Hoops of the Strange and Unusual

I'm developing my collection of digital collages printed on fabric. The new hoop framed pieces depict mosses, a falcon with seedpods and greenery, and macro versions of micro world of plankton. I listed them in my Concentric shop, all under $20. Enjoy!

 

 

How to prepare your shop to run a SALE

My HAREandDRUM shop enjoyed a successful 30% off sale last weekend. I sold 22 items between my two shops, some at full price. Here's how I prepared my shop to run the sale:

STRATEGY
I decided to run a one day only sale to motivate buyers to purchase now rather than wait. I offered a good discount of 30%. I visited Forums to ask others about their sale strategies. I decided to edit all prices so as not to pay inflated Etsy fees, also thinking it would be encouraging to buyers not to wait for invoices, refunds and adjustments. I also prepared my newsletter, received by 77 readers, to announce the sale.

SHOP PREPARATION

• I edited my avatar to include bold red words: ONE DAY ONLY SALE.
• I included this sentence in my shop announcement: Firday, Nov 20, ONE DAY ONLY SALE; my entire shop is 30% off. Prices are already adjusted so no need to wait for
  
• I edited all items in the shop FAST! Here's how. It's the only batch-edit I know on Etsy!
  
• The statement I included in each item's description, right on top, read: 30% off original $50 (or what price it was). The price is already adjusted and will return to original tomorrow. 
• I participated in the Forums that day to get my avatar seen. 
• I posted twice in response to Promotions threads, but I don't find those very effective.
  

INTEGRITY
After the sale was over, I promptly reverted all prices to original so buyers would not feel I pressured them to buy immediately for nothing. Three of the sales were repeat buyers (from my newsletter) who received an extra 10% off as I had previously offered to them.

Hope this helps!

Upcoming One-Day-Only Sale

Alerting all friends and followers of my blog: be the first to take advantage of my sale I'll be holding on Friday in my HAREandDRUM shop! The entire shop will be 30% off; that's the largest discount I have ever offered. Even my largest embroideries, prime quality gifts, will be clocking in at only $42.

Stop by my new shop, Concentric, to view gifts in more classic styles.

My new shop CONCENTRIC starts selling!

I'm incredibly happy to wake up to two sales from my new shop, concentric.etsy.com that I only filled with items on Friday! Thank you, BurnedFurniture for this wonderful Front page and the two sales it brought!

Trick or Treating in the Bozeman Historic Downtown

What a treat! We took our 3.5 year old dressed as Superman to the Bon Ton district of Bozeman, MT for a trick or treating feast like they should be! Queen Anne style gabled homes, all dressed up for the occasion, large trees, rustling leaves, actual cawing crows and a breeze added to the ambiance. Our kid was a trooper, braving the skeletons and spooky ghosts he seemed genuinely afraid of and reaching up for the doorbells, barely within his reach. Now he can't stop talking about it!

 

I started a new shop! Introducing: CONCENTRIC

Home decor inspired by old libraries: yellowed books, engraved botanical plates, natural history, leather club chairs and a whiff of cigar smell. This shop is a more masculine version of my colorful girly shop, http://hareanddrum.etsy.com

I felt the need to separate the shops and keep HAREandDRUM more distincly feminine. I will be moving some of my natural history inspired pieces to Concentric, including Cicada, Spider, and Raven embroideries.
Enjoy!

Time for Ornaments!

It's this time of the year again! Halloween's around the corner and soon after that the bedecking frenzy starts! Here's my ide for a tree this season: full of keepsake handmade ornaments! The ones in my shop double as tabletop centerpiece elements with the addition of chrome pins on the back. They would look great on a wreath or in the center of a large bow!

 

My Own Weekend Deal: have fun with this Treasure Hunt!

Exclusive to my blog readers, I will offer my weekend deal to anyone who feels like browsing in my shop looking for treasures! I have many items that were featured in popular blogs, Etsy Front page, Gift Guides and Storque articles. As a result, they have oodles of views!

Here's the deal:
Any item with 1000 or more views is 20% off between now and Oct 25. Mention "BLOG1" for a Paypal refund. A great opportunity to stock up on gifts for the holidays!

