Jokes 'n' stuff

[JLSleather]

Every so often I get contacted by someone "interested in" my work.  People I've never heard of before, who want to "partner with" me, or "carry your line", 'n' such.

Translation:  We want to sell the stuff you make, pay you less than the asking price, and have some of the money go to us instead of you.  We'd like you to put in more hours to make the same money, since we'd be keeping the difference ourselves.

Seriously -- these people are in the wrong business.. they could have been doing stand-up comedy all this time!

 

[Rockoboy]

Sounds like a good deal to me, but ... then again ... I am still waiting for my long lost Nigerian half brother to get back to me. I sent him all my money so he could afford to get surgery for a an infected toenail, but I haven't heard from him for a while.

Maybe this week.

Is 10 years long enough to get over an ingrown toenail?

[JLSleather]

Well, these are actual places who really do have stores... and strange opinions about what constitutes "earning" a living.

 

[NVLeatherWorx]

1 hour ago, Rockoboy said:

Sounds like a good deal to me, but ... then again ... I am still waiting for my long lost Nigerian half brother to get back to me. I sent him all my money so he could afford to get surgery for a an infected toenail, but I haven't heard from him for a while.

Maybe this week.

Is 10 years long enough to get over an ingrown toenail?

He most likely died from septic shock as a result of infection received during the surgery.  The toenail clipper got a little deep there.

[NVLeatherWorx]

1 hour ago, JLSleather said:

Every so often I get contacted by someone "interested in" my work.  People I've never heard of before, who want to "partner with" me, or "carry your line", 'n' such.

Translation:  We want to sell the stuff you make, pay you less than the asking price, and have some of the money go to us instead of you.  We'd like you to put in more hours to make the same money, since we'd be keeping the difference ourselves.

Seriously -- these people are in the wrong business.. they could have been doing stand-up comedy all this time!

 

I am so tired of those contacts that I now contact them back, directly, and gather as much information about them as I can before I share with them that my intention is publish their information across the boards and online community as part of a Blacklist.  I always get a plea to not do it as they are only trying to make life easy for themselves, or so the story goes; my response to that is, "get a real job and learn what it takes to meet all you needs, and be prepared because it ain't easy."

The biggest thing that I have been experiencing though is from those overseas garbage mills that want ME to carry THEIR line of fake leather or camel butt leather wallets, or whatever their low grade crap is.  I have real fun with those and I have even reported several of them to International authorities just to make their day miserable.  I know of 2 for sure that ended up being shut down and someone went to jail for a very long time.

Edited May 28, 2017 by NVLeatherWorx

[Rockoboy]

46 minutes ago, NVLeatherWorx said:

The biggest thing that I have been experiencing though is from those overseas garbage mills that want ME to carry THEIR line of fake leather or camel butt leather wallets, or whatever their low grade crap is.  I have real fun with those and I have even reported several of them to International authorities just to make their day miserable.  I know of 2 for sure that ended up being shut down and someone went to jail for a very long time.

Good for you! I wish there was some way to do this more effectively. We get a lot of cold-calls from who-knows-where trying to sell stuff or sign us up for some rubbish.

We have a 'No call list' in Australia, but the international callers usually don't adhere to the rules because our authorities are so weak that nothing happens to penalise those who break the rules.

What I do for those callers is, I ask them to hold the line because there's a knock at the door, stove has been left on, kids In the bath etc. After 2 or 3 minutes, I get back to them, but they have usually gone to the next target. If they are still on the line, I go around again with some lame excuse for them to hold the line. They usually hang up after that. I mean to say, how rude is that?

[YinTx]

5 hours ago, JLSleather said:

Every so often I get contacted by someone "interested in" my work.  People I've never heard of before, who want to "partner with" me, or "carry your line", 'n' such.

Translation:  We want to sell the stuff you make, pay you less than the asking price, and have some of the money go to us instead of you.  We'd like you to put in more hours to make the same money, since we'd be keeping the difference ourselves.

Seriously -- these people are in the wrong business.. they could have been doing stand-up comedy all this time!

 

Oh, you mean Etsy, or Ebay, or any other online store that wants you to put your stuff there so they can charge a fee for doing nothing?  

At least the actual stores might actually rep your product and attempt to sell it by putting it in front of others.  Most store fronts I see in the US are resellers, I don't think Macy's is manufacturing all the different brands of items they have in the store.  I don't think I'd be offended if Dillard's asked me to put my item on their shelf.  I certainly wouldn't attempt to black list them and bad mouth them to others for that opportunity.  If I don't want to put my stuff there, I say thanks but no and move on.  Why waste time on malevolence?

YinTx

[JLSleather]

• Well, Ebay is a bit out of control .. looks like about 15% in fees by time it's over.  
• Cutesy is about half of that (right around 7-ish %), and at that rate I can stand to list "standard" items- those which don't involve a lot of time.  I write that off as advertising.
• And I pay for web hosting on a site where I don't even have a store.  No trouble, all that all works out for me.

No, I'm talking about those people who like that word "wholesale", as in you sell it to us at about 40-50%, and 'make it up' on the volume.  Uh.. no thanks-- if getting bent over is bad, then getting bent over a dozen times should theoretically be worse   

Since I do have some stuff over at etsy and more on the site, then they shouldn't need much "demo" models -- maybe they care to buy a couple and I'll send them 50 business cards?  Seems there's just too much disparity between the terms they would like and the ones I would prefer

Yes, most (if not all) 'stores' in the US are just that. I'm not aware of any original walmart designs   Not a real concern to me --- they can do what they want (in fact, I've actually shopped at Walmart as recently as this year).  But I think I'll not put my stuff in the window.  

[NVLeatherWorx]

48 minutes ago, YinTx said:

Oh, you mean Etsy, or Ebay, or any other online store that wants you to put your stuff there so they can charge a fee for doing nothing?  

At least the actual stores might actually rep your product and attempt to sell it by putting it in front of others.  Most store fronts I see in the US are resellers, I don't think Macy's is manufacturing all the different brands of items they have in the store.  I don't think I'd be offended if Dillard's asked me to put my item on their shelf.  I certainly wouldn't attempt to black list them and bad mouth them to others for that opportunity.  If I don't want to put my stuff there, I say thanks but no and move on.  Why waste time on malevolence?

YinTx

I believe that he is talking about some other type of contact, i.e.: the ever popular "hey, I can help you sell your products through my sources if you would not mind sharing the profits with me or selling to me wholesale."  I don't know about how JLS goes about it but I NEVER do any wholesale work for anyone nor do I do consignment type agreements either.  It is my personal belief that if another business wishes to make money on leather, it is high time that they learn how to do it.  I have been asked several times by multiple operators if I would be willing to make a line of items for their shop but leave my Maker's Mark off of them so that it would not spark interest in dealing with me direct.  I basically told them to go, well, you know... 

[JLSleather]

Yeah, no 'consignment' either.

But, I'm not mad about it.  Those people.. I don't hate 'em, just seem to like it better when they aint around