These pens won't sell...any ideas?

[scturner]

Hello everyone,

I haven't posted in a while and acutally haven't turned any thing in some time. The last thing I did was 5 new peppermills for my site. I'd like to start turning some more pens but have held off due to the ones on my site already not selling.

I think they look rather cool myself but folks don't seem to be interested in them. Don't know if it's the design or it just doesn't work for pens. I got these design ideas from (of all places) a magazine article about a guy that makes custom made fishing rod handles. I thought they would make interesting pens using the elliptical patterns so I figured them out and made some.

My web sales are way off! I am seeking some advice from you guys if I may, regarding places on the web where you might sell your pens. I really like making pens and working out interesting designs but need a good high traffic site to put them on to offset slow website sales. I've tried ebay to sell on but don't want to sell my stuff for $0.99 like many others I've seen.

Anyway, I've attached some pics of my pens and would appreciate your thoughts and comments as to their sellability.

Thanks,
David

 

[pete00]

David.....holly molly.!!!!!!
GREAT LOOKING PENS, absolutly nothing wrong with them.

I,ll throw in my two cents. If your not selling, and the only place you are showing them is your web site, you need to change your approach. Show them in person, bring them to stores, work, barber and the candle stick maker. Sell on consignment at a gift store, find someone else's web site that has more traffic. I think theres a few here i hope they tell you. Short on time right this second, but you should get a bunh more suggestions. YOUR PENS ARE STUNNING !!!!!!!!!

 

[pete00]

oops forgot to mention, you should have a varaity of styles and colors etc...now i gotta run........

 

[wpenm]

The first pen is interesting but the second pen catches my eye. Not sure what to tell you. My solid pens sell much better than anything else I have. Good luck.

 

[vick]

I like both pens especially the second. You may want to check the search words that your site is coming up for. If you are not coming up under any of the wood pens or wooden pens variations you might just have a site rank problem so your target audience is never seeing the pens.

 

[thetalbott4]

Great work on both. The first one may be understated, being maple (?), but the second is very eye catching. No workmanship or design issues. I've found that pens with designs dont often do as well as the others. i think the reason is that people who spend more than a few dollars on a pen is small market, people who buy that pen witha design in it is a smaller market, and people who like THAT particular design is a smaller market still. How have pen sales been on your site in the past, and what types sold?

 

[Johnathan]

They could just be a little too busy for people. I love them, but then again, I appreciate the work that goes into something like this, common folk don't. [8D]

 

[Rudy Vey]

This is kinda funny, I just started about 2 months ago to make Baron with a double celtic knot in the cap (like shown here on IAP before)and they sell for me like hot cakes!! The first batch was not cold yet and they were gone, showed them once and bingo - gone (i.e. sold, one was a freebee for the "micro mesh washer" - my wife). Then I made a second batch and took a few on vacation to Ireland in mid March and guess what, showed them once and sold. So, I am now down to one again and have to make more, they are just such a pita to make.

 

[gerryr]

I know the guy you're talking about, Jay Jorgenson. He does some really fabulous work. I looked at your website and all the pens looks great, the prices seem really low. But I didn't see a counter which might be a good idea, just so you know how many hits you're getting. Have you registered your site with the search engines?

The fact that you call them "Ellipse Pens" might be keeping people from finding them. Maybe just change it to "Pens." Just a thought, may or may not help.

 

[DCBluesman]

David - Your site looks great, BUT, I'm not sure I would go to a pepper mill site to buy pens. As inexpensive as domains are today, you might set up a "sister" site for your pens. Capitalize on the Willow Creek brand that you are already establishing with your pepper mills. As for the pens, you may want to consider adding a couple that are not based on elipses so folks can see just how special the Elipse pens are. [8D]

 

[dmadis]

I think one thing that might help is to put some "pen" variants in your meta tags. And I believe I read that too many meta tags (you've got a huge bunch of them) are a turn-off for search engines. There are several online free meta tag generators, several of those sites also give advice on what kind of terms to use.
GREAT looking pens.

 

[clewless]

Great pens and stoppers, great web page, but I agree with the others that you need a sister site for the pens and stoppers so people can find them.

Can I be your next pen swap partner?[]

 

[chigdon]

The only reason they are not selling HAS to be not enough traffic or not the right traffic to your site. The pens rock! In the right market they are way underpriced.

 

[scturner]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the replies! Wow, I don't know where to start. I'll just reply one at a time.

pete00,
Your probably right on showing them around. I have some pens, bottle stoppers and peppermills in a gift show but not doing any good at all their. My wife suggested putting my pens in the hospital gift shop where she works, worth a shot I guess.

Garry,
You know, you bring up a good point. I thought these 'high design' pens would go like hot cakes, maybe it's the other way round, keep it simple and just sell'em.

