Selling Your Work To The Right Person in The Right Place

All of us a crafters would like to know how to sell more of our stuff. We all try hard selling online on etsy, our websites, on facebook and through markets and shops. Recently I've come across a few opportunities that has opened my eyes when it comes to selling my work. I have a wide range of products that I sell at a weekly market, The Milk Market in Limerick City. Even though it has a great footfall and I've tried really hard trying to brand and display my work properly, sometimes I worry that the right type of person isn't seeing my products. For example I might have a cool geeky badge, but because it looks like a girly craft stall a male hipster is not going to stop at my stall. So I lose a sale.

I started thinking more about what type of person would buy each of my items, and then trying to think about where that person shops. I wanted to bring my work directly to the right person, place it under their nose, rather then wait for them to come to me. Here are a few examples of the products that I'm now selling in a different way.

I make an alphabet magnet set for children, they are all my own illustrations, and obviously all handmade. So the kind of person I'm aiming at is probably someone looking to give this as a gift. At a €20 price tag it's not something you pick up on a whim. Also because of the price I'm not aiming towards the Pennys cheap and cheerful buyer. My friend Claire runs Ecobrats an eco friendly business that caters towards a mother and baby's needs. The type of people who buy from her are willing to pay a little bit more for a higher quality product, her customers think about the materials used, and the work that goes into making something. Exactly the type of person who will pay a few quid extra for handmade. On top of the obvious fact that if they are at a baby stall they will be more open to buying baby products. We work together at the market and she kindly suggested to me that she could sell some of my sets, and within an hour she sold a box. Also over the next couple of weeks I will be making christening and new baby cards for her to sell at the stall. She gets a lot of people asking for them. It's better to have them there, rather than if she sent them to my stall they might get distracted by something and forget to come over to me.

About a year ago I invested in a badge maker to make my own pocket mirrors as I was frustrated with ordering them from the US. In the past year it's really helped to expand my business. One thing that I've been really pushing lately is hen party orders. If someone would have said to me this time last year that hen parties would become my bread and butter I never would have believed them. Part of what has helped spread the word was contacting bridal and hen party websites and facebook pages directly. Rather that hoping that prospective brides would find me I went out and hunted them down myself. It was free and very easy, I just sent off a bunch of emails. If websites got back to me and asked me to pay a fee for advertising I politely declined; there are plenty of bridal blogs looking for things to write about that will do it for free instead.

There is a a vinyl stall at the market I sell at. I approached the stallholder a few weeks ago to see if he would mind me putting a board of rock and pop badges at his stall. We go 50/50 on the sales so both of us are happy. Since putting out this board a record shop has approached me about doing a similar deal with them. It was simple idea that grew legs under it-music people go to record stalls, music people love badges-simple! (Note: I know I'm breaking copywrite laws with these, but I figure Bono won't mind about a little stall in Limerick making a few quid, I won't be selling them online, and won't stock anywhere else with them).

 Facebook is an amazing marketing tool. It was Pride week in Limerick last week, I was very disorganised and only made up a batch of Pride designs the day before the parade. But I snapped a few pictures, uploaded them to facebook, and then sent a link of the album directly to the organisers of Limerick Pride, LGBT, and a few others. I had quite a few customer who came to my stall the next day to specifically buy them. After I finished work I pinned all my badges to my canvas bag, walked down to the after party and sold them to people on the street. I figured I'd make a few extra quid on my walk home! Again I went directly to the person who I knew would buy my stuff, rather than wait for them to stumble upon me.

Try to think about what you make, who would buy it, where that person normally shops, and how to get your products into that place. It's all about the right context. Has anyone else had experience with this kind of thing? I love to hear your feedback..

Search Your Own Shop. A Handy Tip for Etsy Sellers

Happy New Year! Anne-Marie from byAmor here with a handy hint for Etsy sellers.

Those of you who buy on Etsy are probably well familiar with the search 'this shop' function.
But it is also something you can put to surprising good use in your own shop, especially if you have a lot, or a growing number, of items listed.



You will find this search mode in the top bar when you go into the public home page of your shop (not in ‘Your Esty’, which is only seen by you.) It wont be much use to you yet if you only have one page of items but the more you fill your shop, the more this simple search can become your friend. I'd like to share a few ways to utilise it.

Straight after the holidays the first thing I did was make sure I had nothing still tagged as Black Friday or Cyber Monday. These were sales I took part in until 14th December. In the box next to 'this shop' I typed in ‘Cyber Monday Etsy’ and hit the search button. Although I thought I’d removed all such tags after the sales, up cropped several items. Oops. Some urgent editting required there.




I decided to keep some items on special offer and add a few more. I made a new shop section titled ‘January Sale’ for them and amended each listing. Afterwards, another quick search for ‘sale’ within my shop reassured me I hadn’t forgotten to move any from their old section. The correct number of items came up, corresponding with the items now in this new section.

Such cross checking isn't a bad thing to do from time to time. When listing something new it isn't that difficult to forget to put the item into a section. A few months back I suspected I was missing an item from the bookmark section. A quick search for the term 'bookmark' helped me dig out the stray one and put it in its rightful place.



From time to time I use this search mode to check the balance in my shop. For example, On Monday I did a search for ‘men’ in my shop....read that as you will ;-)....and learned that I now had only two lonesome items tagged 'men' across my shop. Time for me to rebuild my stock of keychains and bookmarks, or perhaps develop a whole new line for the boys.



