Furniture etc which sells?

[devon TWiG]

2 hours ago, Mike Dempsey said:

Its difficult making money as a woodturner. There are literally thousands of blokes in sheds all over the country with very little overheads, giving stuff away for nothing. This is mainly to do with their wives fed up with their stuff cluttering up the house so its given away as presents.

The ones who seem to make any money are the ones who are good enough to teach and write about it! 

Pretty much sums up woodturning !!  but does anyone consider it a serious profession ?  Some of those that teach etc are just good self publicists rather than turners ,and it baffles me how they will take a fee for demonstrating  / writing about their work and promote / sell  tools for doing it ...then bleat when some one copies their work !!  

[Jack.P]

also what about offering bespoke fencing .ie woven willow  made to standard 183 widths .seems that many fences look cheap and nasty and don’t last 

[stuckinthemud]

Look, I'm terrible at marketing, that's why I'm still a teacher,  I know my limits,  but it seems to me most marketing is done through Instagram and Facebook at the moment.  Websites are a fair amount of work but they don't get a fraction of the traffic of the big social media platforms.  Often small pieces with a modest mark up on postage can help keep things ticking over, for instance, have you seen the price of breadboards? £50 for a 14" long wany edge slab of 12x2??! Just my 2p ... 

[Jack.P]

Just been researching  ‘’ solid ‘’ furniture again .Interestingly enough oak furniture land seems to have possibly found a legal loophole in marketing stuff as ‘’solid oak‘’ which only seems to be around 30% real oak mostly on trim and doors but bulk of the furniture is made up of osb with a convincing solid veneer and solid oak pieces glued on to simulate an end grain of a wooden top .they even claim on the ads it’s not veneered but it sounds a bit misleading to me

It would be intresting  to order one of these 100% oak coffee tables and actually work out an accurate percentage of the difference timbers used and then film it so people know that what there buying is just glorified argos furniture and nothing like the real handmade solid furniture 

 

 

[Rough Hewn]

Just been researching  ‘’ solid ‘’ furniture again .Interestingly enough oak furniture land seems to have possibly found a legal loophole in marketing stuff as ‘’solid oak‘’ which only seems to be around 30% real oak mostly on trim and doors but bulk of the furniture is made up of osb with a convincing solid veneer and solid oak pieces glued on to simulate an end grain of a wooden top .they even claim on the ads it’s not veneered but it sounds a bit misleading to me
It would be intresting  to order one of these 100% oak coffee tables and actually work out an accurate percentage of the difference timbers used and then film it so people know that what there buying is just glorified argos furniture and nothing like the real handmade solid furniture 
 
 

Lots of stuff I see is kindling glued together.
All imported too.
🤷🏽‍♂️

[topchippyles]

Nearly all factory stuff is rubbish just high gloss spec and mass produced. Nothing is wasted and just gets re pulped and turned into flat chipboard sheets  

[grainknot]

On 01/01/2021 at 20:37, stuckinthemud said:

Look, I'm terrible at marketing, that's why I'm still a teacher,  I know my limits,  but it seems to me most marketing is done through Instagram and Facebook at the moment.  Websites are a fair amount of work but they don't get a fraction of the traffic of the big social media platforms.  Often small pieces with a modest mark up on postage can help keep things ticking over, for instance, have you seen the price of breadboards? £50 for a 14" long wany edge slab of 12x2??! Just my 2p ... 

Hi Andrew,

I'm new on here and was just browsing around and spotted this post.

I'd agree that websites can be a lot of work, but they shouldn't be dismissed wholesale. Having a portfolio style website with one of the companies that provide these kind of sites format/big cartel/shopify opens you up to a market outside of social media (a highly crowded and competitive space). Though I would say social media still has a place as part of the "marketing mix". Just my thoughts as I have a bit experience of this in a former life

[Retired Climber]

A website for a business like this will cost peanuts; It's daft not to have one. 

It's a bit of a misconception that most marketing is done via social media these days. A marketing mix is about strategic decisions, not what promotional channels you are going to use, and that's where you need to start.