I'll look forward to seeing you there!
Each piece of handcrafted jewellery is expertly handmade and imaginatively designed to ensure that you own a work of bespoke art.
Sunday, 31 July 2011
Come and visit me
I will be attending a show where you can come and see my jewellery and have a chat. I will be available for the 5 days Friday 5th August - Tuesday 9th August. I will also be demonstrating my craft.
Saturday, 23 July 2011
A-Z of Selling Your Handmade Jewellery / Selling Your Handmade Silver Jewellery
This week's letter in the A- Z of Selling your Handmade Jewellery / Handmade Silver Jewellery is
I for Insurance
If a craftsperson is undertaking fairs /exhibitions etc then the minimum insurance they will need is public liability insurance. Supposing a customer were to trip over your draping table cloth and injure themselves - can you afford to pay out several thousand pounds in compensation? - and that's after the solicitor fees!!
For craftworkers, public liability insurance is reasonably inexpensive. I had a policy last year which cost me approximately £55 and this included product liability (ie if my product injured someone). An example of this perhaps would be if a post on a butterfly backed earring broke off in someone's ear.
Clearly I can't specifically recommend an insurer, however I can tell you who I have subsequently insured with (following an increase in premium by £20 in one year). I've never needed to claim, so I don't know how good they are on paying out - but... I'm insured with £5 million public liability (compared to £1 million last year) and have public and product liability within the policy.
I discovered AIR - www.a-n.co.uk for artists. It's a membership organisation which automatically provides insurance when becoming a member. Once you're a member, you can download the insurance documents. The cost for being a member of AIR for me.... which incidentally is a great online resource and sends out magazines (either online or paperbased depending on your membership choice) was £30 the year! You can also post details on the 'what's on' listings plus an image on the interface, as well as review and comments. It covers craft workers - but double check if it covers you for specifics relating to your craft. For example it doesn't cover 'hot works' when you're out exhibiting.
As I say, I can't recommend it - I can just say that it covers me for what I want and I found it extremely reasonable in price too..
Saturday, 16 July 2011
A-Z of Selling Your Handmade Jewellery / Selling Your Handmade Silver Jewellery
The A - Z of selling your handmade jewellery / selling your handmade silver jewellery
This week's letter is:
H
H for Handmade or Hand Made or Handcrafted or Hand Crafted.
If you are wanting to sell your jewellery or indeed any product which you've made by hand - the question is, what do you call it? Handmade, hand made, handcrafted or hand crafted. You need to understand how your customers would think and what would they call it?
There are very useful tools on the internet - a tool which provides an idea for free as to how your customers think is provided by Google. Having typed in the phrases it will tell you based on the country you search how many monthly searches occur for the particular country.
So for the United Kingdom:
Handmade - 450,000 searches
Hand Made - 301,000 searches
Handcrafted - 201,000 searches
Hand Crafted - 27,100 searches
This gives a clear indication that Handmade and Hand Made is far more popular in cutsomers minds than the word Handcrafted/Hand crafted.
Around the world - the same pattern is evident with the following:
Handmade - 2,740,000 searches
Hand Made - 1,500,000 searches
Handcrafted - 1,000000 searches
Hand Crafted - 201,000 searches
This is why I've chosen to name my jewellery Handmade Silver Jewellery
Monday, 11 July 2011
Free Photograph of Pearls
| Free Image from clip art of Pearls |
For anyone who wants a picture of pearls for advertising - here's one for you. It's free to use for your own purposes. I hope it's useful to you.
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Dorchester Life
I'm featured on page 6 by Ruth in the Dorchester Life magazine for July
Dorchester Life Article "Silversmith gees up for success".
Dorchester Life Article "Silversmith gees up for success".
Monday, 4 July 2011
A -Z of Selling Handmade Silver Jewellery / Selling Jewellery
It's the letter G this week in the A-Z of Selling Handmade Silver Jewellery Blog but obviously it can apply to any art wares being sold.
G. Gallery / Galleries
So how do you go about selling in Galleries?
Galleries tend to mostly work on the basis of sale or return for your goods. Work on a rough guide of 40% commission with 20% VAT - so if you're not VAT registered (ie turnover of less than £73000) then your prices need to take into account this amount being taken by the VAT man. They will also generally want you to provide jewellery boxes/packaging for your items. As a general rule they will settle your account on a monthly basis for any sales in the previous month.
If you sell online or in other outlets it's vital that your prices don't vary from gallery to shop to online. Imagine how a customer would feel if they bought one of your items in a gallery and then went online and found you selling it at a cheaper price because you're not having to pay the fees to the gallery. It doesn't take much to see that they will go back to the gallery and complain! So, you'll have lost an outlet as well as annoyed the gallery immensly. Work out your normal prices based on the fact that you might sell to a gallery in the future if you haven't already got your jewellery into one yet.
Once you've worked out your prices, do some research and find out which galleries you'd like your jewellery to be in. If you can, there's no substitute for visiting them with some examples of your work and asking. Letters do tend to get 'lost' in a pile of correspondence and ignored. Try telephoning first to make an appointment - but if you're in the area and are wearing your jewellery and spot a gallery you like the look of - there's never any harm wandering in and asking on the offchance.