Vick,
Well, actually I am showing up well in Google. It's interesting, I show up for ellipse pens, writing instruments, designer pens etc. My keywords for that page all relate to my pens only so I do show up for those. Problem is, when they hit the page they do an about-face and split, again, maybe over designed???

Scott,
Ok, I see what you're saying! Haven't thought of it that way, and no doubt your right on the money. I haven't sold a single pen from my site, past or present. Actually, my mother has sold more of my pens (corn cobs) than I have. People just ooh and aah over them. Maybe I should give her a commission , shes great!

Johnathan,
Yeah, I'm starting to get the picture, don't try to out-do mother nature and only work with beautiful woods as-is.

Rudy,
That's very interesting stuff! Funny what will go and what won't isn't it. Who do you show your pens too? if you don't mind saying, doctors, lawyers, teachers? That's great! I hope they keep hopping for ya.

gerryr,
Yes, doesn't he do great work...wow! He's the one alright. I thought his handles were so cool! That design in the gentlemens pen is his design. It's called a 'petal' design. I real pain to make, took 2 days and wouldn't want to do one again for nothing. I lowered the prices way down from what they were trying to get them to sell. Yes, I'm on Google, Yahoo, MSN and some smaller se's but visitor rates are still very low.
BTW, any SEO experts here?

DCBluesman,
Good point! The pens, bottle stoppers and peppermills might really throwing folks off a little. I have thought about removing the pens and bottle stoppers all together. A separate site for the pens only sounds good. I wish I could just put the pens somewhere elso online for selling without dealing with building another site, not a bad idea though!

dmadis,
Yeah, I do have a lot of search terms! too many I'm sure as you say and you do get punished by the se's for that. I do need to seriously re-think my keywords and nail them down to a few two-three word phrases. Interestingly, I've discovered from talking with folks at an SEO forum I've got some serious problems with my site but at the server level, nothing I can to about them from my standpoint I believe. It appears I have a serious violation with my 'doc type', many errors and also have many duplicate pages showing up on Google. These type things are killing me as far as page rank is concerned. Wish I knew how to build my own site, I'd get it perfect!

 

[Jim15]

David, I don't know much about selling pens yet but I'll say your pens are beautiful.

 

[PenWorks]

David, your pens are wonderfull, but they don't sell themselves. Just because people see them on the website (assuming you are getting traffic to it) is not the same as trying to sell a pen one on one. There is nobody there to tell them how people will drool over your new pen when you whip it out, how nice it feels and how well it writes. All they see is a picture and a pen priced to low.

 

[jwoodwright]

Those are very creative. Beautiful work.

 

[alamocdc]

David, from the look of them (and your others) there's no reason they shouldn't sell. Very nice work. From a web site perspective, you said that if they come in from a search they do an about face and leave. I agree with Lou (DCBluesman) here and think you need to add a sister site just for the pens. If a collector or anyone selse interested in pens hits your site from a search, they don't see pens. The first thing to hit them is the mills. Very nice work, but I didn't come here to look at pepper mills. I want to see pens. Where are the pens? It took me a bit to find the link to them. It just doesn't stand out enough to get there attention. Just the opinion of an old Web Master.

 

[Skye]

David, I shot you an email. I'm going to be in a church craft show at the border of Piedmont and Moonville on the 15th. You'll have to head out there and say Hi!

 

[OSCAR15]

These two are beautiful...Only problem I see is that the market for expensive pens is limited..You should also produce a cheaper line to go with them. Try pen stores for the higher end...OSCAR

 

[Rifleman1776]

Your work is stunning. Some of your prices are way to low. The only problem I can think of is that few will do searches for peppermills. You might have to rework your site to attract more Googlers. I'm in the process of (trying to) developing my own site and plan to use frequently searched for words in the opening introduction. I'm a newbie to web site creation, so take that with a grain of salt and ask more experienced folks. Peppermill searchers might not be interested in pens, etc. My only other criticizm is that a singe picture of the pens (Barons) is not instructional. A potential customer may not know what it looks like open, posted, etc.

 

[scturner]

Thanks everyone for the compliments and very constructive help and ideas. As some of you have pointed out, products don't necessarily fly off the shelves on their own. That said, I'm getting in touch with the hospital to see about setting up shop in their gift shop. I think that is a good doable option and a step in the right direction. It would also give me some local advertising.

It's also been mentioned that the pens need to be separate from the peppermills on my site, I agree. People looking for peppermills aren't looking for pens or bottle stoppers. A sister site seems a very good idea but I think for the time being I'm looking into an offer to sell my pens offsite for now and just concentrate on letting the peppermills have their own site. I see now mixing apples and oranges wasn't the best idea.

