The Price Isn't Right...yet

Introducing Evie my latest apron inspired from a 1920's pattern made from some of my "expensive" fabric

So, this is clearly going to be the way of things… start off the day with a "collecting of thoughts" and post it on blogspot. Two main jobs on the horizon today.  Sorting out my pricing strategy and putting together a business plan.  My goodness just writing that down has got me all hot and bothered and I've had to take my jumper off!

Last week I started rootling around the Etsy website looking for information and ended up perusing what they call their Shopkeepers Manual, I think that's what it was called (haha idiot! its called the "Seller Handbook") but it seems to be basically a collection of informational blogs.  Two in particular caught my attention the one about getting the price of your product right called "How to Price like a Pro" by Abby Feuer and the other one about the importance of a business plan "How to Write a Creative Business Plan in Under An Hour" by Caroline Cummings.  

Of course I haven't done any of this stuff yet, just been letting it rattle around in the back of my head for the last few days but, to be honest, the pricing thing has been an issue right from the beginning.  The way I came to my price in the first place was to see how much everyone else was charging and then charge just a little bit more knowing full well that that wouldn't get me anywhere near my costs I suppose the idea being that I needed to get them out there and that I could worry about price later.  Well, they haven't exactly flown off the shelves and after having read the blog about pricing I realised that by not pricing my aprons properly I wasn't really taking them or me very seriously. 

I have also come to realise that there's not much motivation to be had from making something that won't make you any money.  So, given that the aprons haven't sold at the cheap price (albeit that I haven't been knocking myself out to promote them either) I might as well charge what I want since they're not selling anyway.  Aha now there's a freudian slip if ever I saw one "charge what I want" that could mean anything but of course what I want is to be paid for my labour (at least) and my creativity(at best) so, what I want is not exactly the Earth.  

Of course there are a few unknowns in the mix too.  "How to price like a pro"  suggested paying myself a minimum wage that's going to take some looking into and I'm guessing that employing myself here in France is not going to be the cheapest option but, of course the idea behind that is that the business has to be sustainable even if you're only doing it for a day or two a week.  Thank goodness for the internet is all I can say.  The other imponderable - now I'm guessing that that's not even a word in English but the spell checker hasn't twitched so I'll go with it - is my raw materials.  I can't even remember where I got a lot of my fabrics let alone how much they cost.  The best I can do is "that one was expensive".  Of course any fabrics bought in the future will be systematically labelled and there will be book keeping to keep track but, to start with…I really will just have to pluck a figure out of the air.  I could also function on a sort of budget: that I don't get to spend more than a certain amount on fabric for an apron for example - naaaaa that's not going to work what about the gloriously sequinned peacock apron that just sprung into my head?

Here's the thing, all this serious stuff has meant that I've really had to force myself to work today, I really, really didn't want to sit down to do the sensible stuff.  And then I realised its not the fact that its the sensible stuff its that I'm taking this seriously and therefore finally, after all this time committing to my own little business.  Its funny really, I never really had myself pegged as a commitophobe, but then running my own business has been a dream since childhood and, for some reason I've always shied away from it.  Actually, more to the point, I've refused at the last hurdle.  

There have been a few endeavours in the past and I've always found reasons to move on to something else, but the blog about creating a business plan "How to Get Serious About your Etsy Shop" really put me on the spot - talking about fear of failure or success. 

I was just thinking about how I'm a bit of a harsh critic of aprons and am thinking that that's all part of the trying to back out of it type stunt and then musing about the fact that I have decided to stand my ground on this particular venture and wondering "why this one?".  I find the answer to that one is easy, "because I know its right" ; its right for me, its right for now and its doable.  But here's the funny thing, of all the things that I have ever made and sold or talked about selling people close to me are the least impressed by the aprons, they just don't seem to get them.  I'm thinking most particularly about my little sister, Nicky, who, strangely was the recipient of my very first "glamour apron" 7 years ago on her hen night.  Nicky died last Christmas, she was ill for a long time before hand, and was someone who had a real zest for life.  She was always very encouraging about my creative endeavours and always telling me how I should sell this or that item but never really got the aprons.  So its a bit ironic that I have decided to push through all this angst and dithering and do this thing precisely because I want to make my life count for her.  Still that just makes it all the more real.  I'm the one who has to believe in my product, oh yes, me and my eventual customers.  

And that's what Etsy had to say about writing out a business plan, even if its just on a sheet of A4 and only takes an hour (haha here's hoping) its a commitment and makes the whole thing real.  Whoop, whoop I'm going to grit my teeth and come out of this with a proper business and I'm not going to knock my lovely aprons ever again!

Onwards and Upwards!

So, what's being going on this week?  Oh yes, I was challenged to wear one of my own aprons to the Sunday lunch I hostessed last weekend.  I thought it was quite a valid point so I did.  I ended up wearing Hedy and loving it.  I took the photo somewhat drunkenly after the event but it did look lovely.  However my short crocheted dress did make me realise that I need to make a few aprons that will work with short dresses…Its also got me mentally going through my wardrobe wondering which apron for which outfit…are those glamourous photos going to turn up on the horizon soon? In any case this ain't one of them...

Now, where were we?  Oh yes, last week I managed to get the right photos in the right places and posted the most dreadful french version of my Etsy pitch on my shop in the spirit of "get something up there".  The plan for that one is to become part of the French Etsy community and then do an exchange deal where I check a French shopkeeper's English and they check my French - of course that sort of relies on equal abilities in the 2 languages and equal work load… maybe not such a good idea.  I'm in France for goodness sake! this really shouldn't be that hard to deal with so I'll move on with a mental "note to self" to get that sorted soooon.

