How to get your products to sell well

[RockyAussie]

HOMEWORK -  HOMEWORK – HOMEWORK

I often observe where a new coming leatherworker questions why his or her products are not selling well. Many here have been bitten by the bug to work with leather and then go on to look for sales for their sometimes almost great works of art. Many people they know will compliment them on their talent and even suggest they should offer these products for sale.

As well meaning as this advice is given it is GENERALLY WRONG.

I will offer two reasons in particular:

1.       The product has not been exposed to any proper market research yet.

2.       The product is often not ready or able to be reproduced in a profitable manner.                                           

In this post I will address the first of these reasons.

Many people will make what they themselves think should sell and put this up on Etsy or some other sales platform and basically do little more than roll the dice. This will give you very little feedback other than if it does sell and how quickly. This to me is needles expensive gambling         

Other people will take it to markets and if they are clever will enquire from onlookers how their products could be changed in some way that would make them buy the product. What price would they pay for it etc.  Remember this – You are NOT the buyer......They are. 

This is a correct method if selling into these markets is what you are happy to do.

                                                                              

Way way back I tried a little selling at the markets but for me I could earn the same $ back in my shop every day of the week and without having to give up my weekend. The packing up stuff to take and laying it out and packing it back up and unpacking again was just not that much fun.

All of us have different personalities and some are happy in a market place surrounded by people, some will prefer shops where a more one on one is possible and some like myself like to be left alone to work on their craft. I grew up in the outback bush in Australia around the Barcaldine Longreach area which is the environment for which I always have the fondest memories. For me the best is to be able to live and work in the bush and work on stuff that I mostly enjoy doing.

I went from a shop in town where I often had customers waiting in line out the doors and up the footpath to a factory I had built out in the middle of a hundred+ acres in the bush. As I had to have regular dispatch and deliveries being close to a major town was essential so we ended up about 15 minutes out of the town Rockhampton.

In an earlier post 

  I said that I would expand on this statement – “Your comments have given me food for thought and bring me to realise that an expansion of how I get products into the market would be something to share for some that may have any interest. I do not have any problems getting orders for product or customers in fact quite the opposite. Over the years I have had to become very selective about what further customers and product types I can handle”.

In order to get to this stage what I did is my HOMEWORK. You can be a good leather worker and you can be a good marketer or seller of product but very, very few (including myself) can be good or anywhere near to optimal at both at the same time.

1.       I established my best markets to target.

 

 A person from Japan or China if visiting Australia has no interest in buying something here that they could buy back at home. Likewise if I travel to Bali I would buy a memento that is made in Bali. Not Korea or Singapore or anywhere else other than Bali. In everyone’s country there are generally established tourist areas. Having the country where it’s made on the product is essential. Australian labour is not cheap and getting the highest possible price point is important.  Shops in these areas are often paying expensive rents and their mark-ups needed can be well over 100%. Means you’ve got to be quick and efficient and very reliable.

 

These businesses realise that they need to supply products that are made in that country ideally and that to some degree you and I are not competing with cheaper products made in other cheaper labour countries so much. In Australia most of the town shops sell products made in China and that is by far the biggest amount of sales. Funny thing is that the Chinese are today my biggest end buyer and will pay more than most Australians will to get it.!!!!

 

2.       Armed with a few prototype products I made appointments to discuss with the buyers the type of products that they would like and what type ofproducts they sell the quickest. This was sometimes hard to get to the bottom off and get straight answers. Better than friends and generally acquaintances by far, but still they do not want to say what is wrong with your offering so much. One ladies purse in particular I did, I thought would be a sure thing and after a lot of discussion and checking with a few different buyers it was agreed that the credit card slots needed to be an upright position when you opened the purse. But I put to them the buyers that the cards if they ever fell out of the slots would be caught in the middle of the purse. Turns out that the Japanese were the largest amount of tourists into the country at that time and the way they presented their cards to people.  When and how they took out the cards and presented them to the receiver was important. Another thing I found that although most Australian buyers liked the full leather linings in wallets and purses the shop buyers did not. The combination of using material and leather in the linings came in to place and gave the advantage of being thinner and holding more cards etc. Japan and Germany and some other places have high denomination coins and coin pockets in wallets become more desirable feature.

