the cost of the cozy/cuff, part 2

I'm going to do my best to keep this from becoming a rant, but no promises.

Today, Etsy included a link to the cozy/cuff on their facebook page. For the most part, this was amazing. My page views blew up, and several people purchased cozy/cuffs of their very own.

But the link also sparked an interesting discussion about the price. More than a few people thought that $32 was an exorbitant amount of money to pay for the cozy/cuff. There were some people who jumped in to defend the price, but there were a lot of people that seemed to think I am making some ridiculous profit on the cozy/cuffs.

I am here to tell you that is just not true.

Here is just a small sampling of the cost factors that go into the cozy/cuff:

1. The Etsy costs are retail costs. When I wholesale the cozy/cuff, I have to cut the price in half. Which means I still need to build in profit for a wholesale price. And let me tell you, the profit margin on my wholesale price is pretty slim.

2. The cozy/cuff is made in small batches in the US. (If you read my original post - the cost of the cozy/cuff - you already know this.) And when you are buying materials and making products in small batches, the price is always going to be higher.

3. Not only do I not make the cozy/cuff in China - but I don't live in China either. And you have to factor cost of living (not to mention cost of working) into the price of the objects. (Or the workers wages.) And while I don't live in the most expensive part of the US, I certainly don't live in the one of the cheapest places in the world. And I think its only fair that I pay myself a living wage. (And if you don't believe that workers should be paid a living wage, please stop reading my blog. We cannot be friends.)

4. You also need to take into consideration the fact that the cozy/cuff is a bracelet. Here's a little math for you: today I had a cozy/cuff on my person for approximately 9 hours. For 8 of those hours, it was on my wrist. It was on my coffee cup for about an hour. (Probably a little less than that, but its easier to round.) So given those numbers, 89% of the time, the cozy/cuff functioned as a bracelet. And $32 is a pretty reasonable price for a cuff bracelet. (Its actually fairly consistent with the pricing of other cuff bracelets.)

After all this, its pretty clear to me that I should do a better job marketing it as a bracelet first - one with the added bonus of being a coffee cup cozy. Hopefully that will help justify the cost in some people's minds.

I should also probably stop reading internet discussions of my work.

crafting an MBA - business thinking for designers & makers

I alluded to it in my last post, but I wanted to officially announce the launch of my new website - crafting an MBA - business thinking for designers and makers!

Its seems long overdue that I would start a blog focused on business thinking - its something I always love to talk about. Over at craftMBA, I'll be sharing useful tips on running a business, marketing, pricing, social media and more, my recommended and currents reads (which are sure to triple since I got a Kindle for Christmas!) and my thoughts on trends in the craft and business world.

Its only because of the support I've received on my business related posts here that I had the courage to start crafting an MBA, so thank you! Won't you join me in my new space? The new year seems like the perfect time to focus and get our businesses into shape!

(No worries, I'll still be blogging here as well.)

the cost of the cozy/cuff

When I showed the cozy/cuff at the New York Gift Fair in August, I got a lot of feedback on the price - namely, most people thought they were too expensive. While I've been fluctuating the price a little bit, its been within a range that covers my expenses plus allows me a little profit. But most of the cost is wrapped up in material and making costs. Why? Because they are made in small batches in the US, rather than by the truckload in China.

I was talking to a friend the other morning, and explaining that, as the daughter of a US-based manufacturer, I could never outsource overseas. Its just not something I'm interested in. Its important to me to keep production as local as possible. She then asked me, would I be willing to mass-produce the cozy/cuff overseas if it meant that then everyone in the US used one? What's more important - the type of production I value, or getting more people to stop using a wasteful product?

I was also thinking about reactions to the cozy/cuff at Crafty Bastards. I occasionally get comments from people to the effect of, "I'd probably forget and throw it away by mistake." And today while watching Big Ideas for a Small Planet, it hit me. People don't think about what they are throwing away. If we paused before tossing things in the trash, you wouldn't have to worry about accidentally throwing your reusable coffee sleeve away.

So, if I sent the cozy/cuff overseas to be manufactured just so that they would cost $5, it would be defeating the whole purpose. What's the point of replacing a disposable object with a practically disposable object? If the cozy/cuff has a higher perceived value, hopefully you will think before throwing your coffee cup away. And maybe you'll start to think before you throw other things away as well.

clarity and certainty

Today was one of those rare days where suddenly I can clearly see the direction I want to be headed in. I feel like I've been spinning lately, but can now see a path out of the chaos. I'm not quite ready to expand on the details, but I wanted to document how I was feeling. Because right now I am feeling sure and certain. And excited. And tired. (Ok, that last one is only because I'm coming off a long day of teaching, so its time to say goodnight.)

moomah

I've been thinking a lot lately about how amazing it would be to run a little space where I could teach classes of all sorts - bicycling, jewelry and metals, or whatever my little heart desires.  Moomah, a creative arts cafe in Manhattan, is a stunning example of what I'd love to have someday.  I'm planning on stopping in when I'm in the city next.  We'll call it "research."  Yummy tasting, visually stunning research.

via Design*Sponge

what I'm reading: business and the buddha

Since I'm thinking more about the kind of business I want to have, and the importance of creating value (and not just making money), I pulled Business and the Buddha from my stack of "to be read" books.  