So the new aprons "Belinda", "Gwendoline" and "Evie" finally made it into the shop and so to the world!  "Racquel" didn't make the grade in the end and will remain a curiosity made from a recycled fur coat. I didn't want to stir up an ethical storm and anyway the fur was so old it really was falling apart.

So, my little social empire has a few foundation stones and a lot of ambition.  I'd like to find some sort of "news" story about aprons for the FaceBook page and I suppose the Google+ page although that's still the mystery it was last week, maybe I can get to the bottom of that this week?

That's Feedly, FB, Google+, maybe Twitter, no, definitely Twitter (I'll do that this morning too!) Pinterest, FlickR and of course Etsy.  I'm thinking a little Tumblr activity wouldn't go amiss either.

I need to be looking after the shop a bit and sorting out this Treasury lark which looks like a lot of fun and basically getting to grips with marketing on both Etsy and Pinterest - I've been getting emails about this stuff so maybe now I need to pay a bit more attention.

And then, of course there's the merchandise!  Mustn't forget that.  I've been worrying about sourcing my fabrics for a while now and have done a tentative search for vintage fabrics on line but, the bottom line is that I don't think that's going to work for me.  I need to feel the fabric and see it move really, and a lot of the time its the fabric that inspires the garment so…. I've decided that I need to get serious about "brocante" and start systematically going to any that are announced locally.  I've already scoped out fabric shops in my nearest big city I'm now going to be searching farther a field and, of course, there'll always be Paris.  So I won't worry about that too much.

I'd like to get the packaging looking really lovely and find some nice boxes for the ultimate  gift experience.

Oh yes and the new product line!  I've decided that I want to make ties too!  This makes the fabric sourcing even more difficult but I think that's the whole point.  I've been sewing for years - practically all my life and the reason why I stopped a few years ago was that I got fed up of not being able to find the right fabrics… I'm thinking now that I just didn't try hard enough.  And of course I've always got the option of making my own fabrics - for the ties at least.  Its strange how the ties and the aprons seems to belong together, both part of the cocktail era somehow.

Never Give Up, Never Surrender!

Once more into the Breach!  Aha mixing my quotes a bit there and, yes, the title is from "Galaxy Quest" because I'm a geek. Not exactly the way to build up a client base, disappearing for the best part of a year, but, as I've been telling myself all this time, I hadn't really launched last year, more, got everything lined up ready to launch with a few diddlings. So I'm back, and this time I've got a different plan.  For the moment I'm consecrating one day a week to GlamourAprons and, if I can make that stick then I'll push to 2 days a week and that should be enough to start with to allow myself to regularly do stuff.

Haha I'm back but scratching my head a bit wondering where everything is and realising that the first thing to do might be to organise my computer a bit better, whilst GlamourAprons has managed to have a separate identity on the web I haven't maintained that on my computer oh cripes I mean computers don't I so there might even be a bit of wrestling with the cloud too or some such.  Far too boring to write about here though.

I need to sort out in my head how my business is structured - on the one hand there's the actual product and everything it takes to make it and despatch it and get paid for it and then there's all the promotional side.  Gosh now I'm wondering if I ever finished the book I read that got me started on all of this.  Anyway it all needs to be in one place and I'm not sure I want it on the cloud… oh dear maybe I'm being old fashioned there.  

Maybe GlamourAprons should have its own hard drive? - that would be cool if I had one.  I can't really mess around with the cloud because the internet connection out here in the boondocks is a bit unreliable.  I don't really need to travel.  Not much haha but with a stock of 5 I can take that with me, so I won't use my upcoming visit to gay Paree as an excuse not to relaunch which was what was trotting though my mind.

Right then - it turns out that Jemima has 236 Gb of space left on her and that should do for a start. - all will be backed up onto Jemima at the end of every day to allow GlamourAprons to be mobile, not forgetting return syncing.  That'll do for a start! Got to go extract a lot stuff from all over the shop now - bit of virtual collating if you please.  On a concrete note I have tidied up my workshop and its looking fine and dandy and ready for me to get busy.  I've also decided that I need an overall like they wear the House of Elliot but don't seem to be able to find a pattern, yet, so, in the mean time I've got a glorious sort of house coat thing that may end up being it, since I can't imagine making my own work apron to be a priority here.  I think I'll pop upstairs and take a photo for you. 

There you go! Housecoat/overall and all I might ramble on about my equipment at a later date…Now I've got to tidy up my virtual workspace.

I've just discovered that I took some gorgeous photos of my aprons but they're not even on FlickR let alone Google+ which I have, as yet, to master.  Next stop Pinterest and see what sort of disaster awaits me there.  Oops, maybe first stop should be the shop, n'est-ce pas, pretty certain the photos are up to date, even if the new aprons aren't up yet.  Oh yes, that's what stalled me last year, writing up the descriptions…

So I've got this blog and all else streams from this… theoretically. I suppose I can always post  mini versions of blogger on Google+, FB and subsequently Twitter.  That must have been the plan.  Aha lightbulb moment! I've just remembered Feedly - that might be something I need to do quite often.  Then there's Pinterest and FlickR - FlickR being more for when I get quite arty about my photos… yeeesss that was a plan too.

I'm getting the picture now, too many plans and not enough doing. Anyway the ladidah photos can wait, need to make sure the current pictures are all, well, current and then add the new aprons and go from there.