Selling Your Art « Polymer Clay Etc.

27 videos, step by step, beginner cane workshop

What people are saying about this tutorial. jennifer rose Just finished this first workshop on how to make canes, and I must say I learned so much. This is exactly what I have been looking for, someone who could explain cane making in a step by step that process that I could replicate. I watched the videos, went into my studio and began to create all of the canes Alice showed. I finally have results I can be proud of, and I say thank you so much for doing this workshop. My only question now is when do we get more workshops. If you are only going to take one online class let it be this workshop. Thank you Alice for your hard work, and your dedication to helping others learn the joys of polymer clay.

Mermaid Bracelet Listed on Etsy

Polymer Clay Mermaid Cuff Bracelet

Okay I’ve figured my time and materials and have listed my mermaid bracelet in my Etsy store, I’ve listed her for a price of $60.00. She is all clay, no other materials were used. I don’t have a metal base on the bracelet like I do on most of my other ones.

However, there is much more clay used. The clay itself wouldn’t amount to very much money, maybe $4.00 or so, but the time that has been spent on the canes amounts to about 4 hours total. Plus the baking cost and spending time on the photos. Yes, I have some canes left over, but the point is, without spending that time in the first place, I wouldn’t have the canes to make my mermaid, so I’m generous in figuring the time spent.

Then I add the time spent on the mermaid bracelet, about 2 hours and I come up with about 6 hours to get this bracelet to my Etsy shop.

So, at the price of $60.00 minus $4.00 for the clay and $4.00 for the oven, that leaves me $52.00 for labor. Divide $52.oo by 6 hours and I will make 8.66 per hour. Hmmm. Oh I forgot, I still have to list it for $.20, then I have to package the bracelet nicely to send to my customer if it sells and drive to the post office. Then I have to pay a commission to Etsy, and one to PayPal.

Plus I have to spend time on my blog, Twitter, and Facebook to make sure everyone knows I’ve posted a new item. But I still don’t have the “right ” customers linking to my blog, Twitter and Facebook.

By that I mean, unfortunately, other polymerclay artists aren’t really interested in buying my polymer clay creations, they have their own.

If the item doesn’t sell right away on Etsy, people suggest that you re-list your items over and over. Just figure out the right time to re-list when the most people are on the front page of Etsy and there you go. What??? I know it probably works, but I’d rather spend time making something.

But I do like Etsy, I’ve had a few good sales and I’m happy. But I want to branch out further and continue to find galleries and shops to take my work.

Back to the money…..So now that $8.66 per hour isn’t looking very fat. (Not that it was a ton of money anyway) But that’s okay. I enjoy making my items and I really like it when other people buy them and I know they are enjoying them too.

If I sell it wholesale, because I could by the way I priced it, I would divide the 8.66 in half. Leaving me with $4.33 per hour. Not even minimum wage. But I don’t have to do anything but get it to my retailer. With my items I can send them by mail and send several at a time.

I’ve made the seconded mermaid bracelet, using the same canes. this bracelet took less time because I already had the canes, increasing my profit somewhat. Providing they both sell. I’m going to send this one to a gallery and see which one sells first. I’ll let you know.

Part 1 Selling Your Polymer Clay Artwork
Part 2 Pricing Polymer Clay Artwork to Sell Wholesale
Part 3 Mermaid Bracelet Listed on Etsy
Part 4 Inventory Lists for Your Polymer Clay
Part 5 Display Cards for Polymer Clay Pins and Necklaces
Part 6 Creating Tags for Your Polymer Clay Creations

Pricing Polymer Clay Artwork to Sell Wholesale

Polymer Clay Mermaid Bracelet

Figuring out how much to charge for your work is difficult. Especially when you are just starting out and don’t know how well your work is going to sell anyway.

Which brings me to the first thing that you have to look at and be seriously honest with your self about. How good is your work? Is it well made? Current? Something that many people might want to own? I really believe that most people already know the answer to this question. If you are honest with yourself, you can compare your work with what is out there and know how it stacks up.

I’m not saying that it has to look like someone else”s work. You really don’t and shouldn’t want that. In fact the more unique your items are the better chance they have of grabbing a buyers attention. But is it well finished, would you buy it, is it different, colorful, eye catching…….would you take a second look at it if you were a buyer?

If you can answer yes to most of these questions, then good, you’re ready to market your work. But please don’t judge your work by what your relatives say or by the lack of sales on your online site. You know deep inside yourself if your work is good enough. If it’s not, then try harder, learn more, practice, we can all improve by spending the time. If you know it’s good and nothing is selling online, then it’s time to do something to improve your odds.

Next comes one of the most important elements in selling your work. Pricing to sell! The most important thing is to know how much it costs you to produce your item.

1. Cost of Materials – Calculate exactly, don’t guess. Try to buy wholesale if possible. Don’t forget the cost of having the items shipped to you or gas and time to buy it at a store.

2. Labor – How long did it take you to make the item? How much do you want to make an hour? How much is your time worth? Don’t forget to add prep time, ordering, preparing work space and tools etc.

3. Promotion – Spending time on your blog or any of the social media sites promoting you and your art.

4. Fees – Listing items, PayPal, internet fees.

So now that mermaid bracelet I just made cost me more money than I thought. But I can’t afford to charge less for the bracelet than I have invested in it. So I have to take the figures above and come up with a basic cost to make the item.

I could just charge this amount and feel like I made my money back plus a little bit for labor. But then I wouldn’t have left any room to sell at a wholesale price or give a commission to a consignment store.

