Monday Maker: Packaging & all the frilly finishing touches

This is the last in our Monday Making series of blogs.  If you have missed the other parts, click here to follow our blogs on making a product to sell over the past month.

1. Make, Create- Go on dive in!

2. Selling your wares

3. Marketing & Promotion

And now for Part 4- Packaging & all the frilly bits.

Ok, your product is fabulous and you have made a sale. 
Congratulations. But that isn’t where your job ends.

Service

I am BIG on service. The service you give is a reflection of your business. So if you have a face book or twitter site representing your business make sure you stay entirely professional.

Always ensure you communicate with your customer.

Acknowledge the order with a confirmation- in whatever way you choose to communicate with your clients. If you offer a “made to order” service and it takes ten days to make it, explain that in an email. Ensuring the client understand that the goods are made by one pair of hands with love and care.   If you need a little more time to make it, be honest and explain. Normally if they have chosen your product for the reason that it is a special unique and one off treasure, they will wait a little longer.

If you sell bought in products and you happen to be out of stock, explain the problem, offer a fabulous alternative and a refund if necessary. If the goods are delivered later than anticipated,  ensure  that you apologise, keep the client in the loop and as a gesture of good will, send something lovely to apologise like a gift voucher token.

Inform the client when it has been posted with a tracking number. 
Always be open in your communication.

A good service is normally a good foundation for a repeat sale.

If you offer matching sets to accompany the product the buyer has bought, make sure you send a little picture or mention the matching items. 

No big sales talk. An image talks 1000 words!

U-ni-k's porcelain matching egg cup, cereal bowl and cup sets

Packaging
Something alot of small business forget. But the packaging can be just as important as the bought product.  I know of people who have bought something purely because of the way it was gift wrapped!!

Aesthetics- Make sure your packaging reflects your little companies ethos.

We have chosen Furoshiki for many reasons. Our gifts are for infants so we wanted to replicate a swaddle cloth & a comforter.  Something without sharp edges, dangerous staples or messy wrappings.

We believe in being ec-friendly and making minimum wastage therefore we designed our packaging to have a double use. Not only is it a protective wrapping, it also duplicates as a burp cloth. A perfect free gift without giving a gift.

Don’t cut corners. If your ethos is to be eco-friendly recycling old packaging is fine if you stipulate you do so, so that people aren’t surprised. But be prepared to cost your packaging and include it in the cost of your products if it is something you do for free.

Function- If you are selling something breakable ensure your goods are well wrapped with a wrapping that will protect your goods in the post. You don't want your best efforts to go to waste and have to re-make it again.

Gift wrap- don’t feel you have to gift wrap your products. Offering the service for a additional price is ok.  If you do gift wrap make sure the gift is wonderful and gives the “WOW” factor. I believe that a beautifully wrapped gift present should make the recipient smile as much as the gift. A simple beautiful tissue with a customised sticker is lovely as a standard packaging. Beetroot Press uses a very pretty sweet floral tissue and a lovely string.

Mess & Outer Packaging- I recently opened a package full of broken Styrofoam sheets. A BIG mess over my floor. It looked un-professional, made a mess and quite honestly looked awful. Something i would avoid doing when packaging a product. Keep it simple, Mess free and if possible similar to the beautiful outside packaging. We use brown paper and string to outside wrap our parcels. 
Lucy from LucyLitchfield uses a beautiful brown gusseted envelope that she stamps with her logo in the shape of a brown parcel label and stitches through the envelope in red to replicate the string on the tag.

Fabrics & Material- Use something original that will be a signature of your business. Everyone remembers when Body shop started selling in their gift in fabric bags. Everyone wanted one. The bags at that time became more popular than the products. And with "Body SHOP" on the bags- helped spread the word.

Useful information-

Make sure the wrappings have your company name on and a way to contact you. If the product has been bought as a gift, the recipient may want to know where to find you. This can be done in the form of a swing tag or  a "hello"postcard. 
I love the combination of swings tags and postcards that Beetroot Press use. 

After care

We always send a  "your gift is dispatched" email to the client as the gift leaves us.  That way the client knows when to expect it. Always ensure any track able delivery has been received by following the delivery on the Couriers website. That way you know if there is a problem before the client does.

Marketing

If the client has agreed to allow you to keep their details in the form of a client list, use the Marketing & Promotion blog from last week to keep in touch with your client.

Click here to read it.

Survey Monkey

Survey Monkey is a good tool to follow up your sale and gain feedback.  A perfect tool to gain constructive criticism and positive feedback.

We have a section on our website for Client feedback and an album on facebook of "We use our products so we can recommend them to you" so people can see our gifts in action. We also always share images of other people enjoying their new gifts on our social networking sites.

We hope you have liked reading our helping hints into taking the jump and delving into being Crafty.
The MOST important piece of advice I can give is to enjoy what you are making.
If you are smiling so will your product.
 And be Original

Happy Crafting

From the u-ni-k gift ladies, Anna & Sarah

Monday Making -Make create, go on dive in!

Inspired by Sarahs blog from Thursday of last week called 

"Old fashioned proverbs",

for August only, replacing our Monday makers blogs,

we have decided to blog about diving in and making.

