It happens to us all, one day you’re sitting there running the UPS driver ragged shipping your orders, the next, the phone has stopped ringing and while you have good traffic on your website, nothing is moving. What’s up? Could be any number of issues: seasonal, economic or shift in spending patterns. The constant research a business owner must do will give you a heads up when these conditions are coming into play.
However, a major cause for a decrease in sales is that your art or craft has hit a saturation hit. By that, I mean that too many crafters are making the same type product or you’ve totally covered the market with your product. Here are some determiners of saturation and what the savvy craft business owner can do to work around the problem.
Your Product Is No Longer Needed
Think about the sad fate of videocassette recorders. First, there was BETA, which was kicked to the side of the road by VHS. While I still own a VCR, I can’t remember the last time I used it. With advancing technology, I would imagine anyone that wants a VCR already has one.
So what to do if you make the arts / crafts equivalent of a VCR? In the arts / craft world, this most likely happens when you are making a trendy product that has run its useful fashion life. This is going back quite a few years, but mood rings are a great example. These rings were handcrafted with moonstone, which has the tendency to change colors in different light. The very successful marketing campaign was that the moonstone in ring picked up the wearers emotional vibrations and changed color to match the wearers mood.
Ludicrous, I know but these rings were hot sellers back in the day and high profit margin items since milky white moonstone is very inexpensive. Fast forwarding to today, anyone that has basic ring making skills can cash into the new jewelry trend of statement rings and cluster statement rings. Plop a big gemstone or crystal into a ring setting and you’ve got the current equivalent of a mood ring.
Too Many Crafters Are Making Your Product
In a prior article, I mentioned the fact that 80% of the exhibitors at a recent craft show were jewelry makers. That’s saturation point. Not getting into all the gory details as to why the organizers of the show allowed this to happen – what can a crafter do when everyone and their brother is making the same product?
Overcome saturation point by morphing the product into something new. Using soap making as an example, anyone with a mold and an oven can make organic hand milled goats milk soap. However, I found a spirit and voodoo shop on the Internet whose hand milled soap is created using authentic voodoo techniques to cleanse, heal or bring money or love into the users life. There are very few vendors approaching the soap making industry from this angle - thus going around saturation point.
Following with the same craft, not down for the voodoo aspect of soap making? Then go around saturation point by handcrafting soap using ingredients hard to obtain such as rose otto essential oil. While your competitors are making their soap with the cheaper alternative, rose geranium essential oil, you can market your product as being made with the real thing.
Do a Two for One
If you’re a metalsmith who makes jewelry, branch out into sculpture or light fixtures. You’ll be utilizing the same skill set, just in a different way and attracting a totally different target market. At the last craft show I attended, one of the artists showed both wall pieces and brooches. Both were made using the base metal copper which the artist over paints with acrylics and adds surface interest with 18K gold wire. Same basic theory and design – but going around any jewelry saturation point and reaching the male and female homeowner plus the female garment accessorizing market.
Consider Demographics
Our population is aging. If I was a garment designer or sweater maker, I would definitely have a design line that included garments easy to put on and take off – maybe incorporating large snaps in an artful way into the design to appeal to those who have trouble with buttons.
