Now What Do I Do?

As you may recall, I made my first (and only, so far) sale via Etsy back in May. I got it out the door and on the way to the Bronx about 2 days after the purchase was made and I thought that would be the end of it. Well, last week I got a notice that there was a package waiting for me at the post office. I couldn't figure out what it might be, but when I got to the post office on Saturday, I discovered that the very same box I sent off to NYC in MAY, just came back to me unclaimed. What am I to do? I had to cover the return postage (~$14), I have tried to contact the purchaser, but the only way I have to contact them is through the conversations on Etsy, they did not put an e-mail address or phone number or anything in their profile. I have asked if they actually do want this piece, and that if they do, there would be an additional $14 in postage, but I would be more than happy to send it to them again. What do I do if they don't contact me? Am I obliged to refund the money? It took 2 months for this to get back to me, and the money is now long spent (they paid by PayPal, and I have since made other online purchases like e-books, etc.

If anyone out there has any advice, or has had something similar happen to them, I would appreciate any feedback.

I guess I will put this little jar back on the shelf, but keep it as “SOLD” for a while in case they do get back to me and do want it.

2 new pots up on Etsy

I have listed another shellac resisted teabowl and a coffee mug on Etsy. For some reason, when I send the pictures to my blog via my iphone, they are not showing up in my post list, so you will have to look to your right, and you will see all of my Etsy pots for sale. I will have to load the pictures when I am sitting down with my actual computer tonight.

Does anybody read this, or are you all Spam Bots?

I am always a wee bit curious about how people are driven to this little blog, where nothing of significance is discussed (like geopolitics, economics, war etc). I actually think that most of what I write about is really only interresting to me (I could be wrong). Anyway, back to the stats. Blogger tracks the referring links, referring URLs and the search keywords used to get here. I know my mother links to my blog on her blog, so that explains that. I am listed as an artist on the Centennial Gallery blog, so that explains that. But everything else is still an unknown as to where the traffic came from. The only thing I can think of are spam bots and other mysterious internet robots. I do get a kick out of the fact that people other than myself are googling me and my alter ego the cracked potter. What is weird, is that one of the referring sites is an "alternative social media site" that I do not belong to. I barely use FB. So it is a bit weird to see that my FB presence generates nothing, but other social media that I don't know anything about is generating traffic. The other weird one is a URL fingerprint site, that uncovers "hidden relations", whatever that is supposed to mean. Other people who are more techie than me will just shake their head and roll their eyes at my www naivete.

Anyway, 'nuf said about that. It now less than 42 hours before the sale on Saturday and no, I wont have any really, really, really fresh pots in it, just the month old ones. I thought Dave was going to load the kiln with my stuff that needed to be refired and fit student work in amongst it, and he thought I was, so in the end, he just loaded the student stuff and fired it. So look for the, brand new, fresh as a daisy pots on Etsy in about a week, once I recover from this last sale. I am pretty sure there are going to be some gooders in that batch.

Additional thought:

I have noticed again and again that people keep landing on the post "Late Onset ADD?". I was just trying to be funny, but people also seem to be searching these very words as well, so is late onset ADD a problem that I am not aware of? Do I really have it? Probably not, I can focus really well when the big comfy chair grabs a hold of me and the television is showing something I really like.

Dodging Murphy's curve ball

It might just work out in the end, but its gonna be tight (just like OJ's glove). The kiln is getting a new element today (fingers crossed) and then my stuff will be re-fired tonight. So Friday I will be unloading that kiln, then pricing and cataloguing everything else. it's gonna be a long Friday night.


I must say that even though everything was just a tad bit under fired, the glazes looked OK. I still want to refire though, the feet felt a little dry and the glazes were not 100%. The gloss liner glaze was satin, the translucent brown had a purple/bluish haze with little depth, the black and rutile slip on my bas relief stuff did not develop as nicely as it has in the past (begins to react with the glaze and forms a milky opalescence where the glaze pools) and again, the F96 brown clay was still quite orange. I always worry with a refire that the glazes will run off the pots and stick to the shelf. They had already started to flow the first time round, and now will be subjected to a full firing again. Luckily, most of my feet are quite substantial. I love a nice fat foot. However, I have several tall jars and vases that have flat bottoms and the glaze stops quite close to the bottom. Everything should be ok, but you never know.

So, if all goes well, I will have everything priced and packed on Friday night. If I don’t sell anything, then on Sunday I will be posting a whole bunch of stuff on Etsy, so look out...

