Comments on: Communicating with Shoppers – Damage Control

By: Edwin Esmond

Edwin Esmond — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 16:41:53 +0000

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By: Bill Weaver

Bill Weaver — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:06:10 +0000

First I want to thank Krystal for mentioning the Artists Center. What she said is extremely important in two ways:
1. There is such a thing as to much transparency and her re-write shows how well the same message can be communicated in both friendlier and precise ways.
2. This entire subject refects one of my goals in helping artists become more professional. Because in the end how we are perceived by potential buyers has a very definite effect on our success.

Professionalism means taking ones work and business seriously through customer interaction, presentation, and paying attention to the details of what it takes to actually become successful. Lack of professionalism, in my opinion, is one of the primary reason artists are not looked upon as serious business people. This lack of professionalism contributes to a bargain/low price expectation and mindset on the part of potential buyers which in turn shifts the focus away from the actual work to the prices of the work.

One of the the things artists of any caliber can do is stop calling themselves Artisans and even crafters. Why? because both labels imply low skill, and low value. I won’t go into the history of these term or the linguistic impacts here but I will say that they do contribute heavily to reinforcing the cultural perceptions that any thing creative is of little or no value.

I will be starting a new series at the Artists Center beginning mid- August that will examine pricing strategies and how the latest research in behavioral economics can be used. Stop by and if you like subscribe.

By: Diana

Diana — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:52:35 +0000

I often think that organization and communication skills are two of the most overlooked aspects in running any kind of personal business. I can find scores of articles on marketing strategies, ideas for gimmicks and places to promote, but when it comes to simple tracking of customers and their orders (along with its impact on your inventory) there always seems to be an utter dearth of information. I feel like whatever started this problem, it had everything to do with over-reliance on PayPal as a means of communication and using only the Ebay interface to track customer data. These are in my experience really bad ways to manage. (This is, of course my opinion.)

I’ve got my own system, and it works for me – which means that my customer data gets recorded somewhere safe besides Etsy while I process orders – but I also sell at an extremely small scale. Still, I consider it much more important that the customers I have on hand receive the orders and service requested before I go out soliciting new ones – the repeat business will hold me up through times when traffic is slow.

I can’t say I know what happened above, but yes, it does seem like the proprietors are putting all the work that resulted from their errors in the laps of their customers. That’s NOT OK. If you’re overloaded, use your vacation features and CATCH UP. Better to give the people you have on hand a chance to come back than worry about the ones that haven’t decided whether to buy.

By: SolSisters

SolSisters — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:32:14 +0000

Thank you for publishing my article.

Just a note. I didn’t share this communication to embarass or poke fun at the artisan who wrote it. And although the tone of my comments are a bit harsh, I was hoping my readers would see the content of this communication from the point of view of the customer, not speaking as another artisan. The artsians make lovely work and I hope they can recover from their current troubles.

It was shared purely as an example for all of us to learn by.