As far as web site and site traffic are concerned, I'm going to narrow down many search terms and try and concentrate more on Google with a 'peppermill only' site. It will take some focused work but worth doing to gain traffic numbers.

You all have really helped out a lot with all your ideas and generosity, some great ideas have been pointed out that I might not have noticed myself. This has been a good eye opener, you might say for me. Ok, better go answer some emails now. Many thanks guys!!

 

[Dario]

Both look wonderful. I think marketing is the problem not the pens.

I know I hardly sell any pen myself and I used to think it is my worksmanship but some people I trust says it isn't so. I just need to learn how to market (not my strong suit). I learned a few things from this thread so thank you too [].

 

[gerryr]

If you later decide to have a separate site just for your pens, some photos of the process of making those blanks might help. The average person has no idea what's involved. I've made some of these and have had people say, "so you just turn it down and then glue some wood on the outside?"

 

[Daniel]

A couple of thoughts,
One how old is your web site. mine is 3 years old, dedicated to pens in it's keywords and meta tags etc. and is finally this year showing some good signs of life. I offer a huge variety on it as well.
I agree with the showing the pen around in person.
the good stuff now. you have great work and wrapped it around one of the best pens you can. the larger pens sell really well for me. I really can't see why they would not sell other than people simply are not seeing them.

 

[Buzz]

Perhaps getting an image of a pen on your Homepage would help. Maybe even a bottlestop with clearly identifiable links on the images to direct visitors to the relevant sections.

There is no reason why these beautiful pens should not sell. PS. The mills and bottlestops are great too.

Chris

 

[woodbutcher]

I'm with Lou, put your pens on a separate website. Peppre mill buyers aren't looking for pens and visa versa. I would also consider raising the pen prices by a factor of about 3.
Jim

 

[Randy_]

One has to look pretty hard to discover that your site has pens for sale. I don't know that you need to have a separate site for your pens; but I do think you need to give them stronger emphasis on the home page.

Also, I suspect that the type of pen you are selling is not what appeals to the general pen purchaser. While they are very nice, think you might do better if you had a few pens that represent more traditional styles as well.

 

[scturner]

Boy you guys have been such a great help! I've got a ton of ideas to work with that I never thought of before. The suggestion of making the pens more prominent on the homepage is something I have done in the past. Before, whenever I had a new pen or bottle stopper up for show I'd put in the upper right hand corner, that's sorta been my 'new item' corner you might say.

Right now I have a pic of the laminated peppermill I made in Woodturning Design magazine, before that it was new pens or the bottle stoppers etc. The pics linked to either the pen page or bottle stoppers page. But actually it didn't seem to get the press any better than now. I think it's mainly due to folks expecting to see peppermills and simply overlooked the pens and bs's or ignored them all together.

Learning from past experience, I feel a separate site for pens only would generate the type visitors that are really searching for that particular item (pens) and cut down on confusion.

Calling them Ellipse pens I think has also added to the confusion as most people wouldn't know what that means and I guess I wouldn't know either unless I clicked on the button to that page. Maybe calling them 'Pens' or 'Handcrafted Pens' is a far better description. I'm learning it's best to be very clear and focused on what you are trying to convey to visitors in terms what you actually sell...not just trying or hopeing to sell. The Walmart way of thinking isn't working here.

My site has now been online about 1.5 years and with the same host. I regestered the site right after I built it with all the major se's and directories that really matter but I still consider it a young site compared to the millions already on the web. Like someone mentioned, 3yrs, 5yrs down the road it should start to mature more and more. From what I've been told, it does take years to get fully established on the web or better yet have a super duper SEO guy that can shoot you to the top of the charts in one week .

 

[woodscavenger]

Also, your photo here is great, your photo on your website is not. You can't see the stunning details like on this page.....

 

[scturner]

Shane,

I agree completely. They are not that great on my site. I took those shots before I got Photoshop so they turned out rather so-so and lack of detail. The ones I re-took of them open and closed (shown here) thru PS is a vast improvement over before. It's amazing what that thing can do!

I'll be taking the pens and bottle stoppers off the site soon. Been too busy with other stuff lately to get to it. I think re-working the site with only mills is much better. I'll also begin working on a sister site for pens only as I have time with more 'traditional' pens in mind.

 

[hsingyihsingyi]

David,
I went out today to a couple of jewelers in Columbia (SC) and sold them some today. You might check on visiting some jewelers. I was really psyched. The first pens I've sold to a "retailer".
Thanks,

 

[scturner]

Hey Jay, sorry for the delay in posting back, I've been out of email range for a while. Man, that's great!! You would think retailers would be a good place to sell items such as what we make. Actually, maybe places like Staples, Office DEpot, Barnes&Noble etc would also be good retail shops to put nice pens in.

