selling wooden toys

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Well, as I have been asked by PM how it was going, I thought I would share it and can only say ..badly. I haven't been in a position yet to try and get this off the ground, various family problems and a job have got in the way.

Total sales so far is ' 0 ' :(

I need to find a marketing strategy (apparently) and this kind of thing is not my strong point. We are hoping to start doing some craft fares soon but the ones we have visited recently have been very poor and I really don't think are worth the money.

This will work, there is no place for failure within this organisation.....

Any marketing pro's out there.......please help!

Paul
 
Maybe time to embrace the dark side ?

Ebay / Amazon might be the work of the devil but they have the traffic.
 
Only a matter of a (short) time before someone mentions Ebay/Amazon.

Both have massive traffic, both have harsh rules re selling, both are expensive, both reward dishonest behaviour from customers by penalising the seller, both encourage a lazy, depend on someone else sort of marketing. Both have become pile it high and never mind the quality/price.

I'm not knocking Ebay/Amazon but people need to be realistic about what they provide. Too often the inexperienced just plunge in and get burnt. The major electronic shops are very cynical and hardened about Ebay/Amazon.

There are alternatives.

1) have your own web site + prices+purchase from site....promote the hell out of it, mention it everywhere on paper, emails, web sites, forums, blogs etc etc

2) Consider who your market is. Draw up a single page description of them all...1) family, friends, community(ies) 2) other parents with young children (local or remote) 3) gift givers 4) birthday givers, 5) Easter givers 6) Xmas givers 7) Grandparents 8) Celebrating a new child being born 9) Club members 10) Womens clubs/groups 11) Car boot markets 12) Church fairs 13) Craft fairs 14) Toy fairs.......make you own list

Then ask the question.....where will they go to buy toys....when will they buy....

Alternative auctions Gumtree (ebay owned), ??

Facebook to promote
Twitter to promote
Flavour of the month web sensation

Local papers......Give a few away to worthy cause and get reported, run a community competition for toys, have a buy 7 get one free offer, sell some and give to support a local event/scheme and get reported.

The beauty of all these is that many can be local and community based ( I take a broad view of what is community(ies) AND all feed off each other. So the facebook becomes a web page, the blog becomes a facebook entry etc etc etc.

Check out craft fairs, get opinions on them as some are rubbish, some are great. Timing is everything Xmas, Easter, Birthdays, bank holidays, etc etc etc you might take 12-18 months to settle on a round of craft fairs and some are expensive ie £25+ per place...what!.

I assume you are not seeking to make a fortune but to make a few 000's maybe.

The object of marketing is not to obtain sales ( but sales do happen) but to find and attract customers who may become buyers. So they have to be right for the product, ready for the product and want the product.

Please forgive the simplistic approach but you do not need a strategy you need a suite of tactical actions to execute and try out.......once you have an idea who your target customers are.

I once saw a stall set up on the inside of a low garden wall overlooking and reachable from the pavement. It was loaded with perfumes etc. It was also on the opposite of the road from a Morrisons supermarket. Recognition 70%, actual customers 20%.....now how many people go to Morrisons on a Saturday? and will hop over the road to have a look and buy...? Thats about being opportunistic....a good habit.

regards
Alan
 
Hi
just like to say Hi all, but in particular to "Nagden". Strangely enough I live in Normandie too and am very interested in setting up a toy making enterprise. I realise this thread is 3 yrs old now but if Nagden happens to see this post I would very much like to touch base to see how things turned out.
As a newbie I am not allowed to send PM's yet by the way. Thanks in advance.

Trevor
 
Oddly enough I made a reasonable living making and selling toys. It's a few years ago now (stopped in 1980 thank you mrs thatcher) but I don't suppose things have changed that much.
What made it work was doing it in multiples. 100s at a time, never quite 1000s. You really need to do long runs to get things sorted out in terms of design and production.
I think this applies to most makers of anything.
So if your design is any good and you want to sell them, START by making 10 of them, don't just stick at one. The 10th will be better than the first. By the time you have made 100 they will be really sorted out.