Just diving in doing it. With our helpful hints and guide.

Remember there is no rules, no bible. Making is personal. But we can add a few of out helpful hints to help you along the way.

Our 4 weeks of make blogs will concentrate on helping to inspire those wanting to create something new but are too afraid to take the leap.

Week one

Making and Inspiration. Good idea to finished product etc

Week two

Selling sites, Photographing the piece,  etc

Week three

Marketing and Promotion

Week four

Packaging and frilly finishing touches

So if you, like Sarah,
are too afraid to jump and delve forward....read the following points we felt
were important to think about when starting something new.



Always start with a clean kitchen

Something that all my work colleagues will all smile to themselves about as it has been literally
DRUMMED into us. But actually it's true. Starting something new with dirty
equipment and unorganised surroundings can be the recipe for disaster.
Cleaning, editing and organising can give your head space to absorb and ponder
over the next step. Plus it's great Feng Shui!

It also means you know exactly what is in your fridge. No.....I am not just talking about baking and
cooking. It applies to all making. 

If you tidy and cleanse you know what stocks you have. 

You re-visit papers, pens and fabrics and get excited all over again by them.

It's like Christmas!

Plus the added bonus
that you won't damage a making with a broken or dirty tool.

Start clean and in order......it helps I promise.

Be inspired

If you are having trouble knowing where to start, get up, get outside and do something completely
opposite. Go to an Art gallery, gardens, or library. Something that you know you enjoy. 

Feeling happy and surrounding yourself with things that make you smile,  will make your mind happy.

Sitting at a desk drumming your fingers is not a way to start!



Play... & make for you

In my opinion if you make a product hoping a shop will be interested in it (for example) it will

never sit happily in your hands. It will always be a little stale and you will
not completely be happy with it. 

From experience of people making for the storeI used to work in I know.

I believe a product/making truly shines when it has be made to make the maker happy.

Then it truly satisfies everyone.

So play, have fun with it, enjoy the making process. It it doesn't work first time play a bit more. I
can tell if something has been made with happiness as it has come easily.

Remember the only restrictions are the ones you set!



Use only the best Ingredients

In my opinion there is no point cutting corners and using cheap ingredients. Again this applies to
more than cooking and baking! The best cakes come from the best cream, best
biggest eggs, most refined flour, best butter, gentle hands and perfect measures.

A badly measured cake with cheap ingredients never ends in success.

Follow this rule. Remember you cannot compete with high street prices.

The high street is mass produced, with materials bought in massive quantities, made in factories where big outlets can haggle over prices as they are buying in 1000's. Don't compete.

What you are making is totally opposite. What you are making is unique, made by one pair of hands,
made with individuality, a little wabi sabi and much love. 

Never try to compete with the high street in price. 

You'll end up bruised and will always loose. In pocket and production.



Function & aesthetic

Does your product tick both boxes? Does it need to?

Ask yourself does it do the task you wanted it to.

Step away, put it away and look at it with fresh eyes the next day and ask the same question.

 Safety & fixing

-Check H&S guidance's for the product you make. Especially for infant products?

-Have you taken all pins out?

-Have all loose threads been secured and cut

-Do your colours run? Can they be fixed?

-Have you copyrighted your product?

-Do you have public and product liability for your name/product?

*see helpful notes at the bottom for more on these points

 Constructive criticism

The maker is always the best critic. BUT...you have seen  and touched this product a lot. 

Ask people who you know will give you constructive criticism to test the product.

Ask for explanations on their opinions. The more you know the better. 

However brutal it is. Then, Take on board what has been said and,

-Try and better the product with the knowledge you have gained.

-Know that not everything that has been suggested needs to be changed if you disagree.



Variations

Once you are happy with the product, can you add alternatives?

-A variety of colours?

-A variety of fabrics?

-A personalisation to make it even more special

-And as a alternative a repeated version that a replica of the first. Runs of the same product.

Take a Peek at these as a inspiration.

Beetroot Presses illustrations

Sarah from Beetroot Press uses a variety of colours for each illustration she creates. 

Our decoupage memory boxes

Anna's original Teddy memory box has now developed into a Rabbits & Birds.




Pattern and recipe

Once you are happy, take the pattern, write instructions and 

measurements so you can make again to the same recipe.

That way any differences are ones that are intentional.

You don't want to have an order for a product you made 6
months ago without knowing how to make it again!

Be resourceful in your cutting of fabric/paper, save scraps (they may be the start of a new project) and and be wise with your buying of materials.



Price

Before you start this part decide is this a hobby or a business?

A hobby means you don't need to make a profit. 

You simply need to cover costs and be happy.

To make a business from your product you need to be more wise in your spending.

Ask your suppliers if you can have a discount on your shopping. 

Ask for a wholesale price or a discount if one isn't possible.

Chat to the supplier, can you get a discount if you name them in a blog?

You can only ask.

Joanne Dewberry has some helpful tips on pricing your handmade products.



*

Now go and Dive in

Most importantly, be true to yourself and
have fun!!!

Enjoy and be happy making.

If it's going badly put it away and come
back to it another day!



*

Helpful sources

*ACID copying in design

*Health & Safety testing

*Product and Public liability insurance.

Joanna Dewberry

unikgifts