 

The point is that there are many sometimes unexpected differences in different market places that  need to be found out before committing time and resources $$$ into making up stuff to sell. In production a clicker press is normally needed and the cost of the knives will soon tell to do your homework well first.

 

As I already had some machines and experience at working with leather from my shoe repair and shoe making businesses (not essential to have at the start but helped) and my homework on what the market wanted and orders in hand, I then went ahead.

 

Years later I now have less but much larger customers that give me more orders than I need. Most of these including the largest are on a pay before it leaves basis and that is what I recommend to build toward. The slowest paying customers are generally the largest ones and even with them paying up front they can sometimes take a month or more because of all the signatures involved. Sometimes signatures have to be done in other countries as well.

 Last note: Some in the trade would be surprised to learn that I have not and will not sign any contracts with my customers. Some have large brand names and if anyone wants to sue for some perceived fault in a product that they can dream up, those persons would be likely to go after a big brand for money than me who nobody knows. In my books they make big money of my stuff they can take that risk themselves. Some like ORVIS will try and get you to sign where you have to pay them if you’re late in delivery of their order. Nope- no way.  I sign NOTHING.

 

I will attempt to get into the How to get products ready in a profitable manner in another post on some other weekend.

I hope that in some way you may find something of use to you in this and please feel free to add any comments that you think may assist others in finding their markets as well.

Brian

 

 

[mikesc]

Sound advice Brian..Got to go out , will look back in later.

[Aven]

Sage advice.  Thank you for taking the time to write this out.  I've bookmarked the post.  I don't want to lose it.

[battlemunky]

I'm the guy you are talking about in most of your post @RockyAussie. I make some pretty OK leathergoods and get complimented by friends, etc. I almost opened up an Etsy shop to load up all the stuff I've made to date but I haven't yet. I've almost packed it all up and taken it to a flea market to try and sell as well. But I haven't. Everytime I do, I don't think I will get what I want for it, at least nowhere close to what I've put into it, so I have yet to do anything really. That is all because of ignorance on my part. I haven't done the homework. I haven't done the research. I haven't asked folks what they'd like to see and how much they'd pay for my goods.

Thanks for posting. You remind me that I need to get off my ass and put in the effort to at least pick up enough marketing skill that I can somewhat match my leatherwork to it.

Edited August 24, 2019 by battlemunky
Eye know tipe gud.

[Rockoboy]

Excellent post. Exactly the sort of information that most people have no idea about, including how or where to obtain said information.

[Scoutmom103]

Thank you for all the time and effort and the generosity of sharing your experiences and knowledge.

 

[chuck123wapati]

Thanks for your thoughts and not putting people new to the craft down because they don't have the needed experience or talent to compete. Where I am at there is a lot of tourism in our state, as you can see I'm in Wyoming so the big thing here is western type goods. I'm not great at Stolhman type work and realize that but still I think I can produce some goods more to my experience level that fits the market I am in and at least break even. I think that is at least part of the key to starting out at least in my amature opinion. I,ve read a lot of post here that pertain to bad quality products and I agree fully that they exist, I don't think however that the bad work is intentional but just above the workers ability, everyone has to start somewhere and at some point put themselves out there if they intend to pursue this craft as a profession weather part-time or full. 

Edited August 24, 2019 by chuck123wapati
more to add.

[Mark842]

Truth. I have had this conversation so many times with people trying to sell their wares. You can make the most beautiful whatever in the world. If you want to sell it you need two things at least. Demand and for the customer to know your product exists. The second can be done several ways. the first is what it is so to speak. I sell only online except for the occasional weekend show or rally. Any ideas that I ever have for products, no matter how good I think they are, I research the market and see if they sell. How many sell? What price do they sell for and what will it cost me to make them.

 I've learned the hard way, what I like usually doesn't sell good. What my customers like I usually find boring to make but it pays the bills and the salaries of a few employees.

[SilverForgeStudio]

@RockyAussie Bravo yet again! Sage advice- tart to the taste for sure of the Etsy crowd- but nonetheless needed info! Leatherwork is an art form- and like you say- getting it INTO the eyes and hands is a hard point to wrangle. 

Enjoying the post- I look forward to more!

[robs456]

Thanks for writing this up. Interesting stuff.

