Modish Biz Tips

Photo Styling Tips on Mint!

Mint design blog played host to an awesome photo styling tutorial by Kim Ludy of Trampoline last week that I thought you'd be interested in. I LOVE Kim's product photos and featured her on Modish the moment I found her shop because I thought they were so fantastic (not to mention her selection of goods is equally fantastic!)

I guarantee that her photos are a huge part of her success in selling online as I know they make me want to purchase everything. Honestly! And good news is, she's not a pro photographer- she taught herself how to take these gorgeous photos after lots of practice. So yep, you can teach yourself too.

If you're interested in learning tips on how to take well-styled, blog-feature worthy photos for your own shop, hop on over to Mint to check out Kim's tutorial.

*And for more photo-taking inspiration, take a peek at the "picture perfect" category on Modish- it features examples of unique and compelling product photography to help give you some ideas on making your photos stand out.

Selling your work in stores- Wholesale & Consignment Basics, Part 2

{storefront of Of Cabbages & Kings, from a past Modish shop tour}

We covered selling your goods on consignment yesterday if you missed it, and now it's time to talk wholesale! This is just gonna cover the basic basics for people who are just starting out, interested in selling their work in retail shops and want to know more information about what it's all about.

What is wholesale all about?

To sell wholesale means that a retail shop buys items from you in bulk at a discounted rate. Once the shop purchases the items, they own them and it is their responsibility to try to sell them or keep them if they do not sell. This means they're only going to want to purchase items that they feel cater to their target market, that are the right price point for their shop, that fit in well amongst the rest of the items they carry yet are different than anything else they already have, that their competing shops in the neighborhood don't also carry & what they have enough money to purchase at the moment!

There's a lot of variables that go into which items a boutique decides to purchase, so if you approach them and they are not interested in your goods, remember to not take it personally!

But before you start approaching shops at all, or saying "yes, I sell wholesale!" to those that may approach you, you'll need to arm yourself with a few things first:

Selling your work in stores- Wholesale & Consignment Basics, Part 1

{photo of Little Otsu, a shop in San Francisco- from a past Modish shop tour}

Selling your work wholesale or on consignment is often the next step for independent artists and designers- it can help you expand your business and sell more and it's pretty cool walking into your favorite little boutique to see your items sitting on the shelf next to all the other pretty things. So, where to begin? 

First, let's start with consignment: (wholesale info is here!)

To sell your goods on consignment means that you get paid by the shop only upon the sale of your items- essentially, you retain ownership of your items until they sell, the store does not buy them outright. This is often the easiest way to get your products into a store and is a good first step if you're just starting out.

Consignment is beneficial for shop owners and designers alike: it allows shop owners to fill their shops with items at no upfront cost to them and lets them test out the saleability of your goods to their customers. For you, it's beneficial as you retain a higher % of the sales price on your items than you would selling via wholesale (or, you should!) while also testing our your saleability in different markets, and getting exposure in retail shops.

You pay the shop a commission on the sale of your items, as they are working to help market, display and sell your items in the best way possible.

The Consignment Agreement:

When you enter into a consignment relationship with either an online or brick and mortar shop, you need to make sure you receive a consignment agreement from the shop. This should outline:

Wholesaling Insider- An interview with Jess LC

{photo of Meet Me at Mikes shop- from an old Modish shop tour}

This week we'll be talking about selling your work via wholesale and consignment. We're going a little backwards, starting with an interview on wholesale today, back to wholesale basics tomorrow and then onto consignment stuff Thursday, but we do things to the beat of our own drum around here, right?

So, to start us off, we have an interview with wholesale pro, Jessica Constable of Jess LC jewelry. She's sold her jewelry in over 150 shops and boutiques over the last 9 years and has been working on her jewelry line in Chicago full time since 2007. Today she's here to offer us a little insider info about successful wholesaling!

I know you've been selling your jewelry since you were just 15! How did you get started selling your jewelry wholesale to shops?

