As a maker there are various options for working with retail which can be a great way to complement selling online and at markets.
In this Blog, I’m sharing what I’ve learned to provide advice for makers starting out and to give customers an insider view to this aspect of being a maker.
Options for makers to have their work sold in shops include:
Renting shelf space
% Commission for the retailer
Wholesale (also known as trade)
Renting Shelf Space and % Commission:
Usually with retailers whose main focus is selling work of independent makers.
They are passionate about crafting and will promote your work, some might have stalls at local events or craft fairs and will take your work there.
Quirk in Byres Road, Glasgow and Heart in the Craft, Troon are retailers I work with in this way; they are very supportive and have a great range of work available.
Renting shelf space usually means you pay a monthly fee to the retailer and you then receive the full amount of the products that are sold.
% commission means that when your work is sold the retailer will take a % commission which could be between 30 – 50 % of the price of the item.
From a maker perspective, in these models the stock is still yours and retailers can often be flexible about you changing stock, e.g. if you want to take some pieces from the shop to a market, which can be very helpful when you live locally and can readily visit the retailer.
Obviously the more retailers you work with the better the chance of sales, however you need to make sure you have enough stock. So for example, this can work very well for high volume products, e.g. greetings cards and prints. Whereas with one off or small batch pieces, you need to consider how much stock to put in each retailer, especially if you are selling online as well.
Selling Wholesale
The main difference here is that the maker sells the stock to the retailer, so the stock then becomes the retailers. There is also a standard retail mark up, usually 2 for jewellery, so when selling wholesale, knowing your costings is really important.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that this is less financially worthwhile than working with craft retailers; it’s all about factoring in rental / commission costs v likely sales volumes, the price of your products and how many pieces you can make available at any one time.
When I was starting out I sold a small number of pieces wholesale to Wild Grace, Uddingston, and Decadent Riot in Glasgow’s west end, and really appreciated the interest and support. And over 2020 - 21 my work was available in Cassiopeia, Hyndland, Glasgow.
This took me on a learning journey, to have a better handle on costings and creatively to understand what works for the retailer’s customers.
Getting my act together!
So anyone who knows me well will know that numbers has never been my strong point! Sorting out costings to get the pricing right in a way that benefited both parties was definitely going to be a challenge!
Doing some online searching I was delighted (and relieved!) to find a downloadable spreadsheet that helps auto-calculate costings with the retail mark up. (Makers: this can be found on Jessica Rose Jewellery Academy; a great resource where you can sign up for podcasts and email advice. The spreadsheet works for any type of craft).
On the surface it seems simple; list all your materials, add in your time and boom, you’ve got
materials cost (how much you’ve spent on the components to make the piece)
wholesale price (your material cost + how much time you’ve spent on it and the value of that time)
retail price (what it will sell at with the mark up)
With the jewellery I make, there can be lots of very small pieces, e.g. jump rings which are used to attach one component to another, so I had to make sure I factored in everything and also estimated costs for paint and resin.
Once I’ve got a design idea, I will often spend a lot of time online sourcing pieces, e.g. charms, so accounting for that was important too. Not only in terms of acknowledging that this time is part of the process of producing a piece; it’s also about self worth, which is a bit of a journey for most makers in terms of pricing your work.
Cabinet display, Cassiopeia, 2020