Geoffrey Gaskell on sun 25 jul 04
There are times when the potential market consists not of wealthy
collectors, but rather of miserable misers & bargain hunters. Do not
despair. It is still possible to sell one's productions to this
substantial sector of the market. Here are a few essential tips for
those sensible businesspeople who have done their "market research" and
wish to target the disposible income of Misers for their own bread,
butter & water (other things might be too expensive).
1. Don't spend too much time & effort on the individual piece. It is
more economical to slip cast or throw a few things on the wheel. Choose
attractive random patterns of glaze to keep expenditure of time & effort
to a minimum. Always remember, when dealing with misers, one must become
miserly oneself.
2. Set dirt cheap prices, but have a few expensive items for sale as
well. Ideally the expensive items should closely resemble the items
which a very cheap. Of course the misers will steer well clear of the
expensive items, choosing instead to purchase "a real bargain".
3. If you are ever participating in a auction, it is often possible to
extract a little more from the deep pockets of a miser. Make sure your
items are up for sale in the first half of the auction, not too early
though. Let us suppose you have 3 items for sale. Get a friend or family
member to place an opening absentee bid on your first item. This should
still be cheap, but a little more than most misers would be willing to
offer as an opening bid. Having artificially inflated the price your
first item should sell for a reasonable price, though the miser who
purchased it will still feel that he or she is getting "a reasonable
bargain". Set the reserve price on the second item a little higher & on
the third item a little higher still. This makes good use of miser
psychology for these two items are likely to sell for "a good price".
The misers will feel a little out of their comfort zone, but they will
dig a little deeper into their pockets for fear of "missing a bargain".
Geoffrey Gaskell
Lee Love on mon 26 jul 04
Forget the Misers: You'll never break even having to pay people to
buy your pots. ;-)
Noun: miser `mIzu:
A stingy hoarder of money and possessions (often living miserably)
--
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
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