Woodworker's Journal 1983-7-1, страница 4

Shoptalk

Just before this issue went to the presses, I received a letter from a reader who enclosed a newsprint clipping of a display ad run as a supplement in an Illinois newspaper. The ad showed various pieces of finished, knocked down furniture at prices that were so low as to be almost absurd. And a cut-rate drug store was selling the stuff!

Anyway, the reader mentioned that he had been considering making quilt racks for sale but after seeing the ad for "sturdy solid wood construction" quilt racks with lathe turned posts priced at $17.88, he was dismayed and wondered how a craftsman could possibly compete with such prices.

Obviously, American woodworkers cannot produce quality lathe turned hardwood quilt racks at even double that price. The point is; we shouldn't even consider trying to compete.

I must assume that the furniture in the ad is mass-produced in some cheap labor area such as the Far East, and turned out on automatic lathes from only-God-knows-what kind of wood and/or the drug store is giving the stuff away on a limited basis just to get warm bodies into the building.

Generally, you get what you pay for and the stuff in that ad is probably pure schlock. But in the real world, the majority of consumers are not willing to pay for fine handcrafted furniture if they can get something that looks similar at a much lower price.

If that reader insists on selling quilt racks, then he has to reach the right market; the people who have the bucks to pay for fine furniture, and then give them something that's more unique than what everbody else is selling.

One of the basic rules in determining if a product can be successfully sold via mailorder is whether or not that pro

duct can be purchased locally. If you can buy it on Main Street for anywhere near the same price, why bother to order it from a catalog? The same principle applies to the items a woodworker hopes to sell through a retail shop, craft fair or by mailorder.

Make something that they can't find anywhere else and you've got a good fighting chance to sell all you can make. Of course, the greatest difficulty is in coming up with an item with that elusive quality of uniqueness that makes people want to be the first on their block to have one.

Over the past few years, we've tried to provide our readers with a certain number of projects that nave a combination of novelty and mass appeal, and yet can be produced in volume at low unit cost. It's not easy. There's a certain subjective, gut instinct that a particular project has the qualities to be a good seller and we gauge our judgments by the amount of reader mail a project generates.

Initially, I was hesitant to offer the tinsel-art mirror and stenciled door cabinet in this issue, mainly because the focal point of each consists of a non-woodworking operation. I was probably a bit concerned that some of our readers would accuse us of starting to go on an "artsy-craftsy" kick. But these two projects do fit in the unique, can't-be-bought-locally category and, with practice, can be produced easily and cheaply.

Jim Mc Quillan

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