Pitfalls and Shortcomings, Part 3: Brand-Image

On Brand-Image:
I've known for a long time the value of a Brand-Image and fitting a 'niche', as they say... but in looking through my work, it mostly looks disorganized. One of the biggest things I want to work on this year, is creating a cohesive presentation, both in the studio and online, so that all of my work... more or less looks like it all goes together.

I currently have a signature stamp using the emblem of a wolf on the bottom of some of my stuff, my initials on others, and a star on still others. I really like my wolf... but it doesn't go with the store name/image. (On a side note, apparently nobody recognizes it as a wolf anyway. Bahumbug.) If I ditch the wolf, I could switch to a tree, and/or the actual store name... Or, a branch of Heather. That could work. Using my own name sort of causes problems, what with the last name thing (which is why I don't much like using my initials, plus they're sort of ambiguous. "Who is this HB person?")

I also really want to move away from using class-glazes, and producing my own instead, so that I have a uniform palette to choose from, which will help with things looking like my work, specifically, rather than just anybody's. I know that it does to some extent, but there's room for a lot of improvement. When I look through my store at what's for sale, it's kind of all over the place, and I don't really like that. I want it to all tie in together and be mine. Part of that includes hunting down what glazes my high school pottery teacher had, because I really liked some of them. I did work on some loosely-associated 'themes' during the second half of the semester, with the two bowls and plate that have leaves pressed into them... And I would like to continue with that direction, as well as others.

And... I'm not sure I like the way some (a lot) of my pieces are photographed. Sadly, my camera is out of commission at the moment, but when it's fixed, there are some I need to re-take because they came out a little blurry, and also I find the use of mom's couch (yes, that's what it is, cheap scenery) a bit distracting.. The ones with the all-black backgrounds look much crisper. I think I need to find some sort of backdrop to put behind them, just a black or a gray sheet, and then do that for EVERYTHING, so it looks more professional. I've browsed around other shops on etsy, and noticed a lot of them have used a gradient black-to-white background, which I think is a photography backdrop. It seems to work pretty well, so that's also something to think about.

Pitfalls and Shortcomings, Part 2: Finances

On Finances:
It seems I either misplaced, or forgot to order, a debit card for the separate checking account... Whoops! Made paying for shipping rather inconvenient! I have to remedy that. I also need to look at a unified way of examining cash flow, and including extraneous costs, since the transaction fees from both Etsy & Paypal, though small, are not something I had previously figured into my prices. Etsy does have a downloadable something-or-other, I think, or I could buy some software... But I also need to sit down and make a list of all my real expenses, line by line, both in production, and in distribution... and of course, I need to start allocating for some advertising.

Speaking of which, I really need a more accurate assessment of appropriate cost to manufacture a piece, including actual time spent on production and materials. My clay comes in 25 lb. bags (I think), and it only really costs me about $12-$13 per bag, so 2 - 3 lbs of clay doesn't cost all that much... but time and studio space cost money.

I can be in class for about 4 hours, and produce maybe 6 - 8 pieces. (More like 12 if they are smaller.) It takes another 2 - 3 hours to trim them all, and after bisque another 1 1/2 to glaze everything. Which comes out to 8 1/2 cumulative hours for about 8 pieces, or 1.0625 hours per piece. Since not everything that comes out of the last step, the glaze firing, is actually sellable, my success rate is more like 60-70%. Which means I just spent $8 on clay, and $127.50 on time consumed (if I assume I cost about $15/hour when I could be doing other things with my time), to produce ~5 sellable pieces. Which gives me around $27.10 per item, of pure cost to produce. And that's not including the cost of access to the studio itself, and the fact that I only used class-glazes, which are free.

...A bit of an eye-opener, when I have things for sale at $8-12.

Hope Floats

I want to take a break from the sequence of reviewing and reflection, to talk about something I just found yesterday.

For a while now, I've been wanting to set up my own studio that I could control myself, that I would have access to whenever I wanted, as opposed to relying on school or a public studio that is only open during certain hours. But I was pretty much resigned to the fact that it would probably be a while before I had the funds to do that, since it requires a lot of large machinery. I had done some looking online at different wheels and done some pricing on kilns a while back, but it looked pretty expensive.

However, in browsing around Craigslist (which is an awesome resource, by the way), I found not one, but TWO listings for used pottery wheels! One even listed the possibility of some kilns for sale as well. I am a little short on cash at the moment, but I think at around $350 - 500 for a wheel, that's not something I can really afford to pass up, even if I have to store it in the garage for a little while.

I'm hopeful!

Pitfalls and Shortcomings, Part 1: Shipping

So... the year is over, a new one has begun... and being that I officially own my own store (albeit, online), I have reviews to do.
Last year, I had some of my first sales, and experienced my first couple attempts at trying to ship merchandise out-of-state. It was... an interesting experience.

On Shipping:
My goal was to be able to ship within two business days of payment, however I have found that difficult to maintain. Although in theory, if I got up early enough I could ship any day, including days I work, in practice it's proven very hard for me to actually do this. I may have to reconsider limiting my shipping to Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days I usually have off of my normal job. Or, I could extend it to 3 - 5 business days, on the theory that I will at some point have time off in there somewhere. I really prefer a 2 - 3 day schedule though, because any longer than that feels sort of... excessive. And as a customer myself, I'm usually impatient for stuff!

Another thing I found out, was that packing materials are sort of at a premium without actually, you know, purchasing them. In the very beginning, my shipping estimates were not even close to accurate, and I had to swallow the difference of about 5 dollars on the first few that went out... and then after raising them, I found they were a little excessive when sending multiple items in one box, so I've adjusted them again. I think it's pretty close now, but the cost for the packing materials themselves may change that.
Also, note to self: Never pay for UPS to pack stuff, it's way too expensive, and it's my OWN artwork, so it's not like I don't have incentive to pack it securely.
In the near future, I need to get a postage scale so that I can have everything all printed and packed for drop-offs, instead of taking 30 minutes every trip to the UPS store. (Yuck.)

I should really formulate one, uniform and consistent packing formula, so that I'm not scrambling around anymore. I like the idea of using recycled packaging as much as possible, I could easily get a shredder to shred up old newspapers for filler instead of using Styrofoam peanuts, but the raku items may require some bubble-wrapping. I still need to solve my boxes problem though. I also like the idea of offering gift wrapping, but that is going to require some additional thought for pricing.