I’ve been fighting a pretty bad cold and cough for the past week. Made for a merry hacking Christmas, but I am on the mend at last. As a result, I haven’t had much energy to do much of anything, including making jewelry or blogging.
I did make a lovely necklace and earrings set for my Dad to give to my Mom for Christmas. She loved it, which is always a nice thing.
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas.
Said to me just 30 minutes ago by a coworker about a new bracelet that I made this weekend that I’m test driving today for normal wear before I list it in my shop. Then she was worried that she may have offended me and I told her that I took it as the compliment that she meant. I like that kind of feedback, don’t you?
There’s a matching pair of earrings.
I’ve never listed anything as a set, but I think I will with these. They need to be sold together.
[UPDATE (12/17)]: Here’s the set…
You’d think I’d learn, but I have a package all wrapped up and ready for tomorrow’s mail that contains the final special order from the open house from a couple of weeks ago. And I just realized that I never took pictures of the items for inventory purposes at least. *sigh*
I did the same thing last summer when I made jewelry for a friend’s daughter’s wedding. I made lariat necklaces and matching earrings for the bridesmaids - each one had her own individually designed lariat and earrings to match. They were all made from the same group of beads, but each set was distinctive. They all loved them and they looked fantastic with their bright aqua blue dresses. I was an idiot and didn’t take a single picture of any of the pieces.
I also made a pearl bracelet and earrings as a gift for the bride and didn’t take pictures of those either.
I’m a nitwit about photography and inventory control.
You can see all of my displays on my Flickr page here. The photos dated 12/2/07 are for the open house yesterday.
I love the open house format. Being one who enjoys hospitality anyway, having friends into my home is always a joy - that they come to take a look at my wares is a bonus.
So I had my first open house yesterday and I consider it a success. Of the 40 or so women that I invited, 12 actually came. And all but two left with a shopping bag. Not too shabby!
My biggest selling item was earrings - I had two racks that had about 40-44 pairs of earrings each. Both are now about half full. One friend bought eight pairs of earrings - gifts for her nieces. I also sold a few bracelets and tea infusers, a bookmark, and two cell phone charms.
If you’re considering doing an open house, do it. It’s well worth the time and effort. And here are my suggestions for making it a successful one:
1. Use Evite to invite your guests. Everyone uses email. Evite puts an invitation right into your guest’s inbox. They can RSVP right then and they have the ability to change their RSVP if they need to later. You can send reminders of your event as you get closer to the date. And you can send a follow-up message after the event, which I plan to do today to thank them all for coming and shopping.
2. Consider the season when planning your open house. I sell jewelry, so the best times for me to do an open house are before gift giving holidays where jewelry would be a great gift. Christmas is a no brainer. I’m now planning another open house for the spring to lead into Mother’s Day and prom season. I’ll probably do it in April.
I’m also thinking about doing one for men in late January to lead into Valentine’s Day. But I’m trying to think how I’d entice men to come shopping - maybe an online “open house” would work better for them. I’m still thinking on this idea.
3. Have refreshments. I invited my mother, a tea merchant, to display some of her teas and related items. She also provided most of the refreshments including teas to sample, her scones, and other foods from her cookbook. She sold well, too.
Consider your audience if thinking about serving alcohol. Since my open house was in the middle of the day and most of the folks who came were from church, I didn’t serve alcohol. But a home party in the evening would be a great time to have wine and cheese and chocolate dipped fruit.
4. Take credit cards. At a previous open house I participated in 2/3 of my sales were by credit card. Yesterday my sales were evenly split between all three payment options - credit card, checks, and cash.
5. Be prepared for taking custom orders on the spot and don’t hesitate to ask for payment of at least a deposit up front. Of the custom orders I got, all were happy to pay in full right then. What makes that nice is that you don’t have to follow up for the remaining payment. Once the items are made, you just ship them off.
Related, be willing to repair jewelry that you didn’t make. I have two bracelets to repair from a friend who asked about it. They’re simple repairs and I charged a nominal fee for the materials and time I’ll expend. Going that small extra step will bring a customer back.
6. One last thing, have a guest book for your business. It’s a great way to manage a mailing list in a nice, contained format. You may not always get your customer’s name and contact info on an invoice or receipt, but that guest book will.
I’m sure there are other tips that others might have. That’s all I can think of right now. Feel free to share yours in the comments if you have any.
I’ll post pictures of my display after I download them from my camera.
