I have no plan

I have a couple of life mottos. One of them is ‘everything is always over in the end’ and the other I adopted after seeing it on a wall at said author’s house in Milton, Australia.

dsc01718.jpg

I have no plan.
I make minute~by~minute my plan.

– Stuart Wilde

So, today is shop update day. I sold three things at the market and sat with bare feet in the mud for five hours. It had started out hot and sunny but the ground was sodden – not ideal for the purple suede campers. I secretly love going barefoot and did it a couple of times in London when certain shoes became unbearably painful.

It was great fun hanging out with Tammy and as usual there was much uncontrollable laughter – particularly when erecting and dismantling an unfamiliar canvas gazebo in the pouring rain. We had a really cool day actually – Tammy and I always have a blast even if we are sitting in the rain selling nothing, with outrageously glamourous looking feet. Which reminds me – I must one day tell you about Tammy’s hilarious dream about me, her, my camera and a cliff.

I might start telling the full story about the skincare products too. There’s more to them than I’ve so far let on. It’s quite a long story – spanning eight years but rather amazing how all the components arrived and slotted into place. I’ve been a little shy about telling that story especially when it involves a part of myself that for most of the part remains completely off limits to other people. Funnily enough the two people who have picked up on it are from Greece. So one day that will no doubt fit into the story as well.

Enough mystery and onto the next subject. Prices! What a hot subject that is for me right now. If I wholesale it makes my stuff too expensive or I make $5 an hour. So, what to do? The business model says large volumes maketh the money. Large volume hand made? Forget it. Delegate? Probably yes, one day.

I do love sewing, but I simply cannot price my work to compete with multi-nationals who make their clothing and bags in india or china. So my things might be a little bit more expensive. Yesterday a lot of people just about sprinted over to the Cath Kidston baby bags but there were no takers. $105 isn’t that bad is it? That’s what a baby bag costs in the shops and that’s with ordinaire fabric.

So I’m putting everything in the shop today. If you want something and think it’s too expensive – tell me! Tammy and I thought my prices were fine – but we’re crazy people who spend a thousand dollars on a pair of shoes (well, she is, I used to be) – so what would we know about the real world?

Anyway I’ll announce the shop update here later and we can just make things up as we go along.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

8 responses to “I have no plan”

  1. genny avatar
    genny

    Hi there
    Just recently stumbled on your blog – and love it.
    Pricing for handmade stuff, especially in such a small market as NZ, will always be fraught. I think your prices are fine, (and I’m one of those people who don’t buy much “because I can make it cheaper”) but probably they didn’t move at a market because there is an expectation here of markets being a place for bargains.
    keep on crafting!

  2. lies avatar

    Hello girl X don’t be too dissapointed, it happens to us all, such a ‘nearly zero’ stall day. You’ve worked hard and your GREAT stuff will sell next time, you’ll see. Yes prices are difficult, but it is YOU who determine them and no-one else, don’t be intimidated by stingies… And it is HANDcrafted, not third world unethical gear. Stay proud and pretty M’dear!
    X Lies

  3. barbara avatar

    I agree people expect a bargain at the market. I think your best idea is to spend the money on a good website and sell from there. The world is your market then. Some years ago a guy I knew started selling sheepskins on line. The site grew to sell wool products, lanolin etc and then he was offered big money from an overseas group who wanted to take over the business.

  4. Veronica TM avatar

    what a dilemma! i am thinking of opening a little etsy shop but have no idea about pricing.
    i think your prices are fine, i think my wallet should be more full so i could buy everything you sell, i love it all.

  5. Steph avatar

    I’m selling at my first craft fair in a couple of weeks and I’ll probably price my stuff cheaper than I would in my etsy shop, because sadly for us crafters kiwis love a bargain, and expect it. If I priced my stuff at what I know it’s worth then I’d probably sell far less. It’s such a tricky balance. I love your baby bags, I need to ‘acquire’ a baby so I have an excuse to buy one!

  6. helen avatar
    helen

    hi there we always do Coatsville market and its a laugh but I never make any money and I know my things are well priced and sell well in the shops – people just want a bargin and a look. I’m not going to go next year- I could spend the time catching up on my blog or marketing instead.
    Keep working at everything I saw your stuff at matakana and it looked fab !

  7. Nonnie avatar

    Isn’t it weird to think we were both sitting in disappointing craft fairs on the same day at oppersite ends of the World. Shame we weren’t in the same craft fair then we could have chatted and laughted about all the silly people who weren’t buying our lovely things. As for the pricing thing, I just don’t know what the answer is. It’s something I think about constantly with my products and is currently the thing that is causing me to have such a hard time trying to decide whether to try selling wholesale to retailers. So difficult. We just have to keep doing what we feel is right.
    Funny that you said you were thinking about having a stall at Spitalfields when you return to London because I used to have one a few years ago. It was fun but really difficult to get a good pitch and my vintage inspired items weren’t really right for the market. Haven’t visited for ages as I’m too lazy to trek all the way accross London on a Sunday and would rather get out into the countryside instead. But I should go really just to get a feel for how it is now. Unfortunately its a whole lot smaller as there’s been a lot of re-development work in the area and they knocked half of it down to build an office block. Also they’ve really smartened the whole area up and added more retail shops around the edge which has slightly taken away some of the atmosphere. Personally I think Portabello market would be a great one to do but I imagine it’s impossible to get a pitch. Interesting to think about though.

  8. Arch avatar

    Lovely quote!! So true…I am going to write that down:-))

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *