I don’t make stuff to sell but used to run an art / craft gallery and take peoples work to art fairs. So heres my observations if you’re taking work to fair (and its also pertinent if you want shops or galleries to stock your work…..

Think of your work like a litter of puppies. Its easier to find homes for your puppies if people have the whole litter of 8 to choose from. When you’re left with one, not so easy. People need the choice – because part of the decision to buy is choosing your favourite.

Thats the dynamics of selling this sort of stuff so make works in families – similar but unique. If you take a family of 10 pieces to a fair and they’re works that will sell they’ll sell like hot cakes until you’ve got 2 or 3 left. Then those last ones won’t shift (theres nothing necessarily wrong with those three – refresh the stock and they’ll probably sell). But if you only take 3 to start with you’ll struggle to sell anything.

So you need to be well stocked – several ranges of work at different price points and a good choice of each.

You can then have one to two big ticket special items. You won’t sell them but they bring people in – they also establish a value for you more affordable items. They can be a source of a commission too.

Craft and maker markets can be a minefield – a lot are shite and are just an excecise in emptying stallholders pockets.

Craft-buyers are a very particular breed – its a niche of a niche. The kind of person who’d buy contemporary art of craft is within a segment of the market that would also include esoteric hifi collectors, early tech adopters, and so on. Cumulatively all those markets together represents less than 2% of the population. Your potential buyers – as in the people who would go to a craft fair and actually buy something rather than have a look round, chat and have a bit of cake – are a fraction again of that.

Unless the people organising the fair know who they are selling to and are bringing those kind of buyers in then all you’ll actually get are people who like looking at craft. You’ll pay for your stall, they’ll pay an entry ticket then walk around a look, just like they would in a museum. There are a lot of people who like to do that – look, talk and enjoy but leave with nothing.

So you want to be sure the market promoters are shit hot and are bringing actual buyers in amongst that larger group of keen lookers.

Its also wise to target fairs where work is similar to yours in terms of quality and style. If you to a commercial art dealers you’ll notice that the artists they represent are quite same-y. They’ve got a network of buyers who’s taste they know so they present work to them that suits those tastes.

So avoid fairs where buyers would have to get past decoupage kit assemblers and pen blank turners to get to you. It doesn’t matter that your work is better than yours – your buyer will have turned round at the door. Try and find somewhere where you’ll be amongst peers, the more makers like you there are there the more buyers or work like yours there will be.

Lastly – look up your local arts development team – some, but not many, will have support and advice for craft makers and some are very good at marketing and promoting local makers work.

Nice looking products but the prices….

Ignore advice on prices from people who themselves don’t actually buy craft. People who do buy… its an affliction rather than measured decision, they couldn’t advice you either as its not a rational thing to do.

One thing I would add is some of the exhibitors I have seen in craft fairs look a bit grumpy, very few seem to say helo and start a conversation.
I’m sure they loose a few sales !

If your not easily found on the Internet I won’t be buying from you. Etsy and Not on the highstreet are usually my first stops. You need to be Internet savy. If your website feels broken I am certainly not going to be putting my credit card details anywhere near it. I can buy direct from your website yes? But the trouble is, buying online you can’t feel the product so with no reputation (recognisable and known brand name – not something that you can get overnight) I have to decide whether to buy on some photos. Upto about £75 would be possible for me to buy based on this. However, I know that you need to make a living so should probably be looking for a rate of about this amount per hour of work you put in. How efficient are you at making your products? Lots of waste (including time, repairs and reworking) or are you minimising costs and giving yourself time to get your website working and plug yourself on social media? Sorry to sound a bit corporate but in my opinion all this needs to be addressed to make money. I Am Not An Entrepreneur.

As said above most buyers at craft fairs expect quality but aren’t willing to pay for it. They have little idea of the time and hard work put into goods being sold.

I sell my stuff through facebook and a local shop that takes a percentage. Some goods are displayed at home. Once you get your name out there, word of mouth will spread.