A shop search is also helpful when pondering what colours to use in your next project. On Monday this week, a quick search for each colour showed I had, for example, 25 items tagged with black, 5 purple and only 1 white. That helped me decide what to make next; a white beach glass pendant, which by the way, I made in a unisex design so I could tag for ‘men’ too.

Another great use for this search is when linking within your listings. I’m no techy expert, but I understand that linking to other items within your listing descriptions is supposed to help your SEO (or ‘googleability’ as I call it.)



More to the point, it entices buyers to go deeper into the shop. For example, when listing some Connemara marble earrings, I will add in a link to the matching necklace, or to the Connemara marble section of my shop, or maybe the general earrings section. Stats gleaned via Google Analytics lead me to conclude that it is working as people are not bouncing straight out of my shop. However, sometimes I like to link to the less obvious. This is where the shop search comes in handy.

For example, at the bottom of a description for a large, chunky pendant, buyers might like to take a look at other large pieces I have listed. A quick in-shop search in a second browser for the term ‘big’ drums up several statement pieces crossing 3 or 4 sections of my shop. I copy the URL for this search from the very top and paste it at the bottom of my listing. Two sentences long, It's a little clunky looking, but it serves the purpose, making it easier for the buyer to find something they like (I hope!)



Alternatively, I could include a link to all my listings found in the same stone or same matching colour or whatever seems to be a logical step for the buyer. For example, when listing the unisex seaglass pendant, I included a link to items for men. I don't have a section for men so a link to this search is almost like gaining an extra shop section, albeit within a listing.

Once you put yourself into the mind of a shopper, you can discover all sorts of possibilities for linking. However, less is more. If you include more than one or two such links, it becomes confusing and could be off-putting.

These are just some of the ways you can utilise this versatile search function. Obviously, the more you fill up your shop, the more invaluable it can become. I can’t wait to discover new ways to employ it. If you have any ideas, please do post them below.

How-To Tuesday: Market Stalls

Hi this is Ruth from Nice Day Designs. There has been lots of talk recently within the team at meetings and on forums about markets and I realized that after 3 years at trading at a weekly market I may have a few bits of info to impart. There are two sides to doing a market, the nuts and bolts of display, tables, and getting your stall. And also what to do/say to your customers to make the best of your stand. Both aspects have their difficulties, and trust me I've learned the hard way by making every mistake in the book. Later in the week I'll be posting the second half, so stay tuned!

Firstly lets look at the basics, how to get a stall. Lots of people have been asking how can they get a market stall, and is there one basic source of info, and to be honest I'm not sure. In Ireland it mostly seems to be work of mouth, the best advice I can give is go to your nearest market and start talking to the traders. The likelihood is that they sell at a few different locations, and they will be able to tell you which are the best ones, and they'll be honest about footfall. Always try to check out a market before you do it, organisers will promise you the earth, but quite often they deliver very little. Find out things like do you need to supple cover, tables, what is parking like, do they require insurance? The company that I use is IOMST, they do a yearly rate that's very reasonable, most markets insist on it these days so it's just one of those things that you have to fork out for at the start. Also ask the market organiser do they advertise locally, they is no point paying them 50 euro for the day if there are no customers.

Next you need a great display, this can take a long time to figure out, it's taken me years to really figure it out properly. Maybe try to do some research online and at market, take photos of the displays that you like and try to learn from them. Here are some easy pitfalls.

-Don't put all your products flat on a table, people will be walking past and judge what you're selling in about 2 seconds, if it's not visible they will walk on.

-Don't have an empty stand, if there isn't lots to choose from people won't buy. If you don't have lots of work share your stand with a friend. It cuts on cost and it fills up the table better.

-Price your work, people will be afraid to ask if there is no price on it, especially with crafts people always assume that they can't afford it.

To help with creating a better display use risers, I made mine out of notice boards, Tesco are selling them at a really reasonable price at the moment. Buy two of them and put a hinge in the middle so they can be free standing. Also use things like boxes underneath your table cloth to raise the level of the table. Other things like pretty baskets and hat boxes are fantastic for displaying your work in. Shop around in the Euro discount shops, even in the garden or kitchen ware sections, think outside the box for what you can use. Also places like Aldi and Lidl sell mini easels and chalk boards, which can really add to the charm of a display. I got little brightly coloured picnic pots in a pound shop last year and I still get people commenting on how well they look on the stall. If it's possible try to contrast or conordinate the colours of your table cloth to your logo, it will really give your display that extra punch that it needs.

It's a good time of year to go shopping for market equipment, things like fold down tables, chairs and gazebos are all easily available in Argos, B&Q etc, look in the camping and garden sections. In the past I've used fold down tables that are used for wall paper pasting, they are very affordable and the heavy duty one is still working 3 years later. What ever you do if you need to provide your own stall do not buy the one in Argos that is a pole assembly, it is a nightmare to put together and it's useless in Irish weather, it may look like a bargain but trust me it will break your heart (and your back!). At the start try to find a market that is indoors or provides cover for you. For your first market it will be quite daunting to deal with this aspect as well as your display and selling to customers.

Signage is also very important, you want people to remember your brand and know what to call you when talking about how amazing you are later to friends and family! I made my own banner with my sewing machine, but in the past I've used a long laminated sign, that cost about 40 euro from my local printer. Just like with your etsy shop it's good to keep your look consistent, so my banner matches my tags, and my smaller price signs.I got this great stamp on etsy from Jlmould, and it's really helped with my packaging, while keeping my costs low. Also it's essential that you have business cards on hand, they sell little perspex holders for them in Easons. I'll talk more about business cards in the next post about interacting with your customers.

I hope this helps, and if any other readers have market tips I'd love to hear about them, just leave a comment below.