The other option is to join a reputable association (eg. Association of Contemporary Jewellery). These organisations will have local co-ordinators with meetings regularly organising group exhibitions in galleries.
Outlets for Lesley H Phillips Jewellery
G. Gallery / Galleries
So how do you go about selling in Galleries?
Galleries tend to mostly work on the basis of sale or return for your goods. Work on a rough guide of 40% commission with 20% VAT - so if you're not VAT registered (ie turnover of less than £73000) then your prices need to take into account this amount being taken by the VAT man. They will also generally want you to provide jewellery boxes/packaging for your items. As a general rule they will settle your account on a monthly basis for any sales in the previous month.
If you sell online or in other outlets it's vital that your prices don't vary from gallery to shop to online. Imagine how a customer would feel if they bought one of your items in a gallery and then went online and found you selling it at a cheaper price because you're not having to pay the fees to the gallery. It doesn't take much to see that they will go back to the gallery and complain! So, you'll have lost an outlet as well as annoyed the gallery immensly. Work out your normal prices based on the fact that you might sell to a gallery in the future if you haven't already got your jewellery into one yet.
Once you've worked out your prices, do some research and find out which galleries you'd like your jewellery to be in. If you can, there's no substitute for visiting them with some examples of your work and asking. Letters do tend to get 'lost' in a pile of correspondence and ignored. Try telephoning first to make an appointment - but if you're in the area and are wearing your jewellery and spot a gallery you like the look of - there's never any harm wandering in and asking on the offchance.
The other option is to join a reputable association (eg. Association of Contemporary Jewellery). These organisations will have local co-ordinators with meetings regularly organising group exhibitions in galleries.
Outlets for Lesley H Phillips Jewellery
Saturday, 25 June 2011
The A- Z of Selling Your Handmade Jewellery
Continuing with my theme of the A-Z of Making and Selling your handmade silver jewellery /handmade jewellery I have decided to run with the selling alphabetically first and then in later blogs discuss the making of silver jewellery - ie tools/ equipment and practices.
So: This week I am focussing on the letter F
Dorchester Life Glossy Magazine
Take a look at this 2 page article in the Dorchester Life Glossy Magazine. This is a monthly magazine for the county town of Dorset. A completely free write up!
What better way to let people locally know what you do and where they can buy your jewellery than getting this publicity for absolutely nothing?
How do you go about it?
First of all you have to have something newsworthy - seems obvious, but find something about your wares/you that stands out from everyone else. You can see from this article headline that when I had a piece of my jewellery featured in Vogue this was my USP (Unique Selling Point).
A lot of press prefer you to have written the article (although in this case the photographer and reporter visited me to write the story). So, you can do it in one of two ways. Contact all the local press with the headline and see if anyone responds or write an article and send it to them. Obviously consider your products and consider what people read the magazine/paper that you are contacting.
The article should be approximately 300 words and written in the 3rd person and the title should be all about the USP. Ensure that you have plenty of quotes in the article for example " It's pleasing considering the financial climate, how many discerning people are willing to pay for quality" she says Ensure that there's a point of action within the article for your customers to find you - for example I specifically contacted Dorchester Life because Dorset Art Weeks was running (a bi-annual event which runs for a fortnight). This ensured that customers who read the article could come and visit me during Dorset Art Weeks.
If you are considering placing an advert in a magazine/paper - then combine this with negotiations for a free write up too. I placed an advert in the Blackmore Vale for the Dorset Art Weeks.
Blackmore Vale Article
The rectangular box was my advert and the rest of the writing and photograph on the page was negotiated for free.
So: This week I am focussing on the letter F
- F for Free Press
Dorchester Life Glossy Magazine
Take a look at this 2 page article in the Dorchester Life Glossy Magazine. This is a monthly magazine for the county town of Dorset. A completely free write up!
What better way to let people locally know what you do and where they can buy your jewellery than getting this publicity for absolutely nothing?
How do you go about it?
First of all you have to have something newsworthy - seems obvious, but find something about your wares/you that stands out from everyone else. You can see from this article headline that when I had a piece of my jewellery featured in Vogue this was my USP (Unique Selling Point).
A lot of press prefer you to have written the article (although in this case the photographer and reporter visited me to write the story). So, you can do it in one of two ways. Contact all the local press with the headline and see if anyone responds or write an article and send it to them. Obviously consider your products and consider what people read the magazine/paper that you are contacting.
The article should be approximately 300 words and written in the 3rd person and the title should be all about the USP. Ensure that you have plenty of quotes in the article for example " It's pleasing considering the financial climate, how many discerning people are willing to pay for quality" she says Ensure that there's a point of action within the article for your customers to find you - for example I specifically contacted Dorchester Life because Dorset Art Weeks was running (a bi-annual event which runs for a fortnight). This ensured that customers who read the article could come and visit me during Dorset Art Weeks.
If you are considering placing an advert in a magazine/paper - then combine this with negotiations for a free write up too. I placed an advert in the Blackmore Vale for the Dorset Art Weeks.
Blackmore Vale Article
The rectangular box was my advert and the rest of the writing and photograph on the page was negotiated for free.
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