First Etsy Sale

It may have taken 3 months, but I just made my first sale through Etsy. It was for a little stoneware jar thrown all in one and then the lid is seperated from the body at the trimming stage. It will be going to the Bronx in a few days. Now I just have to find a box...

Do you want the good news, or the bad news first?

I always like to get the bad news out of the way first....
I got to work two weeks ago today to find that I had been laid off. So that is the bad news.
In response to this rather drastic change in my income, I began an Etsy shop (this is the good news). I have not sold anything, but am trying to post at least 1 or 2 items every couple of days. I currently have 7 pieces listed. You can find my shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/CrackedPotCeramics and will have more to add over the next while. I don't expect this to pay my bills, but it would be nice if I could actually work towards being a full time potter.
If anyone out there has any suggestions on the best way to run a pottery shop on Etsy, I welcome your comments and advice.

New Years Resolutions...

I never make New Years Resolutions, but I am going to put this one out there so that hopefully I will make more of an effort.

For a while now I have been saying to myself that I should create more of an online presence for my pottery with the hope of creating more sales and therefore more revenue ($$$). The gallery sales have been slow to say the least, and I have to say that for the 3 sales that I was a part of this past fall, the numbers were not generally good. I did well at the studio sale, but then, I always do OK. But even then, the overall sales were down by at least 1/3, and my personal sales were a little less than normal as well.

SO, here it is. I will attempt to open an Etsy shop sometime before the summer of 2012, and if that works out and I sell enough via Etsy to pay for it, I would like to branch out to an actual website (not just a blog) that showcases my work. I don’t think the website is as vital to get going right away, as I don’t think I would use it for selling work directly. However, it could be a place to funnel people to the work for sale on Etsy. I am going to actually try and use my holidays this year so I should have a little more ME time to work on this goal. I have collected a few friends lately that are directly involved with website creation/design and marketing, so I may have to pick their brains over a beer or two…

I have the space that I will dedicate to this endeavor mostly finished at home, I just need to put up 1 more shelving unit to store all the work that is for sale so it doesn’t get all mixed up, get some decent lights for photographing items, and then  eventually get a decent table in there for wrapping orders (crossed fingers).

My one big obstacle will be my penchant for procrastination, and my fear of the unknown. I do tend to put things off if I am at all unsure about the outcome, or if the process is not clear from the beginning. I had done some research a while ago on setting up an Etsy store and a pay pal account etc, but as it was not something that was in my immediate plans, I did not really take it seriously. So that is something else I will have to do…research what my start up costs will be. I have no idea what it costs to sell stuff this way. I know that with Etsy, there is a per upload cost and a cost per sale, but I have not gone very far with the credit transactions and figuring out what my costs would be for Pay Pal etc. Then there is the shipping costs. I have no idea how to calculate shipping costs on a per item basis. If the customer is buying only 1 item, then that is easy, but if they buy multiples, then more items can fit in a box, and the cost for a bigger box may not equal the cost of shipping them individually. Should I standardize my shipping container sizes? Ie: 4 different box sizes and then work out what the average box would weigh when full of pottery and figure out the cost to ship each size. Do I ship via Canada Post or a company like Fed Ex, Purolater, or UPS? So many questions and not enough knowledge. I have actually only made one Etsy purchase, and my motivation was twofold. First, I really liked what I bought, and second, I wanted to know what the process was like. I could do the shipping thing like the merchant I purchased from. They had individual shipping costs noted for each item, but when it came time to ship them, he was charged a little less than what I paid, so he refunded that amount to my credit card. That is something else I will have to figure out, how to refund money once I have already processed the transaction.

So many questions….

 

Good News and some random micro/macro economic ramblings etc

I have just been in contact with a potential new gallery to show/sell my work. I won’t divulge too many details until I have it all worked out, but they want to buy them outright instead of on consignment which is how the other two galleries I am in operate. They will take a few pieces at a time and order more as needed, so hopefully this works out. The only minor glitch is that they are located in the Crowsnest Pass (about an hour and a half drive South from Calgary). As I work during the week, delivery on a week day is impossible. I could ship all the orders, but that eats into my profits. They do drive to Calgary every so often and could pick up, and that would be a good option. If they take delivery on a weekend (Saturday), then I would not mind driving it down myself. I love the drive down the 22. If this works out then I will have been accepted into my 3^rd gallery without having to really work for it. So far it has been via introductions from 3^rd parties. Galleria took me on when my teacher recommended me and Centennial invited me to join after I took part in a group show there (I was invited into the show by a friend who is a member). This time I was introduced to the gallery via one of Dave’s students that no longer attends Fairview, but she works in the Crowsnest and joined the Pass pottery club down there for convenience. She thought of me when her friend who owns this gallery approached her about new potters to get into their shop. I like not having to work too hard to get representation. One of my biggest faults is that I do NOT like to toot my own horn, and as a result, have never approached a gallery cold. It could also be that I am too busy (lazy? scared of rejection?) to do the legwork...

