Selling advice

[Cabinetman]

"shame the op has not replied or acknowledged / answered some of the questions"
Yes it happens a lot, I find it very irritating, and a quick look shows he was on today, I did get a like so that’s something I suppose.

 

[Etaf]

yep, i moderate a technical forum and answer a few Excel forums , and it happens all the time, BUT on those forums i do spend time researching the questions and then answering , not quite as straight forward as the DIY forums ......

 

[Barrie S]

About 10 years ago I made a batch of simple jewellery boxes. I gave some to friends and family as presents. I had the good fortune of having a sister and former bother in law who owned art galleries in Keswick and York. They sold some for me but their markup of around 100% meant the asking price was £300! My sister has now sold her gallery and is using other galleries to sell plaster-cast tiles. She makes silicone moulds using wild flowers. They sell for around £50 each but is doing quite nicely.

 

[Spectric]

It is expected @jb94 to have some reply or feedback from someone if they start a thread or ask for help and advice, thanks.

 

[HOJ]

@Spectric he'll be too busy playing with his slot morticer....

 

[jb94]

It is expected @jb94 to have some reply or feedback from someone if they start a thread or ask for help and advice, thanks.

Apologies, I had more replies than I expected from this thread and hadn't had chance to consider all of them, ill try my best to answer

@Etaf Valid points, I've not got a huge number of items on Etsy, but they're around the going price. I expect I need to put up more listings with variety. My USP is it is handmade in Yorkshire using materials from local suppliers, I could play into this a bit more. It's not always obvious where things are coming from or who is making them when you buy online.

@Kayen Agreed, even some of my friends had no idea of the cost of just materials yet alone my time / shop running costs. I suspect you're right with the selling only if you sell - if you are a 'star seller' you're more likely to appear in listings than if you only have a couple of sales. Also the whole paying for ads on Etsy which really I think is a huge scam but anyway...

@johnnyb Agreed, marketing could be better for me. I try and market my 'brand' by using instagram to make reels which do get some thousand views, but its unclear how many of those 'views' are actually watching the whole video vs just seeing it for a second and scrolling past.

@TheTiddles The day job can pay better but the more hours in my industry does not a happy person make, hence why I'm trying to have some other form of income

@Ollie78 This is a good idea, the speculative work. I have a website but not had the time and actually didn't have high enough quality images of example work to set it up properly so just set it up to redirect to the Etsy shop. I guess the difficulty is the time leading up to being established - I could make a whole load of solid walnut furniture as an example, but its quite a big outlay unless you manage to sell it

@HOJ I've updated my profile with my website

@Cabinetman Looks like great work, I am considering the makers events but there's a couple of catches: 1. You need to be fairly established on instagram / have some kind of established brand / following for them to consider having you sell at their event, 2. It seems from these events I've been to (and please correct me if this isn't the case) but there seems to only be smaller low value items selling at these makers fairs and a lot of potential customers have a look and put the item down. I don't know how many sales they would get in a standard day?

 

[jb94]

@Stigmorgan agreed there might be some time wasters, but I might try listing some items on Facebook marketplace. Free advertising and if its seen by local people it'll be a lot easier for me to transport items if they are bigger rather than mess about with couriers.

@deema Yeah my hours are limited fitting it round a full-time job, but buying product in goes against the reason I'm doing it. Sure from a pure numbers on paper point of view buying a shipping crate of Temu material and redistributing in the UK would get money but I can't morally support the conditions the workers are subject to over there, and besides my brand is supposed to be made locally that's my USP. Employing someone is also not really an option unless they worked for free!

@stickinthemud From what I've seen you're right people are not selling high ticket items at these events. I guess you could have some showcase pieces and give out business cards for the prospective business you could get, and maybe sell a handful of the smaller ticket items. I like your idea about calling it a studio.