I take it your in Columbia SC? That's a big town compared to where I live here in the sticks. Jewelry shops does sound good for selling to. Maybe you can find more places like that and have some good steady business. I checked with our local hospital about putting in some pens but they said no deal. Turns out they use only 'their' dealers and don't take outside items, oh well.

Here in the upstate SC there are Cracker Barrels all over the place. If had a production shop where I could crank out bunches of pens I would talk to them about putting pens in their businesses. Problem is, most all their stuff is from China so turning a profit would be very tough!

 

[Skye]

Hey David, try some antler ones, you can try to sell them to the local hunting shops. I know there's got to be a few of them out your way. I'll give you an introduction to the bullet casing pens when we hook up this weekend.

Also, any thought of bringing some shakers to some high end cooking shops around Greenville?

 

[scturner]

Skye,

Yes, I have talked to two different high end shop owners in Greenville about my pepper mills. One owns FireFox, a trendy kitchen place that caters to the rich and famous croud. She was nice and all, looked at one of my mills and said "yes, I'll take some, my commission is 45%!". That wasn't what I wanted to hear. I think 30% is very reasonable. Sure she has the place but I do all the work and I didn't think that was fair and said thanks but no thanks. Maybe I was wrong or too hasty but man, that's steap!

Another place on the west end said they would take some but also admitted (in the same breath ) that a number of their Chinese bottle stoppers had grew legs and walked out of the store. I said I have too much invested is this and If they couldn't put them behind glass then no deal, she could not guarantee that, so... so much for that.

Anyway, good suggestion on antler pens to local hunting shops! There are a few very good retailers I could contact and take some too.

Bullet pens sound interesting. Yes, fill me in when we get together, I'd like to hear more about it! Seems like another great hunting store item as well.

 

[Skye]

Here's one of mine. Eagle taught me all I know about them. They're one of my favorites to work on, I'm still new at them though, lol

 

[wade]

Another thing you may want to try, instead of setting up a whole new site, is get a domain name like willowcreekpens.com and just forward it to willowcreekpeppermills.com, and then on your peppermill site, have clearly defined areas for pens/pencils and peppermills.

That way you don't have to create whole new sites and have domain names that reflect both items you make.

A little known fact about search engines is that the domain name is VERY important. If you have pens in that domain name, it will help your search results.

Wade

 

[hsingyihsingyi]

Hey David,
Yes, I live in Lexington and work in Columbia. I travel through 96 on my way to Greenwood and they have some nice shops there. It is still small compared to Columbia. Do you think that you might have any luck there? Just a thought.

Going to the office specialty stores might be interesting. I'm kind of curious myself to see how they (the pens) would be received. I'd be cuious to see if their being a chain would limit their abilty to buy.

Regards,
Jay

 

[scturner]

Skye,

Very sharp! I think that's about the second pic I've seen of one of those pens, really cool. I got a hunter neighbor that might be real interested in a pen like that. I looked on ebay for deer antler and got a bunch of results for them, no shortage of antler on there for sure! What shell is that- 30-30, 30-06 maybe? You'll have to fill me in on how that's done. Nicely done upper barrel too. I don't regognize the clip? Is it a CSUSA kit?

Wade,

Thanks for giving some thought to the situation. Interesting option about using the domain to redirect visitors toward the peppermill site. Was you refering to using a 301 redirect to make that happen? How can you just use a domain name without a physical web site attached to it, ie, willowcreekpens.com? Without site content for the se's to crawl I don't see how that could work and point to my current site. I understand what your saying and it's a much cheaper version of building another site but putting it together without a physical site has me puzzled. Could you explain further? Thanks!

Jay,

I thought about that very thing after I posted to you...duh! Meaning, the chain stores would no doubt be very limited, if not totally against taking on products from outsiders. I haven't checked into it but that would probably be the case alright. You might have hit on something with the jewelry stores. I take it their not part of a chain? Individual stores not associated with chains are problably the best bet. I think Skye had a good idea about the antler pens and maybe bullet pens to hunting shops. The ones here are individually owned so getting in with a sellable product might be tempting to them. Lots of options when you think about it!

 

[Skye]

I think it's a 308 shell. Yeah, I've looked on ebay for antler but one thing I've found is (another tip from Eagle) is if you can find a deer hunter buddy, flash one of those pens at them and they'll throw antler and shells at you to get some pens. I've got someone at work that's going to bring me a rack or two as well as a few dozen shells just for making him a pair of pens. That's the way to go about it. Not to mention, he'll show his buddies and they'll either do the same or hopefully buy the pens from you.

The kit is a '<b>fancy</b> gold slimline' from woodturningz. The shell hasnt been polised yet, it's just been turned while hitting it with a brillo pad. I need to put it on a buffing wheel before the show this weekend. (still trying to find out the time for the show)