Start & Run a Craft Business. William G. Hynes

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СКАЧАТЬ How much competition is there? Have your competitors been around for long? If there is a lot of well-established competition, you may be better off staying away from that product and making something different.

      (g) Who goes to the craft markets in your area and what do they buy? Find out where the best markets are (see chapter 5 on how to do this) and do a bit of reconnaissance, either on your own home turf or in a nearby town or city. It’s not difficult to see what’s selling at a craft market, there will be crowds around the busiest booths. Look around and ask yourself: Are the customers at these markets tourists passing through the area or are they locals? Are they rural types or office workers? What are their income levels? How are they dressed? Look in the parking lot to see what kinds of cars they drive.

      (h) Are there differences among the different shows that you might attend? In our city, there are several major craft markets and each is distinctive in terms of the type of clientele it attracts. There is a market in the north end that draws a lot of people from the surrounding “blue-collar” areas, while another market in the south end pulls in executives and professionals. Also, since women buyers vastly outnumber men at all craft markets, it is imperative to have products that appeal to women, for themselves or as gifts for children and men.

      (i) What about ideas for products that you don’t see at all in shops or craft markets? If you have an idea for a product that no one seems to be selling, you may have a potentially “hot” item. Perhaps no one has thought of it before or no one has taken the trouble to make it. On the other hand, the absence of this product from shops and craft markets may be an indication that there is no demand for it. You may have to build a prototype of your product and test the market that way.

      (j) If you are connected to the Internet, you should visit online craft shops and galleries to get ideas for products you might make. The Internet is a vast repository of information on crafts and craft marketing. (See Chapter 7 for detailed information on selling your crafts online.)

      b. Market Test Your Products

      Build prototypes of the products you plan to make and check your market research by actually testing your products in the market. You can use any of the marketing channels outlined in chapters 4 to 7 to do this, but selling your products at a craft market (covered in detail in chapter 5) is one of the best.

      Try to find your own particular niche in the market.

      Selling at a craft market gives you firsthand experience with customers’ reactions to your products. What do they think of the quality of your work? Are your prices considered to be high or low? Are they looking for work similar to yours but perhaps in slightly different sizes, styles, or colors?

      Make prototypes using your existing facilities as much as possible, even if this means working on the top of the kitchen table in the beginning. Once you have discovered what is going to sell, you can start building up a stock of products, set up an adequate workshop, buy raw materials in bulk, and follow the other production techniques of a craft business as outlined in chapters 9 and 10. Don’t put the cart before the horse and invest time, money, and effort in building up a stock of goods for which there is no market.

      Try to find your own particular niche in the market. Look at what is selling in stores and at craft markets. Look at the quality and the prices. Concentrate on products that are in demand and that you can offer in a better design, quality, or price.

      Say you are producing wooden toys and there are a lot of similar products in stores but they are almost all relatively large softwood toys. You may find a comfortable niche in the market by producing small, brightly painted hardwood toys for under $10.

      Be careful to exhibit and offer for sale only your best work. Nothing travels faster than bad news, and you don’t want your reputation to be based on premature work. If you are making production line crafts, one of the main skills you will develop is the ability to produce rapidly at a high standard of quality. But do not try to produce work quickly in the beginning.

      Be prepared to follow the market and produce work for which there is a strong demand. The market for crafts is growing very quickly for those who are producing the right quality crafts. You will succeed if your work is of consistently high quality, if you follow the market to know what is selling, and if you know where to sell. Chapters 4 to 8 show you how to market your work.

      4

      Before You Sell...

      a. Wholesale or Retail?

      Once you have identified and produced a marketable product, choosing your market is the most important decision you will make. Unless you can find markets, your work won’t be sold, and while you may enjoy making crafts, you won’t make any money and you won’t be in business for long.

      In marketing your work, you leave the ranks of the amateurs and become a true professional. This important transition is marked by a change in attitude toward your work. In the beginning, the objects you made were worthwhile because “you” made them, and you were naturally very proud of the fact. At the same time, you hoped that others would also find your work attractive. You might have shown the work to your craft instructor, a friend, or a fellow craftworker.

      As a professional, you retain this basic pride in your work, but at the same time you come to regard the product less as an extension of yourself and more as an object in the marketplace. It is a beautiful object, to be sure, the result of your painstaking efforts, but you now come to see it as a high-quality, well-priced, marketable product.

      Your task now is to take this product and sell it!

      There are three basic ways you can go about selling your work. You can wholesale to shops, sell in stores on consignment, or retail your products directly to the public from your own studio, at craft fairs, through the mail, or on the Internet. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. They are not mutually exclusive, and most successful craftworkers use a variety of wholesale and retail marketing channels.

      1. Wholesaling

      If you sell your work outright to stores, you get on average about half the final selling price. This is because most stores will mark up your goods by 100 percent; that is, they will sell your work at double the price you sell to them. This may seem excessive, but you must remember that retailers have big expenses, including high rents and taxes. If they are to be successful, they must be in a good location and spend money on advertising. No matter what they do, a certain amount of merchandise is always going to remain unsold and they have to absorb the loss.

      It is possible to sell to shops on a strictly cash basis, but, as we shall see in a later chapter, this can hurt your sales if your competitors or other craftworkers are selling their goods on credit. In most cases, it will be necessary to offer your work on credit if you have any substantial amount of dealings with shops.

      2. Consignment

      It is possible to deal with some stores on a consignment basis. In this arrangement, the store does not actually purchase your work but agrees to put it on display and sell it for you. If you deal with a shop on this basis, you should get a higher proportion of the final selling price, between 60 percent and 70 percent, because the risk is yours, not theirs. If you deal on a consignment basis, you should have a written agreement with the shop (see the section on contracts in chapter СКАЧАТЬ