 

[Cabinetman]

@jb94 thank you, wish you all the best of luck with your business, just keep plugging away, it’s surprising sometimes people will contact you a year after first contact, forgot to say the local free parish booklets with ads in can be effective as well.
Another reasonably successful trick is to advertise on your vehicle and have one of those Perspex business card boxes hung from a closed car window. But no good if you don’t park where there is passing footfall.
Ian

 

[Etaf]

I'm sure you have considered a lot of the below, so forgive me if repeating stuff you already know

My USP is it is handmade in Yorkshire using materials from local suppliers, I could play into this a bit more.

would be worth mentioning that and perhaps your story if you have one - sustainability is often mentioned a lot these days
I see its on instagram

We are a small business based in South Yorkshire delivering high quality handmade products using carefully selected wood.

ETSY A image of chisels in my opinion does not suggest the items made - bit to subtle for me , but if thats what you like.

I have not used ETSY , looked into and we decided not to use
Not much in "About" , but not sure how etsy works, although you do say in chessboard to look in BIO on Etsy

Also on instagram ,

Check out the Etsy store in the bio for pieces you can order today!

Again didn't see those

As you mention on instagram Wedding gifts , gifts generally

Gifts, wedding favours, and furniture; I can make your ideas come to life!

I would put as much example of stuff already made as possible - give people ideas
if you do a lot of things for weddings gifts , maybe advertise at events or wedding locations
when i did wedding photography , we left sample books at a lot of the venues, some took them, not many , but we did get a few leads from a local golf course who did a lot of weedings

i would make more of your website - if you have the space and sell from that - reasonably easy to do ......BUT needs time
Facebook market place - we have a lot of enquiries from facebook market place and facebook groups - BUT really need to post at least every week, if not more frequently , which we dont do as much as we should.
Google market place , get a lot of visability and click on that
Ebay - our website links to our ebay as well

Not a lot transfers to sells, but then we are a Salvage company dealing in street furniture, lamppost, lamps , bollards etc

All the website stuff is done with wordpress and free plugins, just pay IONOS a monthly fee for hosting and emails. And a oneoff fee for the theme we liked

The owner attends a lot of local shows/fairs , pretty much every other week minimum and hands out loads of cards A5 and often get enquires from that.

I would guess volume of items you have made , even if not for sale, when we sell out, we mark as out of stock, but leave on the website , and also have the option for people to register for an email when the item are back in stock and sale a few similar items to those people.

we have tried advertising in magazines reclaim, salvage etc , not had much success there , also on various paid for online directories and paid for a lot of services and that did not work

 

[jb94]

I'm sure you have considered a lot of the below, so forgive me if repeating stuff you already know


would be worth mentioning that and perhaps your story if you have one - sustainability is often mentioned a lot these days
I see its on instagram

ETSY A image of chisels in my opinion does not suggest the items made - bit to subtle for me , but if thats what you like.

I have not used ETSY , looked into and we decided not to use
Not much in "About" , but not sure how etsy works, although you do say in chessboard to look in BIO on Etsy

Also on instagram ,

Again didn't see those

As you mention on instagram Wedding gifts , gifts generally


I would put as much example of stuff already made as possible - give people ideas
if you do a lot of things for weddings gifts , maybe advertise at events or wedding locations
when i did wedding photography , we left sample books at a lot of the venues, some took them, not many , but we did get a few leads from a local golf course who did a lot of weedings

i would make more of your website - if you have the space and sell from that - reasonably easy to do ......BUT needs time
Facebook market place - we have a lot of enquiries from facebook market place and facebook groups - BUT really need to post at least every week, if not more frequently , which we dont do as much as we should.
Google market place , get a lot of visability and click on that
Ebay - our website links to our ebay as well

Not a lot transfers to sells, but then we are a Salvage company dealing in street furniture, lamppost, lamps , bollards etc

All the website stuff is done with wordpress and free plugins, just pay IONOS a monthly fee for hosting and emails. And a oneoff fee for the theme we liked

The owner attends a lot of local shows/fairs , pretty much every other week minimum and hands out loads of cards A5 and often get enquires from that.

