Websites

[Stigmorgan]

Hey guys, so i got December's sales report from the shop I have space in and it's really not good, my.profit after rent and commission is £44.95 for the month so I've decided to call it and have given my notice to leave at the end of January, I've been thinking about shutting the table down for a while, from starting the shop 5th December 2023 to the end of November 2024 I've only made £161.50 profit and that's only because for 2 of those months I paid for rent with handyman work in the shop and back rooms.

So, to the subject of this post, I'm considering other options and one of those is a website, something I have zero knowledge about so would those of you with such knowledge share? I want to know the good and the bad, primarily, at the minute I want to know what the costs are likely to be monthly/yearly.
I've decided against Etsy, I've watched a lot of videos on YouTube and they're 99% horror stories

 

[Sachakins]

Unless you have the software skills and knowledge, then your only options are to pay a designer to do one for you or to use a self build site like SquareSpace or "godaddy" etc, some of these will even register your domain name and even a hosting service on their servers, some also include the setting up payment services, ie PayPal direct from your pages.

Obviously, once beyond a basic template design, adding extra using their services will increase your monthly costs.

Getting a site up and running really is almost childsplay with today's tools.
The bigger problem comes trying to get the sight noticed on the first page of a search of the Internet.
You can pay/sponsor to get up in top 10, but that's not cheap. Companies can and do pay staff or agency to do SEO, Search Engine Optimisation, to get into page one results as often as possible.

So getting on the Web with your nice new site can be cheap, easy and quick. But getting the site put under people's noses is the difficult bit and often expensive bit too.

Also the new rules around online selling have been tightened up now. So if you sell online on a platform and sell more than 30 items or you get paid more than £1000 selling stuff then the platform now has to notify HMRC directly. Where deemed necessary HMRC will require a self assessment tax form be submitted by you.

 

[Iain Allen]

It depends if you want an online web shop or just a website to have an online presence to advertise your work or services.

I use a website builder/shop called Wix to sell products directly to customers.
There are various pricing plans and packages depending on exactly what you want. I just have one of their small packages which is about £200 per year and I've been happy with them for the last 8-10 years.
I found it easy to build a website on their platform with lots of help and advice available on the website to make things easier.
They can help supply a website name or Domain Name and I think they can supply web hosting. I have my Domain Name and Web Hosting registered somewhere else but only because I had them before I started using Wix so I can't comment on how good those services are.
They also offer various ways to accept payments through the website.

Another company I considered at the time was IONOS but there's a number of options.

 

[--Tom--]

Am I right in thinking the shop is passive sales- that is, you drop off pieces and they handle everything else? If so and it’s turning a profit then I’d leave it running whilst you set up online. Think of it as gallery space that you can use to drive web traffic- a few qr codes and a pile of cards/flyers with the url will help.

Do you already use Instagram? If not that’s a platform where you can post pictures and videos of the items and the making of them. I don’t have a webshop but have been contacted quite a few times to buy the things I’ve posted- and I know quite a few craftspeople that have used the site to build awareness of their brand.
It’s morphing a bit, as all online platforms do, but has been great as a way for craftspeople to post what they’re up to on a global platform.
It does take effort though if you want it to represent your brand - have a dedicated profile for just that, post regularly, and try to make the content engaging and show the things you make off to their best.
In your profile you can then include a link to your website to drive traffic.

Website itself is then going to be a direct overhead that is unlikely to drive any sales for a while as you will need to get people to the website, and then to find something they want and trust the site enough to give their financial information.
This means the site will need great product photography- do you have a light box etc to ensure the images are great. You’ll also want payment integrations to trusted intermediaries - PayPal, Google pay, Apple Pay etc. Even more so as when registering the domain as an individual you’ll probably want the private option that won’t list your personal details on the registration- so if anyone checks the site it’ll show as being registered in some weird tax haven part of the world that the registering intermediary uses.
All of this will cost money on a recurring basis- often places give you a heavily discounted first 6-12 months so the main cost to you is time - but after that £ costs ramp up

Final thing to consider will be creating a mailing list where you can send out a what’s new email once a month to tempt people to buy, that will probably be your most powerful way to drive sales.

It can work, but compared to dropping a box of turnings at a shop every now and again and collecting a cheque it’s going to be a lot more work. When you have free time do you want to be turning or sat at a computer?

 

[Terry - Somerset]

One I knew would rent a stall in a Xmas market which would run from around mid-November to Xmas. This would mean that he could turn for a year (the odd craft fair aside) and put the effort into selling at the busiest time of year.

However I assume this is not an option as you have a full time job. Reading the other posts did lead me to wonder whether the issue is not that the shop table concept is wrong, but you may have picked the wrong shop - position, passing trade, other products being sold, customer base etc.

Before changing to that which will divert a lot of time into admin and IT activity, it may be worth considering whether a different outlet in a different location could perform better - more [rosperous, tourist trade, etc.

 

[stuckinthemud]

Thanks for raising this Stig. It is a subject I often ponder having done the craft-fair thing a lot back in the day and never sold very much at all I had a cousin who ran a successful craft shop as a pro turner. He said it’s about footfall and product placement but maximised sales by selling straight off the lathe- demonstrating in the shop - punters liked buying the grass-vase they watched being made. Embedded video links do the same job.

