Prices changes (May 2013)


Hello,

I am approaching the end of the first year since I started this website to try bringing awareness to orgonites and make them accessible for a large public (mainly for France, as Germany, UK, Spain, US etc. already have sellers applying similar prices) and it looks like a success that fills me with joy: I sent around 15,000 orgonites in 12 months. However, I have reached a point where I am reluctantly forced to increase my prices because of a number of factors, some of which I had not taken into account at the start, which entail that the description of the costs involved on the page Rough estimate of costs, written in May 2012, is incorrect.

My initial estimates were quite wrong. I underestimated the time spent answering e-mails, packaging and sending parcels. Furthermore, having meanwhile acquired new knowledge about the resin, I have added another step to the process of making orgonites, namely cleaning with acetone the side exposed to air while curing. Since October 2012 I have worked an average of 10 hours/day, 7 days/week, without even finding the time, as I would have liked, to add content to the website and, believe me, there are a lot of topics I would like to share and talk about.

You should also know that I started this business with a status called Auto-entrepreneur in France and was entitled as a beginner to some State help, which included receiving the ‘RSA’ every months for approximately half a year. The RSA is a kind of unemployment benefit which amounted to around 420€ per month. With the addition of my monthly benefits, around 300-500€ per month, it was still adequate. Unfortunately, since the State bases the calculation of the said benefits on my turnover, which has hugely increased without reflecting my real earnings, I only get around 50€ a month of State benefits while still earning only around 300-500€, I now often must go through a month with less than 500€ while working quite more than a regular job. Fortunately I live and work at my parents’ home, otherwise I would have been forced to give up this activity already some time ago.

For these reasons I have to charge higher prices.

Price changes and other changes are described on this page: Modification details (April 14, 2013).

Keep reading if you want to know more details about what I explained above…

The new step in the process of making orgonites applies to round TBs, heart TBs and induction TBs. From the time I started making orgonites I noticed that the upper side of an orgonite was never as shiny and smooth as the other sides, now after having looked into it I finally understood why! The reason is that this side is in direct contact with the air during the hardening process, which prevents the curing of a thin layer of resin on the upper side; this thin non-catalysed layer may take up to a year to evaporate and is responsible for the resin smell of most polyester-resin-made orgonites, which is even more noticeable when temperatures are hot; precisely, these are styrene vapours that are still released and should have disappeared, had the resin cured without direct contact with the air. I learnt that by wiping this face with acetone I could remove this layer and hence also the smell. Sometimes I clean the orgonites with acetone and pack them almost straight away, which is why you might smell the acetone when you unpack the orgonites. But acetone evaporates very quickly: you just need to leave the orgonites for 1-2 days in the open air for the smell to be gone. This way of doing is much better than leaving the layer of non-catalysed resin, which is slightly toxic, whereas fully cured resin is 100% inert.

Now what needs to be said about my income. I chose a status called ‘Auto-entrepreneur’ in France, because it makes things simpler, but it does not actually turn out to be the best choice. For a monthly turnover of 2000€ there are at least 500€ are shipping fees (even more when there are cloudbusters shipped by UPS). And because of the status I chose, I have to pay taxes on these shipping fees as well. I still pay only 7.4% taxes because I managed to get the lowest rates as a beginner creating a new company, but they will increase to 12% for the second year, to 17% for the third and later to 23%, and an additional 2-3% might be added since our ‘great’ French president decided to increase taxes for 2013, the exact figures being yet unknown… Anyway, I pay taxes on shipping fees, which is money that is used for post shipping costs. On top of that Paypal takes 3.4% (+0.25€) for each payment, so that between 7.4% and 10.8% (depending if payment are made with paypal or not) are deducted from the shipping fees, which is money that is not for me. Up to now, I never took this into account, but I shall have to, so I will include it into the orgonite prices. Personally, I don’t like websites where one has a shopping basket of, say, 100€, but VAT and other handling fees are added at the checkout. My website is made so as to avoid unpleasant surprises at the checkout: no extra charges are added, except for the shipping fees, which obviously depend on the weight of the orgonites ordered.

To get back to my income, keeping the example of a monthly turnover of 2000€, 500€ out of that are postage costs. And there are still many costs to be added: aluminium shavings, resin, colour pigments, quartz, cardboards, packaging tape, plastic wrap, paper for printing, sanding paper, silicone moulds which I must re-buy once in a while because they get deformed with time, copper wire for the induction TBs, petrol to go round and all sorts of other small items: printing cartridges, visit cards, acetone, towels, gloves, etc. Summing up, in spite of a turnover of 2000€, my real income only amounts to between 300€ and 500€ per month. Since I began with State help for the unemployed starting new companies, I got 420€/month benefits for the first three months; later on, the amount of help was calculated on the basis of my turnover and the latter staying lower for the first months (around 500-700€/month) I still got around 300-350€ of State benefits, which completed well my little profits. But at present my turnover is almost always above 1500€/month and since the calculation of the State benefits is based on that figure, I actually get almost nothing now in State help; the State benefits are calculated as follows: 450 – 38% of 50% of the monthly turnover, which for 2000€ makes 450 – 0.38×0.5×2000 = 70€. My turnover obviously gives a wrong picture of what I earn. Since last January I get about 0 to 80€ of State help monthly on top of my earnings of 300-500€. Basically I work a lot, I’m close to 1500 orgonites sent per month, but I earn the same or even less than when I was selling much less orgonites! These low earnings do not even allow me to go on doing what I would like, i.e. go gifting once in a while.

In fact, I am really happy to send out those many orgonites every month, I would be even happier to send out more of them. Just by working on my own I should be able to go up to 3000 orgonites a month… But if I earned a little more (something close to the French minimum wage would be enough) I could again take some time off once in a while to go gifting; there are still so many places to gift, I would really like to continue being able to go gifting more often! Also, I would appreciate to have some time off to add more content to this website (and translate) so as to diffuse even more information, as there are many things I’d like to share: gardening methods, my insights about the relationship between sound, electricity, light and living beings and globally bring forth more useful information on a plethora of other topics mostly related to nature, health and physical/spiritual energies. There is actually a multitude of ways to promote good energies, orgonite is just a very simple and safe method; but by playing with water, sound, electricity, there are many other things to know! Take playing classical music to plants during day-light, I think that’s even better for them than orgonites…