I didn't really find most of the ideas in the book earth shattering (though perhaps they would be if I was the CEO of GM or some other company like that).  Instead, they reinforced what I've already been thinking about.  Author Lloyd Field stresses that the primary goal of any business should be to "Cause No Harm," whether it be to the environment, employees, or customers.  Field then goes through Buddhist principals to help clarify how a business can "Cause No Harm" and "Create a Better Society."

One of the most important ideas I took from the book was my need to create a value statement.  Its clear to me that in my business, my goal isn't just to create profit, but I really need to clarify my values and communicate those to my customers as well.  

create (value) every day

As some of you may have noticed, I did not attend this year's SNAG conference.  But I did have one of my friends pick up some information from the Professional Development Seminar for me.  I was curious to know how the information was similar or different from what I had presented the previous year.

One of the handouts was basically an advertisement for services the speaker's company provided.  One of the those services was a kind of social media set-up - basically the company would build you a Facebook or MySpace page and then spend 2-3 hours teaching you "best practices."  The cost for this service - $750!

My first reaction was, "I've got to get in on that. I could make bank!"  And in fact, I've toyed with the idea of doing web and social media consulting before, particularly after I presented at the PDS in Savannah.  But, at this point in my life, I can't decide if its something that I would want to do.  

You see, I've become increasingly concerned about what I do providing value to the world around me.  Its taken me a while to get there, but I think I've come to appreciate that the things I make and design do add value to people's lives.  (At least I hope they do.)  And I certainly believe that all my bike advocacy and education activities help improve the community around me.  (If I didn't, I wouldn't be doing them.)  But setting up someone's Facebook page?  I just don't see the value in that.  As a friend recently pointed out to me, apparently this makes me "an entrepreneur, but not a capitalist."  

I couldn't agree more that I'm an entrepreneur.  I come up with a new business idea practically every week.  (And I swear I'm going to do a better job of writing them down.)  But most of them have a greater purpose than just to make as much money as humanly possible.  I just don't believe that is the be all, end all in life.

On Thursday, I went to Ignite Baltimore and one of the speakers was Jim Kucher, who heads the Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Baltimore.  Jim spoke about businesses that fall under the rough banner of Social Entrepreneurship.  For-profit companies that are using their profits to generate real change.  These businesses are the future of activism in America.  In fact, Jim went so far as to say that "charity cannot fund systemic change".  I was truly inspired by his talk.

So, where am I going with all of this?  Well, while riding my bike today, I was thinking about the best ways to help encourage more people to bike.  In the past, I've always thought about starting a non-profit of my own.  But today I wondered, why does it have to be a non-profit?  Why can't I create programs or services that help fund other programs and services?  What if I became a bicycle consultant?  (For lack of a better term - and I seriously need to come up with a better term.)  Perhaps I couldn't charge $750.  But for certain things (say, services to other businesses) maybe I could.  The point is that I'd be doing something I believe in.  I'm not quite sure what any of this would look like yet, but I think its an idea worth pursuing further.  Any suggestions?

Oh, and if you're still reading at this point in the post, the little journal (which I'm planning on using to write down more of my business ideas) is from Compendium Incorporated.  They were giving them away at the National Stationary Show.  Which, in my mind, is a pretty good way to create a fan for life.

gift fair wrap-up

I took yesterday off to decompress and relax after a long gift fair week (not to mention a stressful few weeks getting ready for the show).  

Now that I'm back, it seems like I've got even more work to do than before.  I didn't write the number of orders that I was hoping to (the show was painfully slow) but I feel like I really learned a lot in the process.  In fact, I was amazed at how much I didn't know when it came to the difference between selling jewelry and selling the new home collection.

So here are some of the things I've learned or am considering for next time, in no particular order:

Give people visual cues about the way a product is used - Buyers really didn't seem to understand what some of my items were, or how they were meant to be used.  What I think is so obviously a basket or a wall panel was not so clear to others.  I need to do a better job of staging the objects so that people immediately recognize how they can be used.

Use the booth space to create an experience/tell a story - Even though my booth was visually clean, it didn't really communicate anything special about my brand or my products.  In addition to better staging my objects, I need to create an environment for them.  There are two directions I could go with the booth - one being a home/domestic environment and the other being a focus on design.  I certainly think one commands a higher price point than the other.

I need to do a better job of communicating the ideas behind my brand - there are certain values that are important to me as a designer, such as producing goods locally in small batches.  These things make the prices higher, but can also command a higher price when communicated to the right audience.  I need to figure out a way to communicate these ideas without cheesy "made in the USA" stickers.