When I started it was really pretty simple. I would walk in the store and start a friendly conversation with the sales staff. I would also mention that I designed jewelry and would like to meet the buyer or owner of the store. If they were receptive to the pieces of jewelry I was wearing or to a few samples I brought, they would usually have an impromptu appointment then, or they would set a date for me to show them the full line. It was pretty easy to tell whether the owner was interested in my pieces or not in the first five minutes.

Another thing I did in the beginning was consignment - where the store split the retail price with me 50-50, and I only got paid once the jewelry sold. Any unsold merchandise was later returned to me. Now I have sales reps who sell my line for me and I pay them commission.

If a designer wants to approach a shop about carrying their work, what are the proper steps to take?

Setting Up Shop: Handmade Marketplace Comparisons

{photo by psd}

So, you want to open up shop but you're not quite ready to host your own website and the thought of learning html of any sort gives you the shudders? Well, you may want to start out opening a shop through a marketplace site.

Marketplaces offer easy shopping experiences for you and the customer both. They provide built in traffic, help through forums and other community members, often have traffic stats and blogs included, and other perks.

They're a great way to test the waters when it comes to selling your own handmade goods so you can see if you're making the type of items that people will actually want to buy! They're inexpensive, usually free to join with minimal fees charged upon the sale of your items and easy as pie to set up and get started.

Here's a rundown of some of my favorite handmade marketplace sites so you can see which ones might work best for your products and your target customer base.

Etsy

Etsy is probably the largest and most well known handmade marketplace on the web today, and it's still growing! Described as "your place to buy & sell all things handmade" it's super easy to set up a little shop of your own featuring your handmade goods (they also allow you to sell vintage goods and crafty supplies.) All you have to do is register for free and you can start setting up shop!

The deets:

• It costs $.20 cents to list an item + a 3.5% transaction fee upon the sale of the item.
• You can have up to 5 different photos for each item + a description, a policy page, profile
• Payments processed through paypal, check or money order
• Open to international sellers
• Tracks traffic stats with google analytics
• Has a large community with forums and tons of resources to help you improve your shop and make it a success
• Built in traffic, large customer base, daily features of shop sellers by etsy admin on front page and featured sellers each week. Etsy works hard to help connect you with fellow shop owners and customers alike.

1000 Markets

1000 Markets is one of the newest handmade marketplaces. It's centered around "markets" that group 2 or more shops under various themes, like "foodcrafters marketplace" and "inspired by nature", for example. It looks really nice and clean and is open to people selling handmade goods only.

What To Do When Sales Slow Down (Don't sing the Bad Economy Blues)

{photo by Kevin Dooley. Does your shop seem a little deserted lately?}

I know many of us have noticed a slump in sales over the last few months and that's of course understandable, given the state of our economy. But just because big businesses are collapsing, doesn't mean your micro-business has to, too.

In fact, you're probably in better shape to stay afloat in this situation than the big guys are. Check out this Harvard Business article about Why Small Businesses Will Win This Economy, and US News' look at Starting a Small Business in a Bad Economy and how you can still make it successful.

There are plenty of things you can do to help keep both your sales and your chin up during these tough times. For instance:

Focus on marketing yourself

Maybe when you were busier you were too overwhelmed with shipping out orders to even have to think about placing and ad or asking a blog to write about you. When times are flourishing, customers seem to just come find you.

But if you find yourself with more time than sales on your hands right now, use it to actively market yourself and spread the word about your business. Keep up on your blog posts, send out a newsletter this month, create a press kit, place some ads on blogs that serve your niche (you can get some pretty good traffic coming in for as little as $20 a month!), email bloggers and introduce yourself, collaborate with other creatives on special projects... Now is the time to focus on getting in contact with people, making connections and really working on getting yourself "out there."

Remember the customers you already have

The people most likely to buy from you, are people that have bought from you in the past. It's easier for someone to decide to spend their money on you when they already know exactly what they're going to get out of their purchase.

Your past customers know the quality of your items, they know how good your customer service is, they know the cute little gift wrapping everything comes in... Get in touch with them and remind them about your business and what you have to offer, maybe even offer them a special discount or incentive with purchase or with a referral. Don't forget about the customer base you've already worked hard to build up.

Offer an incentive with purchase