Selling one-off pieces?

[ByronBlack]

A thought occured to me today, doesn't happen very often.

What are your (collective) thoughts on selling one off speculative pieces?

The main questions that come to mind are:

1. Where can you place your piece to attract a buyer? Are there specific exhibtions, shows, shops, galleries that accept one-off pieces?

2. Can you use auctions - does this work with moden pieces?

3. How do you arrive at a sensible price - bearing in mind I'm only thinking of this at a hobby level and not a fulltime business - can you compare to similar pieces, or do you price it up as per normal if you were doing it as a commission piece?

4. Finally, where would be a good place to do some research on what styles sell?

Any thoughts welcomed.

 

[devonwoody]

If its a low cost item and a one off I would not think any commercial outlet would be interested.

So it must be a high value/cost piece?

 

[andycorleone]

With too many places to buy cheap crap and without a reputation I think the way to sell something is do commissions of specifics pieces

 

[Corset]

I have noticed a few craft shops at stately homes and garden centres have a few pieces. I imagine they take a cut for selling it but the price is set by the maker and the item is left at risk in the shop. I would think smaller shops would take a punt if there was no risk or outlay to themselves, in my limited experience of the world if you have a go and make it easy someone will support you.
Owen

 

[John McM]

Hi Byron, I think it's a great idea. I think you have to add something to make that 1 particular piece special to someone with no idea what quality furniture is, Joe public. Let's face it people will pay hundreds of pounds for chipboard tat from the big outlets yet balk at the idea of paying the same for an inlayed walnut heirloom! Maybe you could copy the mouseman and carve an animal on every piece, inlay a coin, carve the date etc.
How about waiting until you have 2 or 3 pieces and showing them in the local library along side some unfinished components, tools, construction drawings and photos. Make a window display of it.
Best of luck

 

[woodbloke]

A thought occured to me today, doesn't happen very often.

What are your (collective) thoughts on selling one off speculative pieces?

The main questions that come to mind are:

1. Where can you place your piece to attract a buyer? Are there specific exhibtions, shows, shops, galleries that accept one-off pieces?

2. Can you use auctions - does this work with moden pieces?

3. How do you arrive at a sensible price - bearing in mind I'm only thinking of this at a hobby level and not a fulltime business - can you compare to similar pieces, or do you price it up as per normal if you were doing it as a commission piece?

4. Finally, where would be a good place to do some research on what styles sell?

Any thoughts welcomed.

Byron - this is a thorny one in my view that I've thought about for a while and haven't come to any real concrete answers. In answer to your question there are usually galleries in most largish towns and cities that will accept pieces for showing but I would think their terms of sale are pretty extortionate...they have to make a profit as well. Guild galleries might be a good bet, the best one near me is in Wimborne, Dorset. Not sure about auctions, a specialist auction for contemporary furniture might be better that a general one. Pricing is really difficult. The pros can arrive at a realistic price quite easily, I think it's much harder for a hobbiest...I think the question is the value you put on your own time plus the cost of the materials.
Dom Valente who unfortunately no longer posts on this forum (and his absence is personally regretted) had an excellent idea last year when he wanted to start up a small venture on the business park close to his workshop, the idea being to sell pieces made by members of this forum, both individual and small batch work. The idea came to nothing thru' no fault whatsoever of Doms, but I think if you could find somewhere like that it would be a great start.
One idea put forward by the then editor of F&C Paul Richardson a long time ago now was to use cards in the Post Office window as it's cheap and believe it or not......it works :wink: - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

One idea put forward by the then editor of F&C Paul Richardson a long time ago now was to use cards in the Post Office window as it's cheap and believe it or not......it works :wink:

Some supermarkets offer a similar service.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[lugo35]

This must be something we have all thought about. I certainly have,but not really come up with an answer. unless you make a name for your self people will not pay the price.
I Feel we all sell ourselves short, by not putting the real value on items. forget the cheap imports and chipboard crap, theres no point in trying to sell for these prices.
the idea of us getting together and showing items sounds good to me but its never that easy

 

[BradNaylor]

Byron,

Selling speculative pieces is very difficult. The market in hand-made furniture is almost completely in commissioned work.

Take the side table in your avatar as an example. I think it is a lovely piece of work. If a client asked me to make one I would quote them around £650. They would think that was a lot for a small table but if they really wanted it they would go for it.

If I was trying to sell the same table as a speculative piece however, I would not expect to get more than about £150 for it! Given that there is probably £40 worth of wood and 3 days of work in it that is not a profitable return. £650 though, would be. Just.

The place for speculative pieces is as samples of what you can do when looking for commissioned work. Your table would be a great piece to have in the back of the car when visiting potential clients so that they could have something to see and feel.