I would guess volume of items you have made , even if not for sale, when we sell out, we mark as out of stock, but leave on the website , and also have the option for people to register for an email when the item are back in stock and sale a few similar items to those people.

we have tried advertising in magazines reclaim, salvage etc , not had much success there , also on various online and paid for a lot of services and that did not work

Thanks for your reply, some really good points here and I appreciate that you’ve had a look at the website etc and feedback on it.

My main focus was on smaller shippable items I.e. wedding gifts, general gifts etc via web and larger piece on commission basis due to logistics of getting an order out to potential customer.

I want to get some nice picture of me working to have it as a banner, agreed the chisels image needs improvement, it was intended as a placeholder banner until I got a better picture then just never got round to it, I focused more on getting traction on instagram / fulfilling word of mouth orders.

Re your website, how do you manage your e-commerce? It was quite a significant monthly fee from ionos to include it in the website build, which is why I went down the Etsy route as I didn’t have that initial outlay while I’m building up customer base. Agreed it needs more in the about section.

The wedding events sounds like a good way to get my foot in the door from that side of the business.

One thing I did note, and I’m at that age where everyone is getting married / having kids, people seem to want engraved date and names etc on the wedding gifts. I’m not setup to engrave currently as I’ve not got a laser engraver, and didn’t want the outlay if it didn’t sell. I think I’m answering my own question here but I guess with this you have to take the gamble with things and see how they pan out. And my ups is that it’s not just engraved onto factory made stuff but a bespoke individual locally made piece that also has the date / names on.

 

[peter-harrison]

I have been a member of Cambridge Open Studios for 30 years off and on, and it has been great for me. It's 4 weekends in July- you can do as many or as few as you want.
For the rest of the year I work strictly to commission, but for COS I make lots of small things, often from offcuts, plus a few larger things- coffee tables, rocking chairs, dining tables etc.
Dining tables aren't a good idea for a speculative piece, as they are too individual- size, timber, shape, style, etc.
However, I have always sold the chairs and coffee tables.
What I'm also after is meeting people who want stuff made, which supports what I do the rest of the year.
I generally make back the cost of membership plus a few hundred (or thousand in a good year).
You have to keep at it. Someone may visit one year and really like your stuff, but they may be skint. But three years later they may be flush and will order something.
I am still working for people who are friends of friends of friends of people who visited my open studio 30 years ago.
If there is such an organisation near you, why not join it. If there isn't, how about starting one yourself?
COS was started 50 years ago by three or four artists with hand-drawn posters, and now has about 500 members.

 

[Etaf]

And my ups is that it’s not just engraved onto factory made stuff but a bespoke individual locally made piece that also has the date / names on.

that sounds like a nice idea

my dad was a carpenter/cabinet maker and made a really nice crib , engraved with name and DOB/time - he also made clocks with name and DOB/time engraved .....

Owner already had a website he paid for , but was not being maitained , and the webdesigner left the country and could not help so he approached me in 2018 to help

on my recommendation , The Owner setup the website in 2018 - onm 1&1 - taken over by IONOS
Product Name: IONOS Web Hosting Expert
it was a £1 a month for 1st year and included domain name renewal - which i transfered, including SSL
now its £12 a month, includes SSL and domain renewal , and 50 emails, BUT not available anylonger
all + Vat - so quite expensive now i guess, although like everytring has really gone up in last couple of years
I installed wordpress as the site had 1 click install - and also free woocommerce plugin and then the theme (was on offer £50 one off payment), although lots of free themes, BUT that was the theme he had in the past, and wanted to keep the layout
Paypal plugin , with a business paypal account - again free , but pay for transactions vai paypal or card

NOT sure whats available now , and may no be worth it for what you are doing
had a chat on IONOS - see below

