Selling One-of-a-Kinds in Today’s Retail Market: What are our Options?

For those of us that cannot wean ourselves from the love of making artisan crafts by hand, the constant dilemna is: How to market effectively and maybe…just maybe, have the chance of actually making a small profit through our businesses. Having gone the Craft Show, Home Show, Wholesale and Online Route, I cannot say I have the definitive answer, as it is different for everyone depending on how labor intensive your work is, how important it is that you are there to describe your process, and whether or not you have an item that can be mass produced in quantity or must be created as either one-of-a- kind or in small batches. But I have learned a lot in the 15 years I’ve been doing this since I left my position as a full time Art Teacher and set up a Ceramic Studio in my home. And I believe in Sharing because we’re not in competition, though it’s easy to fall into that trap. Really, We’re on the HVNY Etsy Team to encourage and enhance each others work and lives.

My business is making one-of-a-kind pieces of handmade ceramic and fused glass jewelry, and it is a multi-step process with creating pendant from raw clay, two eight hour firings, composing the necklace or bracelet or ring into a unique design. I plan to chronicle some of my ongoing marketing techniques, including successes and failures, and in so doing, hopefully shorten the learning curve for others. Currently, I have a Website, an Etsy site, I coordinate Craft Shows for others, (though am moving away from doing many myself), sell in some consignment boutiques, wholesale to Galleries and Crafts Shows and sell to a limited number of stores in the large Whole Food chain (in their Whole Body Depts.).

I guess what people might be most interested in right off the bat is how I got into Whole Foods as a vendor, which was an interesting process. I used to go fairly regularly to the Whole Foods in Ridgewood, NJ (where I lived until I moved up here to my little slice of Heaven in Warwick). I walked into their Whole Body Dept. one day when I was making a delivery to a consignment Gallery nearby. And of course, I was wearing one of my necklaces, which is always my most successful door to opening a dialogue about my business. I recognized the woman at the register and struck up a conversation.

Well, about 5 minutes into the convo, she commented that she loved the necklace I was wearing, and called over the Team Manager to look at it. The Team Mgr, in turn, said she thought the buyer would love the style and I made an appointment to meet with David. And I was IN. I said, “You mean I’m IN?” " Oh…you’re in", he said. Scads of paperwork, insurance forms, and getting UPC Codes later, I was selling at Whole Foods. Next, I approached another couple of stores in the chain who were eager to try out the line as well. And basically, that’s how it happened. So, the pros and cons.

The biggest PRO is the PR value of saying that you sell to Whole Foods, which of course, most people have heard of. Also, a lot of people with money shop there, and you never know WHO might walk in and discover your line, so to speak. It definitely inspired me to keep on my toes, bringing new designs all the time to keep the buyers interested. And now the CONS, of which there are many. Since my pieces are on-of-a-kind, I need to bring them to each store so that they can hand select. I have offered to email pics or send a “Pick Box” which I’ve done with other stores, but so far, No Go. I also need to sell my work to them at 50% of their Retail Price. Because my pieces are so labor intensive, and because I don’t like to move above the $50-$55 retail price, I end up with little or no profit once travel time, gas, time spent making the pieces, and materials are factored in. So, unless you can really rack them out, and have a great, easy to stock “Point of Purchase” display, it is very difficult to make any money, in selling handcrafted and “made with love” items to larger Chain Stores. Again, it’s nice to put in your Resume, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity, but for the type of product I market…definitely not a money maker. More of my musings to ponder next week….

Roberta Green from RGClay Creations

ETSY Success Book Review

I am a sucker for a $2.99 Kindle self-help book.

I do have a bunch of them loaded in my kindle.

But this latest one:

 

has a ton of helpful content from sellers that 

have sales in excess of thousands of dollars.

One artist who I have admired and been inspired by had 

a few very simple sentences to offer as advice.

One that intrigued me was something like this:

'Re-list often, even 2 to 3 times a day, if I don't re-list

I don't have any sales.'

This artist, I thought, had a ETSY store that was magically

self sufficient. But now that my attention was drawn to it, I realize that 

she does re-list very often.

So I followed her advice this week and re-listed at least once

every day. I did have two orders this week, which for me

is  a lot. I do have better sales at craft fairs but am working to increase my ETSY 

sales. I will give this another week to see if it really can help.

The increase in business should off set the increase in fees...hopefully :)

There is a lot of helpful information here from some very successful sellers.
I know that with all the changes that have taken place on ETSY,
each and every sale is hard earned.

I did follow through with the second week of increased re-listing
but did not have the same results.
However traffic has increased and theoretically that should
result in increased sales.....

The ETSY mystery to be continued.......

Susan - Digilio Designs

Taking 100% Responsibility For Your Life

Meet Lisa from Merry Alchemy, a jewelry maker and member of the team from Beacon. Lisa will be sharing a running installment of different takeaways and exercises learned from her library of business improvement & life coaching/motivational books with team members and blog readers as we all look for ways to be more successful in our business.