The best place for you I believe is selling your products on a sale or return basis in interior design type shops (as mentioned above).

Good luck, because making anything decent at the moment and getting a fair price for it is difficult to say the least.

This Christmas I have my stuff booked into a nice shop that hosts a Christmas fair. They sell on my behalf, taking a cut.
Thus all advertising is sorted.

One fringe benefit of doing craft fairs at christmas – if you’re in amongst a good peer group of makers there tends to be a bit of a swap-mart as the fair ends. A nice way of doing your christmas shopping 🙂

The best place for you I believe is selling your products on a sale or return basis in interior design type shops (as mentioned above).

Given it is being offered sell or return I suppose you offer less of a discount than supply only?

Are we talking 50% off RRP or less given they can send it back if it fails to sell?

We just looked at Salisbury Christmas market and you have to take 7 days (Mon – Sun) @ £90/day Quite an outlay given we have not done a single fair before.

I think your website needs some work. THe photo’s are a bit wishy washy IMO.

Also, your slogan reads a bit weird to me. “Hand crafted” and “Artisan” but when I look at your products they don’t appear to be so (hope that doesn’t offend). Too me they look quite precise and clean cut (maybe a credit to your skills) and perhaps that’s the sort of blurb you should use? I know the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but when I think of handcrafted stuff I always think os something a bit “rustic” and rough around the edges.

something else (which is neither here nor there) was the criss-cross red wire on the lamp; I think it’d look sharper/cleaner/more in fitting with the rest of it, if it just had a solid piece of red wire.

What about trying a really rough, gnarled, unfinished piece of wood for the lamp? I reckon it’d look pretty cool juxtaposed with the nicely finished bits of concrete.

I think your website needs some work. THe photo’s are a bit wishy washy IMO.

Also, your slogan reads a bit weird to me. “Hand crafted” and “Artisan” but when I look at your products they don’t appear to be so (hope that doesn’t offend). Too me they look quite precise and clean cut (maybe a credit to your skills) and perhaps that’s the sort of blurb you should use?

something else (which is neither here nor there) was the criss-cross red wire on the lamp; I think it’d look sharper/cleaner/more in fitting with the rest of it, if it just had a solid piece of red wire.Appreciate the honest feedback. Whilst I have tried my hardest at taking photos using my daughter’s Canon DSLR, I feel the lighting is letting them down. Is that what you are talking about?

My products are all hand made, but I suppose it depends on your definition of hand made. Is using a router by hand to set the hour markers not hand made? What I am trying to get across is that from start to finish every product is unique and made by me.

What about trying a really rough, gnarled, unfinished piece of wood for the lamp? I reckon it’d look pretty cool juxtaposed with the nicely finished bits of concrete.

I am toying with utilising rebar steel as the lamp armature. Should look very industrial.

Its important to keep in mind that the website has a secondary role. For stuff of this nature there are nuances of quality that will never come across on screen – no matter how well photographed – that won’t give someone the confidence to buy. If you’re getting your work shown / seen broadly if fairs, shops and galleries- and the quality is consistent then online sales might come off the back of that.

Whether you are selling yourself direct, or via shops / galleries / dealers keep your prices consistent. They can sell more of your work than you can, but if you piss them off they’ll drop you.

Product looks brilliant. I really like it.
The rest isn’t so good.

You are discounting the price on your own site. This is daft and weak. Don’t do it. You aren’t not selling because of £15. It’s not selling because of poor marketing.

Products need a model name. Not just “mantle clock” or “wall clock”.

Stop being so wishy washy with descriptions. “Although small, these clocks will add a real contrasting focal point to any room in the house!”. I mean wtf.

Stop using “internal language”. “Acid etching the concrete with Hydrochloric Acid reveals the sand particles contained within the cement matrix.”

Pics look fine but some wider shots in contemporary surroundings better.

Facebook ads are killer for promoting this stuff if backed up with website to capitalise.

