Overview In addition to offering finished pieces and patterns, I’ve found that expanding into maker tools and DIY kits, not only better served my existing audience, but expanded my reach. Additionally, these products don’t require nearly the same dedication of your time, so it will allow your business to grow in ways that individually handmaking finished products will not. With time being our greatest and most limited commodity, I highly recommend considering these offerings for your own shop. View this post on Instagram A post shared by DeBrosse™ (@debrosse_nyc) on Apr 9, 2018 at 10:51am PDT Maker Tools Hooks, kits, and notions are essential to all makers. If you’re already selling patterns, these are an especially great addition to your shop because they would be considered an upsell, and your existing patterns are already promoting them.Before diving too deep into a myriad of SKU’s here, I recommend starting with the hooks, needles, and notions that correspond to existing patterns. Then, directly within your pattern listings and patterns themselves, link to the respective tools that you sell. This now turns a $5 sale (pattern only) into a $12 sale (pattern plus hook). Boom. Of course it doesn’t happen every time, but often enough that you’ll see a nice bump in overall revenue. Your customer's experience is also improved as you become more of a one-stop-shop, and they can move forward with the confidence that they have the best tool for the pattern. Everyone wins. You may already have a favorite brand of tools in mind, and I would encourage you to follow that lead and setup a wholesale account specifically with that company. If you’re not sure on a particular brand or enjoy a variety, review your options back in Sourcing Materials. DIY Kits I first launched kits as an, “Oh this will be a cute gift idea.” They accidentally exploded, and quickly surpassed my finished good sales revenue. Here’s my theory:We think that because we sell patterns, we have made our work accessible to others. But there is likely an entire subgroup of your audience that is intrigued by your work, though not quite confident enough to pick up a pattern and know how to get started. I think it’s fair to say that you and I love a good yarn store run, but to someone with little to no experience, the yarn store is an overwhelming permutation of yarn and tools in hundreds of shapes and sizes. And that is a problem that you can (joyfully!) solve for your customer via DIY kits. I recommend doing both maker tools and DIY kits because the inventory is interchangeable. If you purchase 10 hooks, 2 might sell as tools and 8 may sell as part of a kit. Or 5 as tools and 5 as kits. Or 0 as tools and 10 as kits. Any time you can sell a particular item across multiple categories, you’re not only increasing the ROI of that SKU, but also reducing your risk of overstocking. Assembling So now you know a bit about stocking tools, and you are likely already a pro at stocking yarn. The final piece to this puzzle is converting your patterns into a printed product. An 8.5 x 11 print out of your existing pattern likely won’t hold up well in the mail, so you’ll need to invest a little time here to reformat your patterns into a more kit-friendly piece.I opted for Short Run Booklets, through Uprinting. And here’s my hack that I invite you to steal: I designed it into a 4.75 x 4.75 booklet, and then ordered heavy kraft paper CD cases to stuff them into. (CD cases!) This creates a durable but inexpensive packaging option. I then added my stamp to the CD case, wrapped it in bakers twine, and inserted the tool on the top. View this post on Instagram A post shared by DeBrosse™ (@debrosse_nyc) on Jan 8, 2018 at 10:52am PST Pricing Pricing is a bit more flexible with kits since they require so little of your time. To be clear, it will take time to get them setup, figure out your vendors, graphics, rhythms, etc., but after they're up and running, they are quite effortless compared to the time investment of finished goods. I recommend making a spreadsheet of every expense that goes into a kit, even if it only costs pennies. This would include but is not limited to your hangtag, tissue paper, printed booklet, instruction booklet, CD case (should you enjoy my hack!), darning needle, yarn, hooks, bag, and shipping box/bag. At a minimum, price to ensure that you make that money back, with the safe assumption that your customer would be paying at least double to buy these supplies individually. Then, test a few price points that provide a 50-65% margin. If the materials for a particular kit cost $15, I recommend a price point between $30 and $43. Consider the finished product, and for good measure, ensure that the kit is less expensive than the finished good. A quick comparison of the ROI on kits versus finished goods (keep in mind that materials are more expensive on a kit than to make the product yourself because you are including tools, as well as slightly more yarn than they need): Item Type Materials Price Profit Finished Scarf $8 $50 $42 Scarf DIY kit $15 $43 $28 While the profit appears higher on a finished good, note that the finished good likely took multiple hours (best case scenario, 1 hour). But with DIY kits, you can assemble anywhere from 10-25 an hour, which turns your $28 profit into $28 x 10 (at a minimum), or an hourly profit of $280. Building smarter practices into your business is how you will be able to sustainably and exponentially grow it. Getting Started Are you up for the challenge? Start with your best-selling pattern, or a popular pattern that uses few or inexpensive tools/materials. Test it with your market and expand from there. And while the best time to figure out your workflow is the off-season, it may be difficult to assess the demand until busy season. Keep in mind that yarn purchased for kits can always be made into finished goods, and tools purchased for kits can always be sold individually as Maker Tools, so you should be able to comfortably dive into this offering with only the financial risk of the printed pattern booklets and envelopes.