 

[Stigmorgan]

It is passive as far as the sales go but I have to arrange and maintain my display space myself so have to try get over there every couple of weeks at least and whilst I did make a profit over the year it barely averages out to £12 a month, individually there were 5 months that lost money.
The first few months were ok but I suspect that's partly due to there only being 20 crafters selling in there, now there are almost 60 and although I am the only woodturner in the shop i struggle to compete and it's in an area that isn't a huge draw for new people so it's generally the same people passing through every day, the whole shopping centre is being torn down and redeveloped in 3 years too so footfall isn't likely to improve either.
There are other shops but many of them usually require the crafters to work in the shop too, plus as I don't drive none are easy for me to get to, the one in Farnborough is relatively easy to walk to and I get a lift back from the lady who runs the shop so that I'm back in time for work at 5.30.

I do have instagram although I need to get better at keeping it updated and improve my photo skills.
I'm quite fortunate that my job is part time split shift, 7till 12 and 17.30 till 18.30 so I do my turning in the afternoons, spending the evenings updating profiles/websites isn't an issue, that's currently when I'm most bored as SWMBO insists on killing off her braincells watching Coronation St and Emmerdale.

 

[stuckinthemud]

It might sound a bit left field but I suggest watching BBC Make it at Market, not for the crafting but for the commercial advice, I found it enlightening. A lot of it boils down to being proactive- newsletters, mailing lists, Tik Tok, Instagram, seasonal emails to past customers, target the markets you attend and take a lathe or items for finishing and someone to shmooze the potential customers. People buy from people they like. Consider who will be there and what will they be looking for- cooking show?take kitchenware. Garden Centre? Then robins, dibbers, plant pot covers……visit some actual galleries and steal their display ideas (and prices) I died inside when I saw how massively undervalue I rate my carvings when I visited a Welsh craft shop last week. Seriously, my stuff is 1/3 what it should be, which just screams “cheap tat “ at the customer not “high quality artisan”….

 

[Stigmorgan]

Thanks for raising this Stig. It is a subject I often ponder having done the craft-fair thing a lot back in the day and never sold very much at all I had a cousin who ran a successful craft shop as a pro turner. He said it’s about footfall and product placement but maximised sales by selling straight off the lathe- demonstrating in the shop - punters liked buying the grass-vase they watched being made. Embedded video links do the same job.

I've not had much luck with the few fairs I've done this year, one 2 day event clearly hadn't been advertised as nobody came, by 2pm the first day we packed up and didn't bother going back, those that did go back said they didn't do much better than the 1st day. The next event was a total wash out with so much wind and rain that I spent the whole 6 hours holding the gazebo down and at the end of the day was left with 60% of my stock covered in white marks from the rain getting on them, the next was a small local school Christmas fair where again I made zero sales, the only success was my schools fair, I would like to do a proper 2 or 3 day craft fair just for the experience but they are a lot of money, one 2day event I looked at was £750 for space that would hold a 6ft table.

I don't expect to get rich from woodturning, after all it's a hobby, but it would be nice to bring in enough to buy a new tool or piece of equipment now and then or save up for a better lathe eventually.

 

[stuckinthemud]

It is sad to say but that is exactly my experience. I looked on it as a nice day out with like-minded people. I usually lost £20 per show. Unless you are selling food, that is. A friend makes incredible chocolate brownies and cakes and makes £350 to £500 per craft show before costs but even so that boils down to less than half that after costs. Even he is very careful in selecting the events he attends. He had a stall at a car show, for instance and made a substantial loss.

 

[Stigmorgan]

It might sound a bit left field but I suggest watching BBC Make it at Market, not for the crafting but for the commercial advice, I found it enlightening. A lot of it boils down to being proactive- newsletters, mailing lists, Tik Tok, Instagram, seasonal emails to past customers, target the markets you attend and take a lathe or items for finishing and someone to shmooze the potential customers. People buy from people they like. Consider who will be there and what will they be looking for- cooking show?take kitchenware. Garden Centre? Then robins, dibbers, plant pot covers……

I actually enjoyed that program when it came out.
I usually leave the sales talk to SWMBO, she is much better at chatting and being friendly than me
Would love to have a lathe to take to shows but that would require a huge financial outlay, a 2nd lathe with stand and equipment, safety screens, upgrade to liability insurance, generator and fuel for places without a power point available, I'd also struggle to fit it all in the car with my stock, table & display.

 

[Stigmorgan]

It is sad to say but that is exactly my experience. I looked on it as a nice day out with like-minded people. I usually lost £20 per show. Unless you are selling food, that is. A friend makes incredible chocolate brownies and cakes and makes £350 to £500 per craft show before costs but even so that boils down to less than half that after costs. Even he is very careful in selecting the events he attends. He had a stall at a car show, for instance and made a substantial loss.

I think food will always sell, especially at fairs that require a ticket to enter, it's a captive audience and they generally don't mind spending a little more on food during a day out, woodturned items of any kind are little more than luxury items, something I completely understand and accept.
A friend of mine does a lot of fairs/events, he has a mix of turned and other woodwork, his work is amazing and he has had weekend events that didn't cover his costs and some he has sold out of stock, even the same event can be good one year and bad the next.

 

[stuckinthemud]

If not a lathe, then something, fine finishing, or applying wax/oil, or anything that customers can start a conversation around- anything to get people to take a look until swmbo can pitch them something - one carver I saw had his grandsons sanding spoon bowls, while another set up a carving station a lot like a breadboard with a dozen gouges and a complicated whittling trick -ball-in-cage or whatever - and his wife sold to anyone who stopped to ask what was being made