With Christmas coming you are killing sales with “Note : Please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery as all our products are made to order.”. Which reminds me I need to fix something on my site.

Send me a desk lamp and I’ll put some proper time into this for you. 🙂

Appreciate the honest feedback. Whilst I have tried my hardest at taking photos using my daughter’s Canon DSLR, I feel the lighting is letting them down. Is that what you are talking about?

Yeh, I think it’s the lighting. In fact it must be, I’m no photographer myself though so I can’t comment on camera settings etc. Your products look sharp, but the photos could perhaps convey that a bit better. Some of the clock ones are better though.

Another thing I’ve just noticed; if you go on the products page; the pictures of the clocks are all at slightly different angles, don’t line up and aren’t cropped very well. Hope that doesn’t sound “picky” – it’s not meant to be.

My products are all hand made, but I suppose it depends on your definition of hand made. Is using a router by hand to set the hour markers not hand made? What I am trying to get across is that from start to finish every product is unique and made by me.

🙂 to be fair, my comment was probably a load of bollocks; it’s just what popped into my head when I saw the products and the slogan

Send me a desk lamp and I’ll put some proper time into this for you.

Seriously, I might be open to that idea. I have no idea how to describe any of my products. I am very much a visual person and expressing products in words is something I cannot do.

I agree with all of the points you have made and do feel my site, whilst, aesthetically pleasing to the eye, is lacking real content.

Another thing; doing “price drops” sort of puts me off a bit/cheapens the whole shebang.

If you’re buying stuff like this, you buy it cos you want it and like it, not cos of the price IMO.

I’d just put £115/£95 as the price and get rid of the £150 and % off bits.

You are discounting the price on your own site. This is daft and weak. Don’t do it. You aren’t not selling because of £15

As just a Joe Public view, I also jumped to negative associations with seeing it discounted.

Love the lamp!

Seriously, I might be open to that idea. I have no idea how to describe any of my products. I am very much a visual person and expressing products in words is something I cannot do.

Drop me an email. Coffee is on and the kids won’t get up. And I have shipped all yesterdays trousers.
I’ll write you some words. Just need somewhere to send them.

Another thing I’ve just noticed; if you go on the products page; the pictures of the clocks are all at slightly different angles, don’t line up and aren’t cropped very well. Hope that doesn’t sound “picky” – it’s not meant to be.

Fully get that and when I put so much attention into making the product, I should get the photographs to be just as crisp. I am contemplating spending £50 on a lighting setup from Amazon. At the moment I just rely on natural light, which is in short supply from now on.

Price drop removed. Only did it because I hope I’d get a few more sales. But I get what you are all saying.

‘Acid etching of the lamp base using Hydrochloric Acid is performed so as to expose the underlying sand particles in the cement matrix. This process ensures each lamp is uniquely different.’
I like the ‘flowery’ language – it’s not overkill, it’s quite poetic without being too twee and it backs up why i want this lamp not just any old lamp. (‘Uniquely different’, however, is unforgiveable!) And while your photos are very arty i’d want to see things in context before buying – 5thelefant’s photo is the one that would most make me want to buy.

(‘Uniquely different’, however, is unforgiveable!)

Oops! http://grammarist.com/redundancies/

They don’t look like craft fair products to me. They look higher end like Heals/Camerich/Conran. Why not aim high?
There will be independent shops at that level.
One thing I will say as the target market for that stuff is I dislike red as it’s not a colour that’s currently in favour and is quite dominant, I would look at offering something a bit more subtle and maybe the retro chord and plugs that they do in the lighting bar in heals, old fashioned braided cable etc.
The website pics are not doing the products justice.
A nice quality looking product, you just need to get them in front of people.