Retailers typically keystone the price, meaning they double it. So if you ever want to have the opportunity to sell wholesale, then you need to price your item from the beginning with that in mind.

If you have calculated that your item’s base cost at $10.00 then your selling price would $20.00.

Selling it yourself, (for $20.00) you actually make a profit that can be reinvested to help your business grow.

Selling it wholesale, (for $10.00) you still have covered your costs and are being paid for your labor. Plus you don’t have to spend the time to market this item yourself.

Selling on consignment, same as selling wholesale except the commission is usually less that wholesale. Generally from 30 to 40%.

And last but not least, you really have to respect yourself and your work. If you undersell yourself, you are not only doing a disservice to yourself but to the art of polymer clay and all the other polymer clay artists out there trying to make a living.

We have many wonderful artists that are trying hard to raise awareness for the art of polymer clay. Some of them produce work that most of us will never achieve, but we can all strive to improve. We need to support their efforts and remember to value our own work.

Selling Your Polymer Clay Artwork

The Tourist

Creating with polymer clay is fun, addictive and costly if everything you make stays at home with you. Don’t get me wrong, that can be a good thing if you can wear a different necklace, earrings, and bracelet set every day. Have polymer clay art in every room of your house! Light switch covers in the dining room, cover vases and sculpture the livingroom, covered knobs on the bedroom furniture and mosaic tile mirrors in the bathroom. (Did you know you could replace all the buttons on your kids clothes with polymer clay……..oh never mind…sorry)

Then you start giving your masterpieces to your friends and relatives. And they love them, the first 3 or 4 that is. After all how many nercklaces, earrings, bracelets, light switch covers, vases, sculptures, covered knobs and mosaic mirrors can they use?

The time comes when you just have to find a place to showcase your work or just give it up all together. You know we don’t want to quit, some of us just can’t. So what’s to be done?

If you are reading this online, then you have the skills to find the right outlet for your work right at your finger tips. I’m not going to talk about Etsy, or ArtFire, or any of the other online places to sell. You probably already have a shop set up on one of these sites. If you are successful and are selling your art faster than you can produce it, then you can skip the rest of this post.

But if you are a bit frustrated with your online shop sales, then you aren’t alone. It’s hard to be the artists, the marketer, the agent, the packer, and shipper, etc. All you want to really do is make your art…..well sorry.. that will probably never happen for most of us! We will all have to do some things to promote ourselves. But maybe you are living close to a solution to your problem. Or at the very least another outlet for sales.

There are thousands of art/craft galleries around the country and almost every town, no matter what size, has at least one. Maybe you have contacted you local shop with no luck. Well how about shops or galleries within a hundred miles of your house? Tourist spots are fabulous outlets, or just busy cities with a reputation for “artsy” shops.

I randomly picked Jackson, Mississippi to see what I could find. I did a google search for “arts and craft galleries jackson, mississippi”. About halfway down the second page there was a link to the Jackson Free Press that said…………..
Culture The Fall Arts …The Jackson area certainly has numerous venues for arts of all kinds, from museums …. Chimneyville Crafts Gallery Works by 400 members of the Mississippi

That looked interesting so I click on the link and bingo! There was an article about the Arts in Jackson and the names of 44 arts and or craft galleries around the city.

The next step was to check over the list and see what sounded like a good possibility. I found several, the first was Chimmeyville Crafts Gallery. I did a google search and couldn’t find a website for Chimmeyville Crafts Gallery, but found out that it was operated by the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi, Inc.

I did another google search for the Craftsmen’s Guild and found their membership page

These were the membership benefits for $75.00 per year.

Benefits of membership include:

-Invitations to show and sell work at all sanctioned Guild events such as the December Chimneyville Crafts Festival
-Referrals to other national and international festival organizers
-Direct referrals to collectors, buyers, designers and wholesalers
-The privilege to sell and demonstrate work at Guild retail galleries and exhibits
-Direct referrals to feature writers, authors and producers
-A quarterly newsletter with articles designed especially for the professional artisan
-Invitations to special members’ meetings, workshops and social events

Notice that you can sell and demonstrate your work at Guild Galleries, I think they have two.
Also there is a referral service to collectors, buyers, designers and wholesalers. If I lived within 100 mile of Jackson, I would be a member of the Guild. If for nothing else but the referrals. ( I didn’t check any further to see if you have to be present to sell you work. Some places require that you volunteer a certain amount of hours a month.) But I would still join for the referrals.

I didn’t look any further, but there were several galleries that looked promising. I would see if they have a website, find their email address and mail them an introductory email and two or three (low resolution) photos of my work, asking if they might be interested in featuring them in their gallery. If you receive a positive reply, then an appointment can be arranged and a road trip planned. Find a friend to go with you and make a day of it.

Next post I’ll talk about the importance of pricing your work to sell on your own website shop with enough room to then be able to sell to the shop owner at wholesale. You shouldn’t undersell the retailer that is carrying you work.

You can do this kind of search for any city you live in or near. We have a great advantage outside of the internet. Not many people have seen the fabulous artwork that we are making with polymer clay. We have the opportunity to be the first in a gallery, shop or guild to offer polymer clay art for sale. You don’t have to do craft fairs or festivals, (even though they can be another great way to sell your work). It may just be a matter of finding a couple of just right galleries close by.

Good Luck, let me know how it goes.
Part 2 Pricing Polymer Clay Artwork to Sell Wholesale
Part 3 Mermaid Bracelet Listed on Etsy
Part 4 Inventory Lists for Your Polymer Clay
Part 5 Display Cards for Polymer Clay Pins and Necklaces
Part 6 Creating Tags for Your Polymer Clay Creations

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