I have now been selling my
handmade, functional pottery for about 5 years – initially as a part-time
venture when I still worked part-time in a school and for the last 3 years as my full-time occupation.
In the early days I was
delighted to sell anything – it was so exciting that people (who didn’t know
me) were prepared to pay good money for my work! Although I attended fantastic
pottery classes for about 5 years, I do not have an artistic degree and much of
what I do is self-taught, so that acknowledgement felt fantastic.
For these last 5 years I
have not been short of shops/galleries wanting to sell my work and this is very
gratifying. The sort of people that buy my work are those that appreciate
handmade and unique pottery. The most frequent comments I get from people who
like it are ‘it’s really unusual’ and ‘what lovely colours’. However, since I
have been a full-time potter I have felt more of a need to make a bit more
money from my work – acknowledgement and praise doesn’t pay the bills!
I never expected to get
rich or even have a ‘good’ income from making and designing pottery, but like
many other designer makers I struggle with the problem of working really hard
for what is basically a pittance. Most designer makers I know have another
source of income, often teaching their craft. I don’t want this just to be a
whinge, so I thought it might be interesting to document my experience to date
with selling.
One thing I didn’t realise
when I started working full-time as a potter, was just how much time I would
need to spend marketing/selling my work. Much of this time is spent on Social Media and it is
difficult to tell how worthwhile this is.
The main ways I have
found to sell are :-
- Through galleries and high end gift shops
- Large selective Craft Events/exhibitions
- Smaller Craft Fairs/Artisan Markets
- Open Studio type events
- Online through your own shop/Etsy/Folksy shop
- Online through someone like NOTHS or
Madebyhandonline or Country Living
I have experimented with
all of these methods of selling and in the end I find there is not a lot to
choose between them in terms of financial success.
- At the large selected Craft Events I have
found that I have good sales, but these are balanced out by the high cost
of a stand (£500+), travel and accommodation. No more profitable than
galleries after all the costs.
- Through (good) galleries I can sell well but
(with a few exceptions) pay 50% of
the retail price to the gallery.
- Open Studio events can be successful but take
a lot of time and effort.
- Online sales through my own shop are
significantly more profitable, but take a lot of time and social media
effort to build up. The best times with this method have been after having
a photo of my work in a magazine, such as ‘Country Living’.
- I haven’t found online shops through a ‘middle
man’ to be very successful.
My conclusions from all
this are that there is no one way of
selling that works significantly better for me. I would really like to build up
my online sales but this
is difficult. From my
experience to date it seems customers are much happier to buy my work when it is physically in front of them.
I would love to hear other
Makers views on this subject. What works best for you?