(unforgiveable is unforgivable too 😀 )

20 years ago we used to do craft fairs at various farmer type things, county shows etc, lots of people lots of space, and not to pricey, google search steam rallies, county shows etc, also the http://www.concrete.org.uk/ may be able to help , they love publicing their new and great uses of concrete, their also used to be a magazine called the craftsman that listed all trade shows for crafters, we also used to use two craft centres, leave some stuff with them under sale or return and some cards, and offer a % back of each sale etc.

Also try building mags and architect design practices they usually love that sort of quirky industrial stuff, as i do, but out of my price range.

Then theres all the country house type mags, almost advertised in them, but realised we couldnt get enough product made if required.

Best wishes, quirky always sells.

Someone mentions Salisbury Christmas Market. Don’t do it. I know many who have done it and did not return. Winchester is better but still not as good as Cardiff or Bath. Worcester is good but you need to pack down each night which is hassle. Lincoln is probably the best of the shorter markets.

You need to have a practise run at a craft fair.
Also most will ask for public liability insurance (some places will pay this on your first visit).

Also consider farmer’s markets but it has to be a high end place.

At my first craft fair I sold absolutely nothing. The weather was awful and there just wasn’t the footfall. Also the other stuff on sale was best described as tat. It taught me to do some research before hand.

Meant to say, that the shop that sells my products takes a 25% cut.

The fair this Christmas is taking a 20% cut, with a small charge to sell my goods on my behalf.

Someone mentions Salisbury Christmas Market. Don’t do it. I know many who have done it and did not return

Most useful. Thanks

Meant to say, that the shop that sells my products takes a 25% cut.

The fair this Christmas is taking a 20% cut, with a small charge to sell my goods on my behalf.That is much less than I expected and changes my view on trying to get it into some galleries.

Trawl youtube (and others) and look for people on there who have interior design type channels with 100K+ subscribers. Make up a list and send them some free stuff to ‘review’. If they feature it on their channel and put out a link you will be bombarded with online orders.

Don’t be affraid to do some leg work with your products. The worst case scenario would be they throw you out, (not going to happen).

A word of advice – Do not tell them (shop owner maybe) how much it costs you to make/source materials. The people that sell on your behalf aren’t interested, nor are they interested in us bleating on about the amount of time it took you to produce, even if you’re on £3 per hour. The seller just wants the figures and to make profit.

Flanagaj – just out of curiosity do you have to get any kind of electrical safety approvals/ stamps for these lamps?

Loads of really good advice, none to add, but I would second brants advice of photographing in a contemporary interior. Would make a massive difference.

Getting the photography dialed is number one on the list. Just need to source some proper lighting first as trying to do it with standard house lights or natural lighting is impossible.

Flanagaj – just out of curiosity do you have to get any kind of electrical safety approvals/ stamps for these lamps?

Yes. I need to get them PAT tested, but have read on other forums that it is not a legal requirement. I could do with getting an official answer on this though.

You might want to have a read at this.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/electrical-equipment-manufacturers-and-their-responsibilities

Don’t buy a lighting set up. For the “studio” shots ie plain whte backround you would be better off shooting in natural light. Set up a table against a white wall in your garden and photograph like that.

Also I think you should include photographs of your clocks from an angle aswell/instead of face on.

…sunny/overcast see what works for you.

My 2 cents…

Really like the wall clock. £150 is too much for me personally though – but maybe I’m not your market, coz I only spend money on 1) bike stuff and 2) fancy electronics.

Images on your website – a bit meh. You want ‘in situ’ shots in trendy modern houses, y’know with a nice dog passing through looking cool 😉 Seriously though, create value by association with other nice design-y things.

Also, NOTHS would be where I’d expect to see it.

GOOD LUCK!

B

Lots of good advice on here but a few things I don’t think anyone else has raised.

A website (and facebook page) is no good if nobody knows it exists. When you start out it’s as if you’ve opened a shop on the outskirts of town at the far end of a dead end street. You won’t get any “passing trade”. If I search for “concrete clock” on google you don’t show up.

