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How To Make Things That Will Sell

Whether you are teaching yourself or taking a course, you will experiment a lot on your own, testing new techniques, investigating new materials, and learning new skills. You will experience one of humanity’s oldest and most deeply ingrained urges: the desire to create, to make with your own hands an object that has both an aesthetic and a functional value. Whether you’re making hand-dipped candles or jade pins, the feeling of satisfaction from creating is the same.

This is all very fine, you say, but what about business? You’re not making crafts just for the feeling of self-fulfillment that you get. You want to make some money at it too.

This is where you differ from most of the people who become casually involved with crafts. Most of those in your pottery or ceramics course, for example, want to make pots or paint figurines for relaxation or as a hobby. You are taking up pottery or ceramics with the intention of starting a business and selling your work at a profit.

Whether you’re going to learn your craft as a pleasant way to pass the time or in order to make products to sell, you still have to master the basic techniques of the craft. There’s no real difference there. The important difference between the professional and the hobbyist is in the way you select and design the particular products you make. For example, if you’re involved in woodworking as a hobby, you can make what you please. If you fancy making elaborate sideboards and other big pieces, that’s fine. But if you plan to sell your work, you have to follow the market. You won’t make any money producing big, one-of-a-kind items, no matter how nice they are, if people are chiefly interested in buying small, less expensive pieces like cheese boards or spice racks.

If you plan to sell your work, you have to follow the market.

This applies no matter what stage you have reached in your craft career or what kind of products you are making. A number of friends of mine were formerly enthusiastic amateurs, producing work chiefly for their own pleasure, before they turned to crafts to make a living. In each case, they have had to substantially modify the items they produce in order to make their work marketable on a significant commercial scale.

In some cases, it may be necessary to make a radical change in the products you make if you want to be successful in the marketplace. This happened to Arthur and Betty Allthumbs. They started out by making elaborate pieces like sideboards and chests with carved oak panels. Their work was extremely impressive and beautifully done. It got a lot of attention at craft shows, but few buyers.

Arthur and Betty made numerous efforts to promote their work. They exhibited frequently, had brochures printed, and set off their displays with attractive props, including flowers, vases, and stuffed toys. Still, they sold only a few pieces here and there, not enough to make a living from their craft. Worse, from Arthur’s point of view, was that people kept wanting to buy their “lovely” props, especially the stuffed toys that Betty made to advertise their work.

Finally, they realized they had been ignoring an excellent opportunity. Betty increased the number and variety of toys she made. It was not long before Arthur’s carved chests and sideboards became booth fixtures for displaying the stuffed toy animals. Soon, Arthur joined forces with his wife to produce the new product line. Within a short time, the couple built up a substantial business producing handmade stuffed toys.

If you want to make any money selling your work, you must produce with your eyes fixed firmly on the market. You must have a quality product to begin with, but you must also produce what is marketable if you expect to make a living from your craft.

You don’t usually have to go to the extreme of switching to a completely different medium as Arthur and Betty did. There will be a market for your work in virtually any of the main craft categories, provided you are producing the right product. But in order to do this, you first have to test the market.

a. Market Research

You may think market research is only for big companies with big budgets, while all you want to do is sell a few pots or handknitted sweaters. You can go ahead and sell a few pots or handknitted sweaters and not bother about researching the market. But if you really want to sell significant quantities of a product and make substantial profits, you have to know the market; that is, you have to know what people want to buy.

Your research need not be expensive or time-consuming. You will certainly find it worth the time and effort to find out what you can about potential markets before you start producing goods for sale.

Your research need not be expensive or time-consuming.

Aim to find out as much of the following as you can:

(a) What are the possible retail outlets in your immediate area? (Look at chapter 8 on marketing for the different types of stores that carry handcrafted products.)

(b) Who are the typical customers of these shops? What are their approximate income levels? Are they mainly men or women? If, for example, you are producing clothing accessories like scarves and handbags, you would expect to be selling mainly to women.

(c) Is there a significant tourist trade in the area or do the stores cater chiefly to the area’s residents? If tourists are important, try to think of products that may easily be identified with the area. For example, products with a nautical theme are usually popular with tourists in coastal areas.

(d) What kinds of prices are being paid for products similar to the ones you plan to make? How important a factor is price? A few handmade products are true luxury items and price is not a major factor in determining whether they will sell, but most products are more price sensitive.

(e) Is your type of product affected by fashion? Most clothing items are.

(f) 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.