How to get your products to sell well

[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.

[RockyAussie]

On 8/27/2019 at 4:24 AM, robs456 said:

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

Hi @robs456, sorry for taking this long to reply to you, its been a busy end of month for me. I have read your outline of thoughts a few times and I have to say that there is a lot of contradictions within it that leave me to suggest a different strategy than to what you are stating you want. I said above and underlined it

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

1.       I established my best markets to target.

This is what you need to do for YOU.

You have gone into shops and asked

On 8/26/2019 at 4:05 AM, robs456 said:

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.

I think that that may have been the best result and here I will say why I believe so.

I asked you why a person would buy Rob5? Your answer told me a lot of different things for instance you said " 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...

and " Though they tend to buy the 'typical Swedish things' which are not what I'd even like to do"

and "Thing is at the moment I'm at the mindset that I don't WANT to scale up"

Your answer told me that you did not really want to sell into those shops. You want people to buy the product that you want to make and until the product becomes boring to make. Thank God that for you and them it is not up and going.

From what you say and what can be seen in your insta you have within you an artist streak that needs to be satisfied and that needs to find a way to come out and earn you money and reputation as well.

I will point out that the brand Rob5 looks fine but you are mostly not ever going to be get many sales from it if you and your work/art achievements are not seen and heard about. You no doubt have heard of the Swedish band ABBA but many here would still be unfamiliar with a Swedish band called SABATON. Yeah they are pretty popular there and doing tours in the USA next month I believe. At any rate bands more than ever in this digital age would struggle getting any royalties in comparison to the bands of years back. Selling products online and along with them as they tour is now more of an important part of their income. Having light and easy to haul around products would no doubt be an important consideration but also products that can bring them a high return for their part. Your guitar straps and wristbands branded Rob5 at this stage won't work but if there were a custom made guitar strap made especially for them (plectrum recess etc) it could work if done something like this. On the back you have your Rob5 brand. All of the group put their signatures on the back and sometime during the concert they advise that this custom made guitar strap made by the internationally recognised leather artisan Rob5 will be sold off. (You are on this world wide forum and I and a few can recognise this )This should be a big money spinner for them and worth some serious consideration. A clicker press pumping out a few hundred simple leather wristbands with their brand on should be a fairly simple sale as well I think. This would then be a very easy sale to other groups if you wanted more.

Check this terrible wristband link https://store.sabaton.net/product/accessories/wristbands/silver-logo-wristband/

and this -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaton_(band)

My dinners ready I've just been informed so I will have to get back with some more detail tomorrow. 

Selling is often best achieved if you can think of it more like a collaboration in getting products sold instead of here is my product I want your money.   The first thing in sales is that they need to like you and then become comfortable with you. Normally a nod and a general acknowledgement smile works for me to start with. If you are not comfortable with selling yourself and you find that people don't relax quickly after meeting with you than there is a fairly easy answer to that as well. I will touch on this a bit later.

 

 

[Lfrog]

@robs456 But RockyAussies suggestion with the wrist band involves scale, they will want a manufacturer  who has he the ability  to produce  1000's which IMO is good., but for you not so good perhaps. You seem averse to volume production methods, as if it detracts from your "art". Maybe it does I am not qualified to say, but only you can resolve that dilemma.

Volume doesnt have to mean shoddy and sh*t. 

[chrisash]

A good few years ago we had a tv program called the troubleshooter, which was about a businessman  Sir John Harvey-Jones who visited companies in trouble and tried to analyze where they had basically gone wrong

One company you might have heard of was Morgan sports cars, when he visited he found a number of things that could be done different, but the point on one item was, They used hand beaten mudguards running sides and other parts , because that was the morgan way, very expensive way at that, and the management stated "that's what the customers pay for tradition". His reply was that, "the customer did not really give a damn about how it was made just that it was made well and looked like morgan cars should look to their fans". all these hand made parts could be pressed out at a massive saving  in labour and time.

He also found that they brought in all their engines and gearboxes from Ford, and once the chassis was made the engine and gearbox was the first things to be installed, with car completion many weeks down the line, his suggestion as long as it does not hinder production buy and install the expensive items last and save cash-flow

It may well be the same with hand stitching does anyone really care about the difference between hand and machine sewing

[mikesc]

Quote

It may well be the same with hand stitching does anyone really care about the difference between hand and machine sewing

Ask Hérmes and LVMH, who say that they hand sew, and then allow French TV to make documentaries inside their ateliers ( which I have ) that show them machine sewing almost everything, including some parts of things that they market as entirely handsewn.. and for which "handsewen" items, ( sacs)  they charge as much as you can buy a house for.

[Lfrog]

12 minutes ago, mikesc said:

Ask Hérmes and LVMH, who say that they hand sew, and then allow French TV to make documentaries inside their ateliers ( which I have ) that show them machine sewing almost everything, including some parts of things that they market as entirely handsewn.. and for which "handsewen" items, ( sacs)  they charge as much as you can buy a house for.

I can remember reading a long time ago, about luxury brands such as LVMH, that their reputation and brand was built on their custom ranges for the european elite at the turn of the last century. Ranges which, if I am not mistaken, are still commissioned today. They don't make any real money from these expensive commissions ( not withstanding the value of their various Royal warrants), the real money is in the lowest market segment they serve  (which has the highest volumes with the greatest margins) and is also includes the customer who pays for the image associated with the brand, rather than their appreciation or understanding of real quality.

If someone wants to give £1.5-2k for a mass produced (relatively) handbag that has mainly canvas..... "monogrammed canvas and grained leather" as its main material, then thats up to them, but the only value I personally see in that is the "bragging" rights which infer that I may have somehow arrived and become a member of the cafe set.