My daughter got a laser a few years back with the intention of starting a business , she never really did much, other than buy the kit , same for a framing idea , purchased all the kit , really good 2nd hand deals - but again never really promoted , other than go on a couple courses , paid by MIL who also wanted to go

But she does have 3 kids (Now 13, 6, 4 ) so time was full , although now all at school

IONOS nolonger offer the deals we had
https://www.ionos.co.uk/hosting/web...042T7073a&itc=XUKI0003&ma_id=99999203&ts=true
PLUS
But only get 1 email 2GB storage, limited number of files 264,000 and storage 250GB
You may get a better deal on other hosting sites , and also if you chat with them, BUT make sure you ask fr the normal price they are always quoting the deal and NOT what it goes to after x months

i have tended to use and recommend IONOS - setup about 10 one man bands - when 1&1 most now folded/retired , or moved on.

how do you manage your e-commerce? It was quite a significant monthly fee from ionos to include it in the website build,

we use Paypal, which also accept Cards - and do have to pay a fee per transaction
Also have the cardreader attached to a phone for taking payments at fairs

took a lot of time getting up on the listings and lots of visits , now get about 40 a day - maybe a couple of orders a week

But i lookafter the owners website for fun , now i'm retired , and we probably add 5 products a week

 

[jb94]

that sounds like a nice idea

my dad was a carpenter/cabinet maker and made a really nice crib , engraved with name and DOB/time - he also made clocks with name and DOB/time engraved .....

Owner already had a website he paid for , but was not being maitained , and the webdesigner left the country and could not help so he approached me in 2018 to help

on my recommendation , The Owner setup the website in 2018 - onm 1&1 - taken over by IONOS
Product Name: IONOS Web Hosting Expert
it was a £1 a month for 1st year and included domain name renewal - which i transfered, including SSL
now its £12 a month, includes SSL and domain renewal , and 50 emails, BUT not available anylonger
all + Vat - so quite expensive now i guess, although like everytring has really gone up in last couple of years
I installed wordpress as the site had 1 click install - and also free woocommerce plugin and then the theme (was on offer £50 one off payment), although lots of free themes, BUT that was the theme he had in the past, and wanted to keep the layout
Paypal plugin , with a business paypal account - again free , but pay for transactions vai paypal or card

NOT sure whats available now , and may no be worth it for what you are doing
had a chat on IONOS - see below

My daughter got a laser a few years back with the intention of starting a business , she never really did much, other than buy the kit , same for a framing idea , purchased all the kit , really good 2nd hand deals - but again never really promoted , other than go on a couple courses , paid by MIL who also wanted to go

But she does have 3 kids (Now 13, 6, 4 ) so time was full , although now all at school

IONOS nolonger offer the deals we had
https://www.ionos.co.uk/hosting/web...042T7073a&itc=XUKI0003&ma_id=99999203&ts=true
PLUS
But only get 1 email 2GB storage, limited number of files 264,000 and storage 250GB
You may get a better deal on other hosting sites , and also if you chat with them, BUT make sure you ask fr the normal price they are always quoting the deal and NOT what it goes to after x months

i have tended to use and recommend IONOS - setup about 10 one man bands - when 1&1 most now folded/retired , or moved on.



we use Paypal, which also accept Cards - and do have to pay a fee per transaction
Also have the cardreader attached to a phone for taking payments at fairs

took a lot of time getting up on the listings and lots of visits , now get about 40 a day - maybe a couple of orders a week

But i lookafter the owners website for fun , now i'm retired , and we probably add 5 products a week

Wix e-commerce is £16/month and Ionos is £20/month. Which is what I expected r really given a pint is closer to a tenner nowadays.

I also looked into a portable card reader to take to events etc to accompany a business bank account. Average £5/month fee some are free for 1 year

I’ve seen you can add PayPal buttons to websites html which is a free option, *if* I can edit the source html and *if* I can do it without messing it all up, probably 20 years since I’ve done any html in school and that was a hello world website.