PS and if you have 10 of them you have your first stock and can deliver promptly. Ideally you should always have stock in hand and not be making to order. It's the other side of "cash flow" - hitting the ground running.

PPS What has changed of course is that selling has never been easier. Ebay, Amazon, Etsy, your own web site, for starters with very little investment, low mark up etc. But you have to investigate every opportunity - including the worst option of all; selling to a retailer. You never know!
 
Hi Mike, thanks for the PM. I am still not able to send PM's. I see from one of your other posts you are in Bocquence..... what a coincidence, I am in Gauville the other side of La Ferte Frenel.
 
Hi Trevor. Yes that is me. I am busy this week but I go to the bar in La Ferté Frenel on a Sunday morning for a coffee. If you fancy a chat I will be at the PMU bar at 8.

Very good post Jacob. Batch production and keeping production cost to the minimum is the key.

Mike
 
nagden":2t9y668c said:
.. Batch production and keeping production cost to the minimum is the key.

Mike
Costs yes, but the main benefits are in having stock and in developing the product. It's much easier and more efficient to be making for stock rather than matching orders and it brings in the money sooner rather than later (cash flow).
 
Jacob":1e19i6oo said:
nagden":1e19i6oo said:
.. Batch production and keeping production cost to the minimum is the key.

Mike
Costs yes, but the main benefits are in having stock and in developing the product. It's much easier and more efficient to be making for stock rather than matching orders and it brings in the money sooner rather than later (cash flow).



Making for stock actually accelerates your cash outflow because you have to buy the raw materials to make your batch of 100 items and you don't get money in until you start selling them.Of course, if your material costs are not significant and the opportunity cost of your labour in making the items is not excessive then this may be a worth doing.

The argument for making a large batch because the last item you make will be better than the first actually means that if your quality is not right when you start, perhaps you should not be selling the first items you produce.

As for marketing, if you want to make a decent margin on your stuff then you should stress the hand made/ locally made/ locally sourced materials / personalised nature of what you sell and not try to compete with Chinese tat on eBay. There is always a temptation to undervalue what you do and sell at a discount to get some sales in. That road leads to ruin because whatever you may think when the market is used to seeing items sold a low price it is extremely difficult to ramp those prices up. Market your stuff as being different, don't be defensive about higher prices and be confident in what you are doing.
 
Inoffthered":3dbwzboq said:
..
Making for stock actually accelerates your cash outflow because you have to buy the raw materials to make your batch of 100 items and you don't get money in until you start selling them.
But it accelerates your cash in-flow too, which, if you are making a profit at all, should be much more than you are spending. And it's good practice to be able to produce the stuff pronto when you get an order, as well as the other advantages.
Toy selling can be very seasonal. It's important to keep banging them out when things seem slack
The argument for making a large batch because the last item you make will be better than the first actually means that if your quality is not right when you start, perhaps you should not be selling the first items you produce.
It's not "an argument" it's a simple fact of making - for just about any product. Yes maybe early examples should be given away or dumped. If you keep doing it and the price is high enough they will improve.
 
Interesting discussion this, thanks all. I too have interest in making toys, but NOT to sell for profit. Whatever the "rights & wrongs" of Jacob's point about batch production, his basic point makes sense to me and that is one reason why I don't particularly want to make for sale - the thought of making a batch of 10 off (never mind 100 off) turns me right off personally - I'm making just for fun and doing more than one or two of the same would (to me) be worse than working in a factory!

But that's just me.

For those who don't know about it, there's a US Forum that specialises in toy making, and as well as hints and tips of all sorts (tools, finishing, materials, etc, etc) they also sell good down-loadable plans of all sorts at reasonable prices (.pdf format).

There are several members on there who also sell their toys in various ways, with a couple of interesting videos containing hints and tips on marketing, fairs, etc. While they are (of course) oriented to US markets and methods, with a bit of "filtering" they may well be of interest to "professional" toy makers here. BTW, the general consensus there agrees with Jacob's point about batch production.

So FWIW, here's a link:

http://www.toymakingplans.com/index.php

HTH anyone who's not heard of this site before. As per here, it's free to join their Forum.