You need to publicise your site to get people to visit – being featured in design/interiors mags or websites is one way to get your site known. Etsy and NOTHS seem to do the same thing. EBay is another option. Google Adwords can work really well – their current offer is £120 free when you load your account with £120. You can set it to spend the money slowly while you find search terms that get you the best return on investment. A bit of spend on Adwords also seems to improve your non-paid search ranking.

For physical shops your products look sharp enough for somewhere like Heals. They do have small production run products – last time I was there they had a fair bit of space given over to refurbed industrial lights. The bent wood house builder on Grand Designs the other week was in Heals.

Pricing. There are cheaper concrete clocks but there are much more expensive designer clocks (a Mondaine Swiss Railway clock is £160 and there nothing special about them). Heals already have a concrete clock on their site

Colours – I agree with the comment above on the red hands. Looks a bit ’80s. The Orange hands on that Heals clock look a lot more contemporary. Lime green or blue would look good too. Is there any reason you can’t offer a choice of colours for cable and hands? The interiors companies all work to the same palette of colours each year – you should think about picking a few colours from that (2017 “predictions“)

Agree on the need for in situ Interiors shots with the clocks. I have just the room to show it off (very modern new build, concrete floor, concrete pendant lights, walnut and ply….)

I’ve not had much dealings with the Crafts Council since about 1994 when I got a truck irretrievably stuck in their front yard….. So I’ve not really looked into their support and promotion activities recently – but they do run a directory of british makers..

I’d say a few quid spent on that – a directory of makers used by craft buyers and commissioners is a bit more targeted as a means of promotion than something like adwords.

Its worth having a good rummage about on their site and see what support and promotion the offer and if theres any regional officers working locally to you. I know they’re involved in both running promotional fairs and taking makers work to fairs internationally and promoting them.

Project mentioned The Concrete Society and I think that this would be a good place to promote your stuff. Why not write an article for their magazine CONCRETE about how you make the clocks, mix design, moulds, acid etching, polishing etc. Your inspiration behind the pieces and possible future projects. Go to the Society website and get the guidlines for magazine contributors, they don’t charge to publish an article. You could give a 50% discount to readers or Society members.

You could also try a stand at the UK Concrete show, they often have concrete hi-fi speakers and furniture etc.

However, I do think that your stuff, nice as it is, is overpriced. There are lots of concrete clocks on Etsy, most of which are half your prices…..

As for the photos, they are are all head on, there’s no indication of the 3 dimensional shape of the clocks, their size and how they hang on the wall.

Finally you don’t mention what clock mechanism is used. Is it one of those cheap as chips battery ones from China? If I was spending your sort of prices, I’d want a better mechanism really.

I’ve been moderately successful at ‘craft fairs’, selling bits and pieces that I’ve made as a hobby really. Can’t be bothered reading the entire thread, so apologies for repeating any thoughts already posted. But I’d say you need to have something very ‘different’ to what others are offering, a Unique Selling Point. You tend to get the same old tat at craft fairs; silver jewellery, hand made soap, various textile things, and often nasty things made from ‘recycled materials’. Thing is, most people don’t really want tat in their homes, so you’re better off with stuff that they actually do want. Which means something of high quality, that isn’t expensive. I developed a bit of a ‘production line’ for my things, which sped up the manufacturing process loads, and enabled me to get a reasonable return on my labour. No good spending 30 hours on something, to then only be able to sell it for £5. My bits were £15-25 ish and took 1-2 hours each to make start to finish. so, combined with their uniqueness’, the attractive price meant they sold very well indeed. I was the most profitable stall holder at my first ever craft fair, and that was with no experience at all! I kept my display simple, and did some stylish price labels (make sure everything is clearly priced, people hate to ask ‘how much’), as well as being able to give good info/background on the items (all made from recycled materials! 😉 ). As for social media etc; I haven’t bothered, because I only do fairs for fun really, but I know others who have used SM, and some have been relatively successful.

But a lot of it’s down to luck. Right place, right time etc. And having confidence in your own products is essential.