I don’t profess to have all the answers to life and success…far from it. However, I have an insatiable appetite for self-improvement and a core desire to feel successful and happy. Therefore, I look to the experts - those who have achieved their wildest dreams, found inner peace and happiness – and written books geared towards helping others do the same. I hope you will join me in this and future blog articles as I share the ideas, strategies, resources and principles that I find and learn along my own journey to success that, in turn, I hope will help you on your journey. I do hope that you will use the comments section to share your thoughts, experiences, and wisdom that comes from your life as well as your handmade journey. Keep in mind that I’m sharing personal thoughts that I don’t normally bring to a public forum. I hope that you will feel equally comfortable to do so in the comments. I promise to always treat you with dignity and respect and I ask that you do the same for me and anyone else who contributes. That being said…

I am confessing that I have a dirty little secret. Up to now, only my close friends and family have been privy to (and have borne the brunt of) this marker of shame for me. The fact is I am a HUGE complainer. I complain about everything.

“OMG, I cannot believe how long it’s taking my computer to boot up!”
“There were so many people in the supermarket and they were ALL in my way!”
“I can’t believe the scale says I’m two pounds heavier. I only had a SMALL bowl of ice cream yesterday!”
“Why does EVERYONE else have thousands of Etsy sales and I only have 65? It’s not fair!”

Enter Jack Canfield’s book, Success Principles, which I am in the midst of reading. Perhaps you have read this book or something like it. Jack Canfield is the successful author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. This highly informative book is the closest thing to an instruction manual for becoming successful in life that I have read thus far.

Principle 1 in this book is “Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life”. We create everything that happens to us. That can be hard to swallow. It means that all of my complaining has been my way of deflecting responsibility to outside circumstances. I need to stop complaining, stop making excuses, stopping being a victim, and stop blaming people and events for the things that I don’t like about me, my life or my business. Canfield suggests asking yourself the following questions when you get results that you don’t like or didn’t intend: “What did I do or not do to create that result? What do I need to do differently next time to get the result I want?”

Charms of Faith

Canfield presents this concept as a formula. E+R=O (Event +Responsibility = Outcome). Canfield explains that events you experience now (success, happiness, failure, illness, etc.) are direct outcomes of your earlier responses to other events in your life. So if you want your life to change for the better, you need to alter your responses to events you are experiencing in the present. For instance, if the event is that it rained during a craft fair, I should change my response so that my outcome isn’t just that my profits were dismal. What could I have done during that craft fair for a better overall outcome? I have a smart phone, so I could have renewed Etsy listings during the fair. I could have brought some tools with me and been spending that time making new items. The fact is having dismal profits at a craft fair is not the reason why I am not successful. If that were the case, then no one would be successful jewelry artists because everyone, even the most successful artisans, have experienced dismal profits at craft fairs during some point in their careers.

Understanding and internalizing this principle is one thing. Implementing it is the more difficult part. Have I banished all complaining from my life? My fiancé would say, “Hell no!” But it has made me acutely aware of my dirty little secret and now I can begin the hard work of stopping myself when I do complain (believe me when I say there is a whole topic on gratitude that remains untapped here…) and, instead, ask myself what part I played in that unwanted outcome.

I welcome your comments, experiences, stories, nuggets of wisdom, etc. regarding this topic.

How To Twitter For Etsy!

Having an online shop isn't just setting up shop, posting your items and walk away.  If you sell online, you  have to have a presence ONLINE!  This can be through a blog, a Facebook page, Pinterest, Tumblr, or my favorite - Twitter.

If you have an Etsy shop but you're still not quite into the whole Twitter thing, it's ok, let's hold hands. Allow me to walk you through how Twitter can be your friend and bring views to your Etsy items and shop.

First you must have a Twitter account because you'll need one to sync with your Etsy shop under your Account settings.

You may already notice that every listing on Etsy has a Twitter button....

This button is actually for anyone to use, it allows a person to tweet your item.  When you click that button, a pop-up window appears

You can even tweet your own items from your shop to appear in your Twitter followers feed.  This is what I do when I renew a listing.  When I add a brand new item to my shop, it is the first thing I do after I hit that "publish" button.

If you're ready to get started in the world of Twitter, just jump right in! Start following people - because I'm sure you know people with Twitter accounts.  The more you follow, the more you'll get follows back.  You can even follow the Hudson Valley Etsy Team at @HVNYTeam! 

Share your Twitter link with your friends and family.  Don't feel like you have to tweet something constantly, you can keep it strictly shop-related, like a flash-newsletter in 140 characters or get chatty like I do.  Etsy encourages their sellers to tell their story and help customers get to know the person behind the shop - Twitter is a great tool to do just that and still control just how much you wish to share about yourself.  See you in the Twitterverse!

Another great resource to check out: Etsy's Guide To Twitter