On 8/24/2019 at 12:22 PM, RockyAussie said:

Armed with a few prototype products I made appointments to discuss with the buyers the type of products that they would like and what type ofproducts they sell the quickest. This was sometimes hard to get to the bottom off and get straight answers.

This is where I am now. Had a few meetings but nothing's came out of them. For me there's been no such thing as a discussion, more like "What do you have?...No, don't want it..." and I'm like "What you want then? I'm can make whatever." and they go "Make something and email us a pic and we'll go from there" and I'm like "F dat"...
Advice from anyone on how to deal with small to medium size shops/companies would be appreciated.

 

 

 

[Lfrog]

9 hours ago, robs456 said:

Thanks for writing this up. Interesting stuff.
This is where I am now. Had a few meetings but nothing's came out of them. For me there's been no such thing as a discussion, more like "What do you have?...No, don't want it..." and I'm like "What you want then? I'm can make whatever." and they go "Make something and email us a pic and we'll go from there" and I'm like "F dat"...

 

Advice from anyone on how to deal with small to medium size shops/companies would be appreciated.

Did the customer get any prices from you at all? How much margin were you leaving for the retailer, retailers need good margins. Put yourself in their shoes, think like a retailer first then develop your product to fit the price point for that sector if you can. If your numbers are out for the retailer then orders most probably wont happen.

Just as a starting point if the product retails at $20 (thats where comparable products are selling at) then the retailer wants to pay around the $8 mark plus therir various government taxes.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Northmount
removed blank quote

[robs456]

3 hours ago, Lfrog said:

Did the customer get any prices from you at all? How much margin were you leaving for the retailer, retailers need good margins. Put yourself in their shoes, think like a retailer first then develop your product to fit the price point for that sector if you can. If your numbers are out for the retailer then orders most probably wont happen.

Thanks for the reply.
I try to make it so they can mark it up 100%. Sometimes that's not possible and I've noticed they're less interested then...

Edited August 26, 2019 by robs456

[chrisash]

@robs456 shops have limited space to display their items, and have to select items that are proven to fit their market. they are constantly invited to try new items and therefore have to be very selective

One thing you could try that may break down the door is to offer sale or return on a small selection of items for say a limited 3 month trial, you supply the goods and they only pay when the item is sold, at the end of the period the unsold goods are returned to you in new condition, Basically changing to a no risk for them to try the new items

The skills in selling to another business are vastly different from say selling to a private customer , some of these "Closing a sale" skills are available to learn in some business books, unfortunately the market is also filled with the crap "make a million bucks this year" type of book to confuse the issue

Good luck

[robs456]

2 minutes ago, chrisash said:

@robs456 shops have limited space to display their items, and have to select items that are proven to fit their market. they are constantly invited to try new items and therefore have to be very selective

One thing you could try that may break down the door is to offer sale or return on a small selection of items for say a limited 3 month trial, you supply the goods and they only pay when the item is sold, at the end of the period the unsold goods are returned to you in new condition, Basically changing to a no risk for them to try the new items

The skills in selling to another business are vastly different from say selling to a private customer , some of these "Closing a sale" skills are available to learn in some business books, unfortunately the market is also filled with the crap "make a million bucks this year" type of book to confuse the issue

Good luck

Thanks.

The sale or return seems to be available more with the smaller businesses, the downside is that they don't have any motivation to display it in a good spot. Happened to me once at least, I noticed it half way through, fixed it, but then I'm not there every day so who knows what happens when I leave...

[chrisash]

Agreed the problem with limited budgets, the large companies supply all the display racks and promotion items to get a great display where as the small guys are just not in that league

The selection of shop types also helps, in the UK we have a lot of mens country wear for shall we say the better off, Outdoor activities and also tack shops, both of which leather products can fit into nicely

[robs456]

13 minutes ago, chrisash said:

The selection of shop types also helps, in the UK we have a lot of mens country wear for shall we say the better off, Outdoor activities and also tack shops, both of which leather products can fit into nicely

Yes, you have like 60 million people  while in Sweden we have 8 million only, so trying to find the right niche. Lately been trying to sell belts to specialist jeans shops.

[RockyAussie]

1 hour ago, robs456 said:

Yes, you have like 60 million people  while in Sweden we have 8 million only, so trying to find the right niche. Lately been trying to sell belts to specialist jeans shops.