Enjoy browsing! My shop can be found here.

Handcrafted Business Card Holder Makes Craft Show Booth Professional

Extravaganzacrafts.com, a website and blog focusing on helping artists find and organize for art and craft shows, just featured my business card holders! Take a peek at the article:


Handcrafted Business Card Holder Makes Craft Show Booth Professional




 

Weekly Feature: DRAGONFLIES

I miss them on this gloomy rainy autumn day. Quiet summer evenings are so enchanting with them zipping by. Enjoy these draginfly inspired finds! Click on photos to visit the items in the creators' shops.

Field Bag by Rainbowswirlz

Dragonfly by JHartPhotography

Dragonfly business card case/ display by HAREandDRUM (me!!!)

Vintage 70s plate by Sillyshopping

Retailers, please keep wholesale inquiries realistic.

Yesterday, I was approached via Etsy convo by a buyer for a major retailer. Can you imagine my excitement? I quickly replied asking for more details of the deal.

My excitement ended this morning when I got the details. I was half expecting this, though. Take a look:

We would be interested in ordering about 26 pieces of 2-3 designs: the pine tree, the winter tree and the chocolate bird or autumn bird. We would like all of these designs on a 4.5"-5" hoop.

[...]We would like these items for the holiday season, meaning we would need them in our warehouse absolutely no later than Nov 2 (earlier is even better). Is this possible?

As for pricing and payment, I see that you are selling your pieces of this size for $18. This is also an ideal retail pricing for us. With our required markup percentage we would need to buy them from you for about $7. I hope this is not a problem. Also, our typical payment terms with vendors is Net 60, meaning we would pay our invoice 60 days after receiving the goods. This gives us the opportunity to sell some of the pieces in the stores before paying the bill which is always important, but even more so during the holiday season.

My response:

Unfortunately, I cannot meet practically any of your requirements. I'll be as concise as I can in explaining why.

If she worked day and night, my Mother who does the embroidery could not complete 26x3=78 pieces in less than a week, considering that even the simplest Bird design takes about 2 hours to hand embroider. Mom does not reside with me, so she'd need to send the embroidered pieces to me by Oct 21 so I can frame them and send them to you in time for Nov 2 deadline.

Additionally, the Pine Tree and the Winter Apple Tree are designed for much larger hoops; I can rework the design to be smaller but a lot of detail would be lost.

Etsy is my only venue and my so-called retail pricing is set for a specific Etsy customer who expects a bargain, items being sold with no middlemen. I price most items at cost +80-100%. For example, my cost for the Bird is about $10 and I sell it for $18. Even given the wonderful advertising opportunity and bragging rights for selling with your store, I simply cannot justify selling below cost.

All in all, I am sorry to disappoint, both you and myself, but my small operation does not seem to be set for wholesaling. 

To explain more, before you say I have myself to blame for setting my prices too low, please ask yourself if you'd pay $36 for a 4 inch embroidery of a bird in the photo above. Apparently even the store thinks $18 is a good retail price, even though it is barely 80% over cost.

Additionally, I know They have no way of knowing how much time is needed to hand embroider a piece, but to expect  78 pieces to be hand embroidered in a week, making it 11 pieces a day, every day, hmmmmm, even by most generous estimation it just doesn't compute.

To sum up, before you contact an Etsy shop about wholesale, please consider the following:

• don't expect Etsy prices to be actual "retail" prices calculated as cost x2= wholesale x2= retail. That would place many artisans at a price range unacceptable to, I dare say, most Etsy shoppers.    
  
• read the shop's policies. It only takes a moment and can save both parties a lot of time and disappointment. My policies state: Wholesale is gladly accepted at no less than 80/20 split to assure that I not only cover cost but also see a small profit. Please note that cost for me is not just materials, but primarily long hours of expert work. Feel free to mark up as high as you wish. Since most items are OOAK there will be no underselling.
• read descriptions of items you are requesting. If something is 8 inches across, it may not be possible to shrink it in half and preserve quality and detail.
• have realistic deadlines. Don't expect small artisans to crank out items at a pace of a Chinese sweatshop. We actually do make them ourselves, by hand.