I wonder if you could list items on eBay / Etsy etc and embed that into a page to get around having a e-commerce package and also be advertising on those other sites? Feel a bit out of water with the technical side of things.

Only problem with all of the above is the standing charges you’re paying /month regardless of any sales. I’ve done my numbers on commissions I’ve made and without the cost of the above I’m not making huge amounts, once that’s factored in margins become tighter.

 

[HOJ]

@jb94 I had a look at your Etsy shop, and see you are selling a "cheese board" yet in the Etsy ads underneath, on your own page, there is an add for a personalised one from £22.95, which looks to me as they are directing traffic away from you, rather than to you.

Link to seller: Cheese board

 

[jb94]

that sounds like a nice idea

my dad was a carpenter/cabinet maker and made a really nice crib , engraved with name and DOB/time - he also made clocks with name and DOB/time engraved .....

Owner already had a website he paid for , but was not being maitained , and the webdesigner left the country and could not help so he approached me in 2018 to help

on my recommendation , The Owner setup the website in 2018 - onm 1&1 - taken over by IONOS
Product Name: IONOS Web Hosting Expert
it was a £1 a month for 1st year and included domain name renewal - which i transfered, including SSL
now its £12 a month, includes SSL and domain renewal , and 50 emails, BUT not available anylonger
all + Vat - so quite expensive now i guess, although like everytring has really gone up in last couple of years
I installed wordpress as the site had 1 click install - and also free woocommerce plugin and then the theme (was on offer £50 one off payment), although lots of free themes, BUT that was the theme he had in the past, and wanted to keep the layout
Paypal plugin , with a business paypal account - again free , but pay for transactions vai paypal or card

NOT sure whats available now , and may no be worth it for what you are doing
had a chat on IONOS - see below

My daughter got a laser a few years back with the intention of starting a business , she never really did much, other than buy the kit , same for a framing idea , purchased all the kit , really good 2nd hand deals - but again never really promoted , other than go on a couple courses , paid by MIL who also wanted to go

But she does have 3 kids (Now 13, 6, 4 ) so time was full , although now all at school

IONOS nolonger offer the deals we had
https://www.ionos.co.uk/hosting/web...042T7073a&itc=XUKI0003&ma_id=99999203&ts=true
PLUS
But only get 1 email 2GB storage, limited number of files 264,000 and storage 250GB
You may get a better deal on other hosting sites , and also if you chat with them, BUT make sure you ask fr the normal price they are always quoting the deal and NOT what it goes to after x months

i have tended to use and recommend IONOS - setup about 10 one man bands - when 1&1 most now folded/retired , or moved on.



we use Paypal, which also accept Cards - and do have to pay a fee per transaction
Also have the cardreader attached to a phone for taking payments at fairs

took a lot of time getting up on the listings and lots of visits , now get about 40 a day - maybe a couple of orders a week

But i lookafter the owners website for fun , now i'm retired , and we probably add 5 products a week

Just checked out Wordpress and woo commerce. While it’s free to use woocommerce you need a business plan with Wordpress which is £35/month

@jb94 I had a look at your Etsy shop, and see you are selling a "cheese board" yet in the Etsy ads underneath, on your own page, there is an add for a personalised one from £22.95, which looks to me as they are directing traffic away from you, rather than to you.