I'm not much for giving flip answers @robs456 and I as usual up to my eyeballs with orders to get by the end of the month. I do have a few suggestions but they will have to wait until the weekend I am sorry. For now I am curious if you could tell me why a person should buy Rob5? I don"t mean that product ....I mean the brand?

You may only have 8 million people there but 29.9 million tourists went there in 2017. Tourists in Sweden spent 317 billion kronor in 2017, enough to make it the top year for tourism of all time.

Could you tell me what is the nationality of the largest amount of tourists that go there?

Edited August 26, 2019 by RockyAussie
forgot something

[Tugadude]

RockyAussie, I am probably an outlier here.  I am a confirmed hobbyist.  I do not sell my leatherwork.  I make it for myself, my family and my friends.  I typically make things that would be very useful for them to have and that they likely would not buy for themselves due to the cost.

I may try to hawk some of my wares some day.  Or not.

But I found your post fascinating.  It was interesting to hear a bit of your history, where you grew up, etc.  Wouldn't mind hearing more.

The ideas you shared about marketing are timeless and they apply to most anything that is sold.  The principles also apply to things such as speech-making, know your audience.

I've spent my entire career in sales and business development.  I also give speeches and product presentations regularly.  Knowing who you are speaking too is crucial.  You may THINK you know what they want to hear, but all too often you are wrong.  Better to find out what they want, what makes them tick.  Then tailor your talk accordingly.

Thanks for taking the time.  Between this, your videos and your detailed "how-to" posts you are  an invaluable resource on this forum.

Thanks!

[ABHandmade]

With my meager English, I could not express my thoughts in the same way as the @Tugadude did. But his words are as close as possible to what I would like to say to Brian.

Thank you, Brian!

PS. @Tugadude, sorry for some plagiarism

[robs456]

6 hours ago, RockyAussie said:

For now I am curious if you could tell me why a person should buy Rob5? I don"t mean that product ....I mean the brand?

Man, first I was thinking you're asking at the worst possible time, but maybe it's the best...'cos the truth is that I've been second guessing the brand over the summer. So right now I don't know.
I came out at the start with the main idea of 'Handmade in Sweden' -to make good quality product that's made locally and small scale as opposed to the 'made in India' stuff that's cheap and crap quality. Plan was/is to get in on the medium to high price scale with goods that people who knows good leather or even just those who can see and appreciate the difference between my stuff and the crap mass-produced bonded leather stuff everyone here sells.

I went with this fully knowing two big weaknesses: 1. It's more of an idea than a Brand and 2. I would have very few customers, but the ones I'd have would have money, class and the 'right' attitudes.
There are more cons of course and a few pros as well (or I'd not do it).

Now I'm second guessing the whole premise of doing this business that way, along with the brand etc.
First off, it's been hard to find customers online even though I'm marketing all over Europe (insta/FB -and that's another story...) and I'm beginning to think most non-Swedes don't care much for "made in Sweden".
Two, while meeting people in person in markets or other venues it has finally hit me how very few actually cares about:
1. Leather/Material
2. Quality
3. where it's made.
What most people seem to care about is:
1. How it looks on them (self-image)
2. Brand (Big Brand that is)
3. Money
(This list can also be reversed.)

This is quite funny as I've read and participated in forum posts and offline discussions about this and I've always 'known' this but now I KNOW it...
I have no inclination to pander to the 'Gray mass' and spend time making subpar stuff just to move product, I'm snobby enough to take a loss of potential gain just to do what I want to do. Another weakness for sure(?).  

So my conundrum now is how to (re?)define my brand and then how to market it/position it in the market.
And what market to go for, even though I've kinda already answered that one -upper mid to high level disposable income. Now for the niche, like I said above I've been talking to (not selling in) high end jeans shops as I figured if someone splashes 3-600 USD on a pair of jeans they's like a nice belt (maybe custom even?) to go with them. 
I like making belts and bracelets, keyrings because they sell (especially the cheaper ones) and various other small goods like carved notebook covers and I'm getting into wallets. Did do a lot of cardholders but they're getting so boring to make now, except if I can make an artwork out of them like the 'samurai' ones on my insta...
I should go into making bags as people love bags, but I don't really like making them for various reasons.

Then, knowing the above, there's the question of HOW and WHERE to market to the selected niche/demography... 