And how to find potential clients? I'd start off with a simple website and then cheap local advertising leading people to it.

I'm not going to give away all my trade secrets though! :lol:

Rgds
Dan

 

[devonwoody]

I'm not going to give away all my trade secrets though

Lottery winners and I hear Footballers also have plenty of money to burn these days. :wink:

 

[ByronBlack]

Thanks to everyone so far with their input, it seems then that this low-capacity one-off idea has crossed many peoples minds at some stage. I remember now Dom's venture although I couldnt remember what happened in the end.

Maybe there is an oppurtunty here, i'm perhaps thinking, maybe setup a website and display all the one-off's from people like us and see if that works... other than driving customers to this website, does anyone have any obvious negatives that could scupper such a venture?

 

[Bodrighy]

You need to have a good selection of cheaper items as well as more expensive. The website would be good as an online catalogue of things available and/or to be made. Turned articles (my thing) tend to be a lot cheaper as materials, time taken etc is a lot leass so I can sell things for a couple of quid and still make a profit (keyrings, light pulls etc) If you are thinking of selling the sort of things you are showing on here then you are looking at a fairly exclusive ,market and would perhaps need to show youe wares accordingly.

Thisrefers to woodturning but the principles are probably much the same

Hope this helps

Pete

 

[Adam]

Maybe there is an oppurtunty here, i'm perhaps thinking, maybe setup a website and display all the one-off's from people like us and see if that works...

It would have to be a really high quality website. By that I mean hosted on a good server that was fast. No adverts. Ideally the layout/design needs to be done by someone who is skilled in high-class graphics / layout. All logos would need to be high resolution and again, nice quality.

You can see often see a "home" built website a mile off...

For example, this is a similar but art based website to what you describe

http://www.londonart.co.uk/

I think its probably fairly well though out.

I think you are correct, it could be a good route to a potential market but how would you advertise it? Magazines like Surrey Life, Country House etc etc. The $$$ soon add up.

The website would have to be without shortcuts, no poor quality link to a paypal based payment page etc etc.

Adam

 

[Matt_S]

My wife's having similar thoughts at the moment but with textiles. Starting to make pieces around a basic theme of recycled fabrics.

Thoughts which would apply to furniture;

craft fairs - if you can make a few pieces. But chances of selling anything is probably slim. Take a look at this though, some furniture in here this is a BIG craft fair!

http://www.craftsonline.org.uk/

Shops/galleries - if you're in the right area there are a lot of shops which might take stuff as people have said commision could be high but I think you've just got to go and ask and bargain.

Finally look at this for an idea of what we need in UK.

http://www.etsy.com/

Now I don't think they take furniture and anyway its mainly an American site but it is amazing the way it gives a platform to just what you are talking about albeit for the fabric world rather than furniture. I'd say in todays climate a website for people to sell their work would have as good a chance as success as ever.

 

[woodbloke]

Byron - never thought about a web site, but it sounds promising. Agree with Adam tho' that it would need to be a pretty classy affair - Rob

 

[Chainsaw Nut]

I went to the festival of the tree at Westonbirt this year and it was very interesting.

There appeared to be two standards C**p and superb at the sales stands with virtually no difference in prices.

The area of most interest was to me the Guilds and clubs, being a people watcher in the club tents it was clear that if the items on show were on sale then they would have been snapped up, my rambling then comes to the conclusion that if some people could get together to have a tent there, setup like a club tent that is likely there would be a good market.

My belief is that quality sells, when I went to an Axminster show a couple of years ago one of the tables I saw in the display section I would have bought for whatever the maker asked!

 

[devonwoody]

Have a word with Philly :wink:

 

[ByronBlack]

Adam/Rob, there would be no problem with a quality website. It's what I used to do for a living, and one area where i'm most skilled.

Keep the idea's coming fella's, I can feel something happening in my water!

How would the transaction in terms of holding of stock be done though? Say for example I set something up and display/sell items from you lot, do you ship the item, or do we have a central area to hold all items until sold?

 

[the_g_ster]

This is a very interesting thread.

What about ebay? Has anybody used this at all to sell anything?

You could also try going to a shop that didn't sell furniture but needed something to stage a related product.

For example if you had made something cool for a kitchen and wanted to make more (say a butchers block on wheels etc with storage) you could approach some specialist kitchen shops and lend to them and get them to give out cards with your details on. People that go to independent shops like this will probably love the idea of something different to Ikea and B&Q.

 

[alanc]

I have read this thread with great interest as I have also been thinking of making occasional pieces for sale. Has anyone tried Ebay with a sensible reserve price?[/quote]