Selling is the way to go

01/17/2021

  About two weeks ago a local vendor really got things moving for me in the area of retail of my items. While laid off from "work" I spent two hours every day making new items in my shop. She saw them listed on my website and asked me to stop over and talked about the area of retail and selling my forged items. This promptly "lit the fire" under me to do more in preparation for my ultimate retirement goals. She gently explained the arena of wholesale vs. retail in the open market. Boy do I have a lot to learn...

  Then I pursued selling my forged items, which now took up two dining room tables and listed to over $2000 onto the WWW and Facebook Marketplace. As a former student of photography, it took me no time at all to set up some display art to be photo'd. I choose a red background with an old woolen ski sweater to offset the metal fabrications. They worked great but I found out face that FB has a lot of regulations about selling on their marketplace. Who knew that my Crusader Crosses were considered a weapon under their computer algorithms which govern most of FB. Never the less, Metal fabricated art is just fine for my "crusader" crosses. This plunged me into the world of finance, PayPal, taxation, and shipping which was right off the deep end of the pool. I managed to sell a few items and got 190 hits on any thing mounted on whiskey barrels. One person even wanted to do a porch pick-up in order to  avoid the shipping. While another wanted to sell me a huge box of railroad spike only to later order an knife made out of one. Hey buddy, the knife is still on my shelf waiting to be picked up and paid for. hahaha

  The biggest homerun of the week happened in a little town of Eagle, WI at the Eagle Public Market. Thanks to the guidance of Alex S. and company, we now have our first retail display up in S.E. Wisconsin. It took a lot of paperwork to be filled out, but I now have a sellers license from WI and can sell my gear at Farmers Markers far and wide. I started small and just want to see if the risk is worth the reward. My business partner, Linda, is taking over the shipping of goods and marketing of my product line. That is an incredible weight off my shoulder so that I can spent more time in the shop - forging new items during these cold winter months. Who know, in five years I could me selling in three different farmers market across two counties. I would love to just give demonstrations on blacksmith and would be a great draw to those artist fairs like Holy Hill and Monches if  you are listening. I just have to keep you posted - thanks for following my blog.