6 hours ago, RockyAussie said:

You may only have 8 million people there but 29.9 million tourists went there in 2017. Tourists in Sweden spent 317 billion kronor in 2017, enough to make it the top year for tourism of all time.

Could you tell me what is the nationality of the largest amount of tourists that go there?

Well, according to the same report you got the numbers from the top two by far is Norway and Germany, followed by the Dutch, Danish and Finnish. But those who shop the most I would guess is the Germans, Americans and the Chinese.

Though they tend to buy the 'typical Swedish things' which are not what I'd even like to do. 
One thing here though could be getting into homeware in the typical 'Scandinavian design' that's so famous. That's actually an old idea of mine and my shop even has such a category, though I've not really committed to any jawdropping designs yet. 

Oh, and about Scaling:
Some local Startup gurus here had a look at my stuff and my prospects for launching the business and they all went "Ah nice stuff..Can you scale it up" or "How will you scale it up"?
Thing is at the moment I'm at the mindset that I don't WANT to scale up. Keep it small scale, good quality and reasonably high priced and I'm good. No need to be the next LVMH.
If money starts pouring in that mindset might change , but right now I'm all for keeping it small.
And preferably without machinery to keep it handmade (though I'm seriously contemplating getting a sewing machine).
Leather companies that scale up too fast is one of my pet peeves. There's a few Swedish companies (like https://www.sandqvist.com) that launched as small companies making good product. That linked company now makes most of its stuff in India and the poor quality shows (loose threads, crooked alignments etc etc). I'm more of the mindset of 'If you're gonna do it, do it well'.

Wow, that got real long real fast. I don't know if I even replied to the original question and sorry for hijacking the thread with my rants. It was very therapeutic to write though.

Any comments and tips/hints from all and everyone are welcome.

 

 

 

[YinTx]

On 8/24/2019 at 5:22 AM, RockyAussie said:

Other people will take it to markets and if they are clever will enquire from onlookers how their products could be changed in some way that would make them buy the product. What price would they pay for it etc.  Remember this – You are NOT the buyer......They are. 

This is a correct method if selling into these markets is what you are happy to do.

This is where I am at.

8 minutes ago, robs456 said:

Two, while meeting people in person in markets or other venues it has finally hit me how very few actually cares about:
1. Leather/Material
2. Quality
3. where it's made.
What most people seem to care about is:
1. How it looks on them (self-image)
2. Brand (Big Brand that is)
3. Money
(This list can also be reversed.)

This is what I have discovered as well, along with some design changes that have helped sales some.

So I've been on the fence as to whether I want to stay very small, or scale up and produce lower quality lower priced goods that will sell to more people.

Thing is I can't help but still feel there is a crowd out there like myself that wants higher quality, greater craftsmanship, longer life out of their goods, and doesn't really care about that big brand name because they recognize it is mostly made in Asia anyhow, with crossed threads and popped stitches and shoddy edges, etc.   

I'm not sure there is a "distinctly American" leather good like there is a "distinctly Aussie crocodile."  Maybe I haven't thought about it enough.

So I am intently following both this conversation and the "How to make leather goods profitably" conversation.  Thank you @RockyAussie for starting them both.

YinTx

[robs456]

2 minutes ago, YinTx said:

I'm not sure there is a "distinctly American" leather good like there is a "distinctly Aussie crocodile."  Maybe I haven't thought about it enough.

I guess not ---Western tooled leather. All cowboy stuff is 'exotic' to us foreigners. Sheridan tooling is the typical American art.
As a funny side note I was in Taiwan this summer and had a discussion about leathercraft and showed some of my carved projects. The comment was "OH, you can do Japanese style!" Haha...
Well, checking insta and the Japanese can make great Sheridan 'stuff'. 

[Tugadude]

5 hours ago, ABHandmade said:

With my meager English, I could not express my thoughts in the same way as the @Tugadude did. But his words are as close as possible to what I would like to say to Brian.

Thank you, Brian!

PS. @Tugadude, sorry for some plagiarism

No need to be sorry!  We're among friends here!

[maxdaddy]

The timing of this couldn't be better for me personally. Thanks for spending the time on this Brian!

[blue duck]

Thank you for taking the time to share Mr. Brian. Look forward to next installment. 

I also appreciate all of the others that have added to the conversation.