Co-op ideas

[Lisa Walter]

A friend of mine has started a store. It would put you in mind of a co-op situation with a bunch of different vendors in the store. It's not a co-op since none of the vendors have time to take turns sitting at the store......but she wants to charge each vendor 20% of each of your items she sells. She has asked me several times if I would display some things at her store. I was busy at Christmas so I didn't take that on, but now that things have slowed waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down, I am considering it. I am not sure what to send. Almost everything I do is personalized in some way whether it's with a photo or a name. I need some ideas for general things that people might buy. I don't want things that would take a whole lot of time (I don't want to spend hours on one item). I saw some great wood boxes and acrylic boxes on here I might do and I thought of things like ashtrays with funny sayings, etc. I have even thought of some pieces of granite with nature scenes (buck or cows since we are in a farming area).

Any ideas are appreciated.

Thanks

Lisa

[Tim Bateson]

Lisa, I personally have had very little luck selling non-personalized items. Not only do people prefer personalized, they are willing to pay a lot more for it.
Is there any way to display sample work and have the shop offer your services for personalized work?

[Phil Garcia]

I have been working with a similar type store for sometime now. In my area I have done windmills, lighthouses, farm animals, ranch scenes, flowers and humming birds on tile and wood. Also, glasses with deer, elk, pheasants and Texas symbols like the Texas Star, Texas Flag and the State outline along with some glass flower vases engraved with what ever holiday is coming up. Also, the lady takes custom order for personalization so it works out pretty good. This is just to give you a few more ideas.

[Tom Bull]

We had stuff at a consignment type place. What we did was put up several different levels of custom work on wood and stone with a description of what it was and an item number that had a hang tag with the same info. People took the hang tag to the check out, paid for the item and got a card that was like a gift certificate that they sent to us. We worked with them by email usually and designed their item and shipped it to them. The store retained their pct and sent us our $ once a month. The store handled the sales tax, so that was an added bonus.