Thread: Princess Ebony Watch Box

Very nice box. I sincerely hope sales pick up for you.

Sad that "Australians are forecast to spend $63.9 billion in the pre-Christmas sales period" but very little of that will be spent on well-crafted local products. Those products will most likely become family heirlooms and not next year's landfill or recycled waste.

That is a nice looking timber. Almost looks like the leftovers from a bush fire Seems to be that the harder the timber the better it polishes up.
I have some of aldav's hinges too but haven't got around to using any yet. They do look nice and for a reasonable price.
You can blame your lack of sales on the Reserve Bank as they're putting interest rates up to curb spending aren't they?

beautiful

Etsy is dead in the water, they want you to spend money advertising and then they charge 12% on top of their 12% fees if a sale is generated from your add.
I learned the hard way, paid $130 in fees from one sale, so switched adds off.
And if you don't pay nobody sees, i went from 50+views per week to now less than 20

Hi Double D. I know what you mean. They have this thing called an offsite add or somethingorother. And they make you pay some huge % fee if your sale is via that. Funny enough about 3 of my sales over the last year or so, which sold at around the $500 mark, all went through that,....!!!!!,......but none of my say $130 sales went through it. How funny is that.

I've tried my own site a few years ago but google wanted you to pay huge fees so that searches can find you. I've tried to set up a FB shop, but found that soo frustrating I didn't pursue it. A bit over a year ago (just after someone hacked into my Etsy account which is another story involving 3 weeks of messaging trying to get it back), I tried the aussie selling site called Madeit.dot.com. I gave it a year and zilch, so that went.

So I just plod along with Etsy.

Paul

A lovely box, Paul, and beautiful timber.

Haven’t heard of Princess Ebony and can’t find it on a quick search. Could this be Queensland Ebony perhaps? It looks similar to the Asian timber Macassar Ebony which is a favourite of mine.

I was interested to read your/double.d’s comments on Etsy as a sales platform. It’s so helpful to get these insights from people who’ve actually used these platforms to market our particular types of work.

Many thanks,

Brian

Hi and thanks Brian, You could be right about Princess Ebony. I never worried about doing a search on it to be honest. I buy most of my timber from Mal and Greg at Boutique Timbers, 125kms south of me. 25kms inland from Telegraph Point. They have 1800 acres down there and you have never seen so much timber in your life. I call it timber heaven. Mal buys and sells timber by the truckload. They have old cattle sheds, storage shed units spread all over the place packed full of timber. Mal has the largest bandsaw in Australia. Bought and shipped down in a container I think from Switzerland and rebuilt by the original owner. There are train tracks going under it, with about 4 or 5 carriages to bolt a tree onto. They can set the huge blade to slice down to as fine as 5mm thick. Amazing to watch. Whatever Mal doesn't know about timber is not worth knowing, so I just go on what he says it is.

And yes, getting back to Etsy it's just gone unreal quiet. Normal fees are about 10% which I think is roughly 5% Etsy and 5% cc fees. Apart from what I mentioned about the offline site. I have probably only copped that about 3 or 4 times in my 250 plus sales over the years. Fortunately also over the years I have gained another 200 or so sales from messages on Etsy which results in emails back and forth and a custom made box, which does not go through Etsy. Everyone would do it. But even those messages have dried up. Not that I really want them.

There is a "fine woodwork shop" not far from me over at Bellingen Craft Village in an old butter factory. I sold about 10 or so boxes to the previous owner but they like to buy them as cheap as possible then double the price. That's fair enough, they pay all the overheads and sit there 7 days a week. The previous owners sold the shop and the new chap who now has it, I dropped in to meet him the other day. Took 3 of my resin boxes over to show him. He pretty much told me the same thing, box sales have just gone sooo quiet lately. He was pretty blown away with my resin boxes as they are unique, but knowing how much I wanted wouldn't give him any scope to double the price. He seems to have gone into a lot of other sort of giftware, games, even wooden models, ships etc and so forth to try and boost and diversify his shop.

Paul

Hi Paul,
Mal and Greg's place sounds amazing. Wish it weren't such a drive for me Might have to go there on my next trip north - would be worth it just to see the bandsaw!

Yesterday our Men's Shed had a pre-Christmas evening market. While we did OK there was a definite change in the type of sales compared to previous markets. In the past we've sold items above $100 quite easily - this market we only sold a couple of boxes in this price range. Much lower-prices stuff moved at a faster rate so we made up there. In the end we sold all the stuff we didn't expect to sell and were left with things we thought would fly out the door.

Our best seller by far was our wooden reindeer. In the days leading up to the sale people kept dropping into the shed and buying up the stock so I was chained to the bandsaw for days. At the actual market we sold 40-50 of these and could have sold lots more. We sold out within the first two hours.

IMG_3227.jpeg

All from scrap around the shed - Oregon, Pine, Tassie Oak and Red Gum. Needless to say the RG ones were name "Rudolph the Red Gum Reindeer"

Have to turn out a load more this week as we have another market on Saturday......

Regards,

Brian

PS Anyone know how to clean reindeer poo off the bench?

Hi Paul,

I use Etsy to sell what I make it pays for hardware etc, I found since Feb this year my views have diminished greatly but what can you do got to get the goods out there. I also use Gumtree but I might get 1 sale & 3-4 enquires from there & you have to renew the add every month, I use the free add type there.

Cheers

Hi RGP, Yes that's pretty much the case with Etsy. I don't think there is an answer, just the way the economy has gone I guess. Read all the forums in Etsy and everyone says the same thing. Used to be an excellent woodwork shop at Darling Harbour, its gone now. There is another nice woodwork shop at Leura (Blue Mountains) that I always like to call into when down that way. Was talking to the owner of that some time ago now. He was saying how he used to get good sales at higher priced items but now people spend 10 minutes debating over what $20 item they will buy.

Oh well,,.......

Paul

Originally Posted by Pauls321

Hi Was talking to the owner of that some time ago now. He was saying how he used to get good sales at higher priced items but now people spend 10 minutes debating over what $20 item they will buy.

Oh well,,.......

Paul

Those people will probably be having that discussion whilst holding take-away coffees.

There is no question that money is definitely tighter for most folks and probably more so in the demographic that purchased "luxury" or "discretionary" items such as wood ware in the past. Seems it's not going to be any better for a few years either, if you follow the financial forecasters.