Make a catalog - everyone wants a catalog they can pick up and carry around with them.  The fact that I haven't done one yet is bad.  On the flip side, members of the press seemed totally ok with me sending them a digital press kit once I was home.

Ship my work - this is absolutely the last show that I drive and deliver my own work to.  It was a nightmare!

Speaking of which, I guess I should finally go unload the car...

what I'm reading: buying in

I just finished Rob Walker's book Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are. Walker writes the column Consumed for the New York Times Magazine, as well as a the blog murketing. The beginning of the book details the transition for tradition marketing to murketing (murky marketing), a term coined by Walker to define marketing attempts that exist outside the traditional realm. If you've been paying attention at all since the turn of the century, this isn't really anything new. As TIVO and the internet divert peoples' attention away from traditional mass-market advertising, companies have had to develop new strategies to market their products. Not really new information.

It wasn't until chapter eleven, then, that I sat up and payed attention. Walker profiles Aaron Bodaroff, who set out to answer the question, "How do I turn my lifestyle into a business?" This struck me for two reasons. One I've been asking myself a similar question lately. Namely, how do I take the things I really want to do, and make them into a business? But more so, it is actually the opposite question around which I've attempted to build my business, "How do I turn my business into my lifestyle?" Or more so, "How do I turn myself into my own brand?"

In building my brand, I've (hopefully) communicated a brand with a strong aesthetic based around graphic, modern, organic designs and a black, white, and gray color palette. By virtue of the fact that jewelry is one of the few art forms you can advertise by wearing, it seems as though my aesthetic (and therefore my brand) has infiltrated its way into my daily appearance. I was becoming my own brand. Which, according to Walker, my generation sees as a "legitimate form of creative expression."

But defining myself in such a narrow way (through the lens of my business/brand), may be what has contributed to my recent boredom and my desire to more fully explore other interests. My desire to be more than just a business contributing to an endless stream of consumption has led me to consider other problems such as sustainability, environmentalism, and business ethics. Fortunately for me, Walker addresses these as well. And if chapter eleven made me sit up and take note, chapter twelve resonated with me in terms of a usable business/marketing model.

Or perhaps I should say, an unusable marketing model. According to recent polls, a majority of consumers are increasingly interested in making ethical purchasing choices. (I'm paraphrasing here.) Yet, according to Walker, this majority does not translate to the marketplace. While socially-conscious purchases are on the rise, they in no way reflect the majority of respondents who claim interest in ethical purchasing. Ethically-minded purchasing (whether green, fair-trade, organic, etc.) remains a niche-market. Case in point, American Apparel. Even though the company's philosophy is based on ethical business practices, they chose a broader, mass market ad campaign based on sex-appeal.

As I read this, I kept thinking this could be a problem for the indie-craft field, whose main marketing ploy is an ethical choice - support independent artists and handmade objects rather than mass-produced items and big business. Gabriel's post last week on Conceptual Metalsmithing, titled "The Green, The Organic, and The Handmade," examines this further. Gabriel draws parallels between green and organic impulses and the desire to buy handmade, which I agree with. Gabriel argues that we as craftspeople should draw on the same ethical shopping desires motivating people to buy green or buy organic. But if you expand on Walker's argument, by positioning craft in a niche market of ethical consumerism, we may never have relevance to a larger market of consumers.

In the next chapter, Walker actually goes on to talk about the DIY movement, including Etsy and the Austin Craft Mafia. Walker describes the DIY movement as a political movement grounded in consumption and marketing. One of the comments that struck me most details the awkward growth that the indie-craft movement is starting to face. We can all only make so much by hand, and at some point we either have to accept that we have hit our maximum level, or consider outsourcing, hiring help, etc. This can lead crafters to, as Walker describes, "the Courtney Love syndrome: too weird for the main stream, but successful enough to be seen as a sellout by 'the underground that once loved you.'" Which is how I'm starting to feel about my business. Not that I'm that successful, but rather I'm learning that to truly have a sustainable (in the financial sense) business, I might have to let go of some of the handmade idealism that helped me get started in the first place.

Verdict: While the beginning seems a little obvious, there aren't many books that actually discuss the DIY craft movement. But even if it didn't, Buying In would still be a worthwhile read for indie craft artists who are trying to understand how they fit into the contemporary marketplace.

spiritual capitalism

I just read this article from Ode Magazine called "The gospel according to Adam Smith." The article focuses on spiritual capitalism - the idea that doing good can be synonymous with making money.

I was immediately reminded of a company I came across the other day - Kind Bike. I loved Kind's mission statement so much that I wish I could steal it for my own:

"We believe the triple bottom line – people, planet and profits – should be at the core of every company’s value system.

We believe that any product should have value beyond mere possession.

We believe that simple and easy should translate into every aspect in which a company is involved."

The article also mentions a book called Business and the Buddha: Doing Well by Doing Good. This is definitely going on my must read list.

(Thanks to Christina from Taboo Studio for introducing me to Ode!)