AES
 
I didn't know about that one, thanks Jacob, bookmarked.

(I can't see me ever being good enough to join a proper Guild of any sort, but interesting nonetheless).

AES
 
Talking of batches - ring turning is very traditional, farm animals being the number one.
These here are a bit posh but they are much more common than you'd think.

da86d5526e7699ef259c2bce51ef8fd2--wood-lathe-tree-rings.jpg


https://www.pinterest.co.uk/mytradition ... login=true
 
Soooo? Is anyone making toys in some volume, with a CE mark. Please tell us and how you have got on with the issues such as record keeping, Certificates of origin and compliance with BS EN 61 etc.
 
Check out Cristian Werner's You Tube video making a horse. Yes, I know it's in German, but the humour coulkd almost be British. Worth 4 mins of my time

Phil
 
Re Jacobs linked image:-
da86d5526e7699ef259c2bce51ef8fd2--wood-lathe-tree-rings.jpg


Even the artisan turner is pushed to match the output of the shop next door turning them out in spiral form from complete logs.
scuptured-turning.jpg


And Yes there are still many traditional workshops with lathes as basic as the ones in the image still trying to compete with the smaller batch work. (Seiffen Germany)
 

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Just a coincidence in the light of this current (re-awakened) thread - yesterday's edition of our regional newspaper published the article shown below. A summary of some interesting points mentioned in the article:

1. This bloke lives just down the road from me, is a retired electronics engineer, is 72, and started up 5 years ago. He says he's NOT trying to make a "proper, paying business" out of his work.

2. He works out of a 5 M x 5 M double garage shop, as shown. Not shown is a separate storage room (size not quoted), said to be "piled high" with cartons of "finished" (my?) toys ready for sale.

3. He started out with an own-design money box/coins "rollway" 40 cm high, similar to the 2 shown in photo 5 below. This he made for a grandchild, "and other orders soon followed". He says all of these 20 or so different designs are individual in either form and/or colour, and he will NOT do series/batch production. (Makes you ask that if all his work is made in 1 offs, what's inside all the cartons stacked up in the store room - half-finished toys he's made on spec?).

4. The average sales price of such toys is CHF 185 he says (about 150 quid at present exchange rate). Just for some info/perspective, typical labour rates here for unskilled workers such as a cleaner or jobbing gardener are CHF 50 to 70/hour, and our local garage (main dealer) charges CHF 120/hour for servicing our Peugeot.

5. The tipper truck in photo 3 is clearly a scale model more than "just" a toy (even I recognise this - very popular here - 1950s/'60s vintage truck). He made it to special order from a local transport company who used to run these Saurer trucks - presumably as some sort of gift for someone important. How he found this customer is not said, nor the price.

6. He was asked to make the fire engine shown in photo 4 for the retiring chief of the local village volunteer fire brigade. It's not said how much he charged, but he visited the fire station to photograph the engine, it consists of 780 parts and took about 200 hours to make that 1 M long model.

7. He says that he personally, and most of his adult customers prefer "real wood, wax, etc, finishes", but children prefer bright primary colours. He says he has no problems selling against the brightly coloured plastic and wooden toys available in places like Aldi and Lidl (my note, around Christmas time those places, and other supermarkets here, sell wooden toys for typically between CHF 20 and 40) - "but my customers appreciate the individuality, craftsmanship, and robustness of my toys" he says.

8. Nothing is said about how he finds his customers, his numerical output or financial turnover, but he says he has no web site and doesn't want one.

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In the light of the comments above, and recent posts here in this Forum (in several different sections) in similar vein, but about furniture making, scrolling, turnery, etc (look for separate posts from people like custard, Claymore, CHJ, and others), the single most important point that I take from all this is that for me, I'm glad I don't want to even try to make a living from such work

Thank goodness that for me, making a "real living" is not necessary, and if it was I would definitely NOT be trying any such work to pay the mortgage and feed the kids.

For me, if I want to sell the odd piece occasionally, that's a good way of making me just "feel good", and/or possibly contributing towards a new tool, or buying some nice wood. But for a living - I wouldn't even try.

That's my take on all this, FWIW.

AES
 

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