Link to seller: Cheese board

Im becoming more and more disillusioned with Etsy the more I’ve tried to use it. I think its fair enough putting adverts in other sites or in the search results, but advertising a competitor in your listing…

 

[Etaf]

Just checked out Wordpress and woo commerce. While it’s free to use woocommerce you need a business plan with Wordpress which is £35/month

Dont know - we dont have one of those business plans , not sure what that is. Dont know about Wix either, but i remember Peter Millard said he found it better solution for his website
Just a novice myself, made some HTML sites back in the early 2000's with HTML for single businesses all on dialup and lots of sites with FREE hosting and domains then.
Also used google sites for a couple of sites again mainly for single one man businesses , window cleaners , chauffeur cars , Car dealer - linked to autotrader - all good fun back then. But got talked into doing this site for the salvage company when i started investigated a company doing it for him..
But as you say, you need to consider all the FIXED cost
And the services under offer , and what is included

 

[jb94]

Dont know - we dont have one of those business plans , not sure what that is. Dont know about Wix either, but i remember Peter Millard said he found it better solution for his website
Just a novice myself, made some HTML sites back in the early 2000's with HTML for single businesses all on dialup and lots of sites with FREE hosting and domains then.
Also used google sites for a couple of sites again mainly for single one man businesses , window cleaners , chauffeur cars , Car dealer - linked to autotrader - all good fun back then.
But as you say, you need to consider all the FIXED cost

No worries, I suspect a lot of these sites were free back in the day, but they've wised up to it.

Looks like you can add a html module into the ionos website builder but it requires, you've guessed it, a more expensive plan. There are html integrations into eBay etc but they don't look great and if you're paying more for the upgraded service might as well just get the e-commerce one.

 

[Etaf]

The website builder , i used for a rotary club who wanted there own site and easily maintained - that was expensive
the one i linked to , the plus deal £1 for 6 months with domain renewal and then £9 a month after that .. 1 click wordpress install so that should just install which is what i had and then linked to the domain, and then i installed a lot of plugins including woocommerce.... as you say needs some knowledge i guess or watch a lot of youtube and various sites which i did
Forums dont seem to be a lot of help , just people who say - yes that can be done but will cost
I give free advice on various tech forums and excel forums , which i thought was the idea , like here and other DIY forums

I would not bother adding anything to ebay - it seems to work ok, although i stopped selling , just got to expensive for what i was doing and postage fro parcels doubled , used to send collectables all over the world

 

[petermillard]

A few observations, and for clarity I have a few years selling on Etsy; before I moved to a Shopify store I also looked at many other options. It felt like all the easy payment processing outfits will give the option of a simple page to display your products and link to. Some mailing list managers eg flodesk also offer this, though one way or another you’ll pay for the privilege.

Etsy was the easiest way to set up a store, and they are a ‘destination’ that drives traffic. But the fees are high, and you won’t have customers, you’ll have Etsy customers that happen to shop at your store, so eg no way to build a mailing list from your store sales, no way to bulk message customers if you’ve messed something up.

Etsy are having some major issues though, and a lot of backlash from withholding payments for up to 45 days. I haven’t experienced this, though one of the reasons I (mostly) moved away from Etsy was their inability to deal with an Ltd Co VAT issue that remains unresolved to this day.

As a customer I’d be completely put off by links to eBay, especially when every CMS style website builder (Squarespace, Wix, etc al) offers e-commerce as part of the package.

For point of sale - shows and fairs - I used Zettle (now a PayPal company - make of that what you will…) but I’ve had no issues with PayPal or Zettle. There’s a one-off payment for the card reader, and no need for a card reader at all if you have a recent (NFC) phone - just the Zettle app.

FWIW I moved physical products away from Etsy because they were stupidly expensive when you get to any kind of volume, and as I mentioned before the customers who buy your products and engage with you online aren’t yours, they’re Etsy’s. Also with Shopify I could have products directly beneath my YouTube videos, which is a plus.

FWIW I have my website on Wix but my store on Shopify; I keep legacy digital downloads on Etsy because - why not? But I wouldn’t want it as my only storefront.

Hope some of that helps! P

p.s. your website link on Instagram directs to your Etsy store - you might want to look at that..

 

[thetyreman]

I tried etsy, never managed to sell anything, definitely not paying in a pay to play style system, I had to deal with that rubbish when I used to gig as a musician, some people seem to do well on etsy, it seems like a difficult thing to crack.