Anyway, on a somewhat related tangent, it has become apparent that pottery sales, at least as far as craft sales go, have been fantastic this year. Not only did Fairview Studios break a sales record this year, apparently so did the Northmount Pleasant sale and many of the potters that get supplies at CC were saying that the large shows they have been in have been fantastic as well. So...my hope is that this demand for handmade pottery will trickle down to the galleries. I have to say that for the past few years, I have not relied on galleries for any sort of reliable source of money. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back towards the handmade side of things and people are starting to realize that just because it is cheap doesn’t mean it’s a good deal. I think that consumers these days are very conscious of where their money is going, who is reaping the benefits, was it ethically manufactured, safety etc. It seems these days that every time you turn around there is another story in the news about toxic/tainted food, manufacturer recalls, lead in your plastic toys, mercury in your fish etc...Also, if you buy the cheap mass produced product from an overseas company, your money goes over seas too...and eventually we are out of a job. Not that if all potters in N.America went out of business the economy would collapse, but it would be a very sad day indeed. Not to mention that when we make money, that money is then spent in the community (for the most part anyway). So, I am hoping that this buying handmade is a trend, and not an outlying blip.

On a less boring and slightly humorous note...I got an e-mail from one of my Mum’s friend’s that reads this blog (one of the few that do I am sure). She had read my blog about perhaps getting an Etsy store up and running and she wanted to warn me to not get my stuff posted on regretsy.com I had never heard of this before and it is hilarious. So, if you have a warped sense of taste, check it out. I guess it is mostly stuff that people have purchased from Etsy, but this stuff falls into the realm of failed crafts.

random blather

I’m must be gettin old. I missed 5 weeks of my exercise class that I go to on Monday nights. I was teaching at the studio for several weeks, then it was my Dad’s 67^th birthday, and I couldn’t miss that. Then, it got so bleeding cold here, the last thing I wanted to do was slip and slide my way to class to get all sweaty and then go back into the cold and have my sweaty hair freeze. Anyway, I went to class last night and then went to bed early (is 8 hours and 53 minutes of sleep too long?). Today, my back is killing me, my left ankle and foot hurt and I have to go teach a pottery class tonight. Wow, I sound crabby, I’m not, I’m just sayin, getting old sucks! I’m not even that old, but I sure feel every one of my 39.5 years today.

There is a pretty strong Chinook arch today, so the weather should be mild (0 Celsius?)...much better than the -29 Celsius last week (It makes you feel like wearing shorts when the temp rises 30 degrees over night) but the Chinook related headaches are a pain. I never used to get them, but I started getting them last year and now I know what everyone else complains about.

The mountains are very clear today, they are right there, in your face and bright and toothy.

Not sure what I am going to demo tonight. Lately I have been making a mess of my demos instead of inspiring creativity. My bowls have flopped, my facets have ripped open, the elongated platters rip in half as I am “dramatically” stretching them out on the canvas table, and my slip trailer develops a case of gas and barfs slip all over the freshly decorated plate (at the very end of course so that I have to try and scrape it all off or just try to blend the burp into the overall pattern). Maybe I will stick with what I do best (bowls), how boring....I need to replenish my stock of everything, so perhaps it will be casseroles tonight, or pitchers with fancy rims....who knows, I will find out when I get there. I need to buy some clay too, so first thing after work I will be off to CC and pick a box or 2 up.

On a non clay note, my computer should be here in 3 days (Yippee!!!). Can’t wait!!!

I have been reading a few discussions in the blogosphere regarding the pro’s/con’s of selling via Etsy. I posted a while back that I was thinking of starting up an Etsy account, but the master procrastinator that I am, I never got around to it. Now that I will have some enhanced technology, and if I can get around to setting up a mini photography studio in my condo, I might give it a try. I will take all the sage advice that is being offered on this topic and hopefully put it to good use when I get my shop up an runnin. I really need to get some proper shelving in my “store room” at home. Right now it is a disaster zone with pots all over the floor amidst wrapping paper, painting supplies, an easel with an UGLY painting on it, and other sundry crap.

Enough rambling and babbling,

TTFN (What?, Did I just say that?)

Maybe I should say something like:

Make pots purposefully and make purposeful pots.

Nah, how about:

Go get dirty...