How to generate MORE SALES!
There are two steps to sales, the first is finding the client and the second, getting them to purchase something – these may sound distinct but they are very much intertwined if you are doing your job well. Although these are focused on CNCKing.com‘s activities – they can be applied to businesses of all kinds both online and off.
From the beginning – when I first discovered Ponoko – I put all my products there – they had massive traffic (I had nill at that time), were generating press and the way I saw it – simply adding a product to their showroom will generate guaranteed sales forever. They have become a brand name across the laser, table router and soon 3D printing industry so surely, if somebody will generate revenue from their system it would be ME with over 300 products in their showroom. I designed like crazy, uploaded designs and poof – no sales. I was confused – thousands of people would see my laser cut designs but guess what, once in a blue Moon a sale would come. There was a serious disconnect here. I began talking to other designers on the site and they had similar experiences – there are always those outliers who produce ONE product and generate thousands of sales but I was not one of them. How many sales did I generate through Ponoko over the past year? I think it’s one or two – they are so infrequent that I don’t even bother tracking them.
What happened?
Ponoko is an amazing system, anybody can upload stuff – and they do – which essentially takes away from it’s showroom. If I’m looking for something unique and original but all I see are designs that, the vast majority, honestly suck… well, interest will fall. The other issue is that the cost of the production is too high. But let me be clear – this is NOT their problem – they are a platform – the problem is with the designers themselves. Most people design one or two things, if they generate no sales, they give-up. Multiply this by a few thousand and… you end-up with a store full of experiments gone wrong, not products that are worthy of your attention. Sure, designers were using Ponoko to cut their OWN stuff and prototype, but “general public” physical sales just aren’t there for my case.
The problem with laser cutters is their expense and the problem with shipping is it’s expense (throw-in customs, taxes etc.). I love the concept behind their site, distributed manufacturing but I also see a flaw, unless you can get that distribution @ the customer then you aren’t that much better. If you get a sale of a Ferris Wheel in Indonesia, the costs of shipping, customs and taxes much less wood sourcing and cutting make no sense whether you ship it from New Zealand or the United States. It must be cut and shipped WITHIN Indonesia for things to make sense – as I have actually done. This is TRUE distributed manufacturing, something that’s almost impossible to scale but something I’ve managed to build.
Go digital
You may have noticed that over the past six months I haven’t been offering any new designs in physical form, whether they are 3D printed, laser cut or table routed… I don’t want to deal with the general public who don’t understand CNC machines and sell directly to them, I always want to go through a shop! My sales haven’t dropped but gone UP as a result.. the reason for this was outlined above but the other reason is simple – the majority of them have outlandish expectations of what on-demand manufacturing will produce and unless you’ve seen a laser cut model, it’s a complaint waiting to happen. I do get people buying, still to this day, digital files then complaining why I didn’t cut and ship a physical model to them – somehow, they figure if option A is digital 10$ and option B is physical 350$ then I’ll give them option B at the price of option A if they complain long enough.
My focus and sales are focused on people WITH their own CNC machines or access to them at work or home… not people going to Walmart expecting a deal as, to be honest, none of the stuff I sell on CNCKing.com will ever be on sale for 50% off or sold in bulk to the general consumer – I’m not focused on selling cheap crap, I’m focused on selling good stuff that generates revenues to fund designers such as myself onto their next endeavor!
How to generate more sales
Now that my little rant is over, let’s move onto the most important topic today, generating more sales! Like anything in life, the more you put INTO it, the more you get out. I really do wish I could stuck a picture of a model and sell a million of them but it just doesn’t work that way.
- Great Photography / Render
If you want to sell a something, make it look good! Nobody wants to buy stained cloths – they want brand new and awesome looking cloths! - Prove your design
One of my bocuses on CNCKing.com has been to show video or photographic proof of a design – people want to buy things that work! - Promote everywhere
I spend a lot of time promoting our products on social media, blogs, video sites and the list goes on – if people don’t know you exist, how can they buy it? - Video is better than photos
Sure, buying a broadcast quality video camera isn’t cheap nor is video editing and 3D animation software BUT it helps me entertain and educate at the same time – the more you can help the customer visualize your product, the higher the likelihood of them buying it! - Make MORE
The more you design, the better you get at it and the more of a following you generate – anybody can design one thing, how many can design thousands?