Skye
Member
This is a tip I still need to follow myself, and it's the reason I thought of it.
If you're looking to eventually create a website and hock your wares through it, you need inventory. I know, it takes a little while (... fine, years...) to build up the stock, learn to build webpages, learn about online purchasing, etc etc. Your other problem, you need credibility as soon as you go live.
In the mean time, you're probably selling an item here and there. Maybe at shows, maybe what we like to call 'commissioned work' (hey, it sounds important) or just items we sell here and there. These pens are credible sales who are slipping through the cracks. It's your future store's credibility walking out the door.
My tip is to capture that credibility before it's gone forever. I've probably sold 100 items or more, which if I took a picture of, it was for my own record. Some craptacular picture of the pen sitting on my keyboard, in my hand, on my bed, on a paper towel, on the floor, and in the end, they do nothing for me in the 'hey, look what I already sold' arena.
Get a photo station made, made well, made cheap, made now. Get a format (backdrop, props, lighting, etc) that you can accurately and dependably reproduce and capture all these 'small time' sales. When the store is created you can create a page of 'sold items' that people can look at. Now, it's not necessary to point out that these items were sold before the webpage's creation because your pointing out what you have personally turned and sold to happy customers. If you make their photos and your current stock's photos look consistent, it's going to be an accurate assumption that your business (albeit pre-online) has a little history to it, it just took place before the website went live, which is really beside the point.
Now, to take my own advice....
If you're looking to eventually create a website and hock your wares through it, you need inventory. I know, it takes a little while (... fine, years...) to build up the stock, learn to build webpages, learn about online purchasing, etc etc. Your other problem, you need credibility as soon as you go live.
In the mean time, you're probably selling an item here and there. Maybe at shows, maybe what we like to call 'commissioned work' (hey, it sounds important) or just items we sell here and there. These pens are credible sales who are slipping through the cracks. It's your future store's credibility walking out the door.
My tip is to capture that credibility before it's gone forever. I've probably sold 100 items or more, which if I took a picture of, it was for my own record. Some craptacular picture of the pen sitting on my keyboard, in my hand, on my bed, on a paper towel, on the floor, and in the end, they do nothing for me in the 'hey, look what I already sold' arena.
Get a photo station made, made well, made cheap, made now. Get a format (backdrop, props, lighting, etc) that you can accurately and dependably reproduce and capture all these 'small time' sales. When the store is created you can create a page of 'sold items' that people can look at. Now, it's not necessary to point out that these items were sold before the webpage's creation because your pointing out what you have personally turned and sold to happy customers. If you make their photos and your current stock's photos look consistent, it's going to be an accurate assumption that your business (albeit pre-online) has a little history to it, it just took place before the website went live, which is really beside the point.
Now, to take my own advice....
