s not a living wage. And if you think $18.75 is “fine,” I want to ask you: are you willing to sew all day for $18.75/hour?

But even worse: we know that the fabric was not free.  We know that the platform took a cut . We know that the packaging cost money.  We know that there was a whole lot of extra labor involved.  A small business owner selling a dress for $150 is probably making minimum wage, at best.  And we know that is not a living wage.  

I always say “It’s cheap because someone didn’t get paid.” But also, sometimes it’s still too cheap for someone to actually get paid fairly…even when the price is a lot higher than SHEIN or Zara.  That’s just how much exploitation and cut corners are baked into the fast fashion model. Fast fashion prices are really that far away from making sense!

I have been working with small businesses for five years, as a coach, advisor, and teacher.  The problem I encounter most often? Business owners who are not paying themselves, or paying themselves so little that it feels cruel.

Sure, sometimes when you’re starting a business you just can’t pay yourself.  I get that.  But what I see happening is this: the business starts off with pricing that will never accommodate anyone getting paid to do the work of running that business and making the products it sells. And at some point, it begins to feel “too late” to fix that.

Why are businesses offering these unrealistically low prices?

• Fast fashion has turned our perception of price and value completely upside down.  Customers have a new baseline for price expectations and anything above that is deemed “too expensive.”  
• Of course, here in the slow fashion community we know that fast fashion prices are built on human exploitation and low quality.  But we are still in the minority.  We need more people to know the truth about those prices: that they are actually a bad deal for everyone (the planet, the workers, AND the customers).
• That said, even small businesses who know the truth about fast fashion pricing (and how it is melting everyone’s brains) still feel that pressure from customers to keep things “affordable.” The problem with these “affordable” prices? They are great for customers and bad for everyone else.
• To make matters even more complicated, many small businesses are community minded…and they want to keep their products accessible to everyone. And in a world where everyone (except for billionaires and executives) is underpaid, overworked, and feeling broke, that means that prices need to stay low in order to be accessible.  

The implications of these low prices are all around us:

• These low prices have a halo effect: if one small business underprices their products, then every other business has to follow suit or lose out on sales. So now EVERYONE is unable to pay themselves, much less pay someone to help them.
• These unrealistic prices from small businesses just reinforce the validity of the artificially low prices that fast fashion offers. 
• Even worse, these low prices just devalue the work involved in making products and running a business, reinforcing the illusion that this work is “unskilled,” something that anyone can do well.  And that helps fast everything companies get away with continuing to underpay and exploit workers around the world.
• Small businesses close up shop because they can’t make enough money to stay in business.  Or the owner gets so burned out from working 24/7…and still finding out they can’t pay their bills at the end of the month.
• When small businesses close, that pushes customers toward the same fast “everything” megacorporations that have built their businesses off of human exploitation and low quality.  This just exacerbates economic inequality. 

And to be clear: every human deserves a safe, happy, healthy life.  And in a capitalist system, that means they need to be paid enough to afford food, shelter, healthcare, clothes, and fun.  Furthermore, they need to be able to take time off, to rest, to get inspired, to spend time with loved ones.  That means being paid a living wage for their work.

If you’ve read this far, either you’re already drafting up a spicy response for the comment section…or you’re wondering what the solution is.  How do we fix this disconnect in pricing and customer expectations? 

I wish I could say it was something simple.  “Do xyz and voila! Everyone gets paid and no one ever leaves a comment on a small business post about something being too expensive.”  Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

There is a path forward, but it involves work from EVERYONE: small business owners and customers alike. And this work is worthwhile because our current expectations about price are…super unethical. 

What small businesses can do:

• Take the time to sit down and work out how much a product actually costs you to make…if someone were being paid a living wage to make it.  That includes materials, platform fees, packaging, and LABOR.  Does the price you are charging customers actually cover that? If the answer is “no,” now is a good time to create a plan to get there.  It will never happen if you don’t start working toward it now.
• Increasing prices is actually a great opportunity to educate your customers about the work that goes into making your product and running a small business. Remember: most people just don’t know.  Fast fashion has warped their perception of price and value.  And a lot of people think robots and machines are making most of the stuff we buy.  Is it fair that you have to do this kind of work? No. But this is where we are. And if you’re stuck on how to market your business, sharing this kind of information and education can turn into a ton of social posts and emails.
• What about accessibility? I get this. I also want everyone to have access to high quality, ethical stuff.  But I often see small business owners not paying themselves so that they can offer the lowest prices.  How is that fair? It’s not fair to the small business owner…but it’s also not fair to the customers who will watch the business disappear when the owner is burned out and can no longer continue.  I recommend reserving a portion of every drop/collection for sliding scale pricing (if this is something you can do). You also don’t have to do this. It’s up to you!

My final advice for small businesses: when one business underprices, it forces everyone else to underprice.  And so pricing your products to cover a living wage actually lifts up every small business around you.  We have gotten used to the artificially low prices of fast fashion because we are surrounded by cheap, low quality goods. We can get used to paying ethical prices when they are the rule, not the exception.

What everyone else can do:

• We have to rewire our own perception of price and value.  Once again, the prices of fast fashion/fast everything only “work” because they are built on a foundation of human exploitation and low quality. Just about nothing we buy should be this cheap.  These brands are not doing us a service by offering low prices. Instead, they are making us complicit in wage theft, forced labor, and human exploitation.  They are making us sign on to dangerous and unhealthy working conditions. And in exchange, they are giving us low quality stuff that won’t last very long.
• When I encounter something from a small brand  that feels too expensive for me–because yes, even I have to do this work to rewire my brain–I ask myself: “What price would make this affordable to me? Does that price make sense when I think about the time to make something, the materials involved, the work of running a business?” And most times I realize that no, it does not. If I can’t afford that item new, I look for something secondhand.  Or I wait and save my money.  The thing about moving away from fast fashion is…we have to slow down the process of buying. Fast fashion relies on us being impatient and thoughtless. We can and will do better.
• One of the other aspects of our behavior that fast fashion has changed? It has made us think that we need a steady stream of new, trendy stuff.  Guess what? We actually don’t! One good dress > five unsatisfying dresses. And when we prioritize quality over quantity, suddenly the higher prices of small businesses don’t seem so wild, because we need less.  YES, THIS CHANGE IS DIFFICULT. But it’s actually how we lived our lives before the fast fashion era.
• Spread the knowledge! Remember, most people don’t know that fast fashion pricing is one big exploitative scam…ripping off workers AND customers. We have an amazing opportunity to create a better future. It starts with talking to the people around us.
• Don’t be a jerk.  If you see something cool that feels too expensive, just walk away. Saying something about it to the seller or in the comments section is not only rude, it actually reinforces those artificial fast fashion prices for everyone who hears or sees your comment. And it means you’re inadvertently doing free PR for fast fashion.