ccpottery@BELLSOUTH.NET on sat 22 jan 05
Almost all of my wholesale galleries use credit cards
to pay for their orders.
They love to get the free air mileage and I love to get
immediate payment. It has been years since I have
had to chase a late payment.
It is against the law in many places to charge more for
credit card purchases and the card companies are not
too thrilled with you doing so either.
It's 2005 folks ... credit cards might be more than a passing
fad. So let's get with the program!
It is very simple to accept credit cards and anyone who
wants a good, honest, artist oriented, USA service can
phone 1-800-873-1192. I don't work for them and
cannot use them myself until my current contract runs
out, ( you can bet I will switch that very day!!) but I have
never heard a bad word about them.
As to selling from websites ....
As far as I know the people who have the most success
with selling from a personal website are those who do a
lot of shows where they can pass out their cards and stear
people to the site ... or people with an existing shop who
promote it to all visitors for follow up sales ... anyone who
has a lot of public contact or a great mailing list to begin with.
The odds of someone stumbling onto your site and buying
are very, very low. Any Google search brings up thousands
of sites and paying to get yours onto the first page can be
a full time job if you do it yourself ... and if someone else
does it, it gets expensive real quick.
Others who have a degree of success are those who love
marketing and self promotion. They spend a good part of
their time sending out press releases, getting their stories
into magazines .... just pounding out information.
Now .. for anyone still reading ...
Some savvy potters have noticed the baby boomers
are not buying as much and have shifted to pleasing their
younger clients ... those who might think craft is something done
in third world countries.
If any of you out there are successfully selling to the younger
generation, please share a few tips.
What do they want ... what are they buying from you?
How are you attracting them to their first purchases?
I would be very interested in hearing about how you lured them
away from the big, 'pre-packaged taste' stores.
Chris Campbell - in North Carolina - yes, in the city that ground to a
halt after one inch of snow .... I can hear the laughter drifting down
from the North !!!
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