Deep Dive: store & maker Interviews
Read on for all our Store & Maker Interviews.
Looking for other deep dives? Check out: our Wholesale Training & Inspiration center, all our articles on Growing Wholesale, everything we have on Faire & Marketplaces, and our articles on Line Sheets.
Arianne Foulks is the founder of Aeolidia, a design agency specializing in branding, email marketing, and Shopify sites for creative businesses. She's worked with over 700 brands, grown her team to twenty people, and has a lot of hard-won perspective on what actually makes a product land, or miss, with customers and buyers alike. We talked with her about brand strategy, packaging, photography, and what it really feels like to run a business right now.
Some makers feel intimidated by store owners -- they seem inaccessible, powerful in the maker world, and ultra-discerning in their preferences. Other makers are a cavalier with how they interact with shop owners, being informal to the point of rudeness or using an approach that just isn’t effective. The remedy for both? Really understanding store owners’ experiences and perspectives -- developing empathy for what they’re up to and what they’re all about.
Part of Made to Last – a series of interviews we’re doing with established makers who have grown and evolved their businesses over the long term. We sit down with Sarah Omura of So Handmade and learn about her prioritization of simplicity, and patient evolution of her company over years.
Part of Made to Last – a series of interviews we’re doing with established makers who have grown and evolved their businesses over the long term. We sit down with K’era Morgan of k-apostrophe to discuss her passion of collaboration, exploring new mediums and supporting her community.
Part of Made to Last – a series of interviews we’re doing with established makers who have grown and evolved their businesses over the long term. We sit down with Jonnie Estes of Grey Theory Mill. Jonnie gets specific about how the pandemic and the recession are affecting her sales, the emotional roller coaster of running a business, the good, bad, and ugly of her experiments with ads – and where she is headed now (12 years into running her business.)
Part of Made to Last – a series of interviews we’re doing with established makers who have grown and evolved their businesses over the long term. We sit down with Lori Roberts of Little Truths Studio and learn about how she found her flow with structure and going her own way.
First of all, I hear you. HIRING IS HARD. It’s hard to manage people. It costs money. It takes a huge amount of time to find, vet and train people. You don’t have a big enough studio. You’re an introvert. You have just a small amount of work available. You live in a tiny town. You’re an artist, not a manager. You tried that last year and it didn’t work out.
Part of Made to Last – a series of interviews we’re doing with established makers who have grown and evolved their businesses over the long term. We speak with Becca of Thicket talk money, starting small and focusing on what really matters in a small business.
Today we’re sharing tips for staying healthy and productive from two more powerful makers who know their stuff.
Regular people don’t realize how insane the pre-Christmas months are for makers. But: it’s true, they’re insane.
The sheer quantity of work -- in combination with the uncertainty and pressure of making the most of holiday sales -- adds up to quite the exhausting scenario.
SugarSky is one a maker brand that has found the elusive balance of being very well-respected by peers and customers alike — but also scaling pretty quickly in smart ways.
So we decided to hop on the phone to hear how her business has evolved. What she shared was really inspiring, very actionable, and sometimes surprising.
We asked some of the makers that we work with for their advice. They thought about the early days of growing their handmade wholesale business and sifted through their experiences for the single piece of advice they think is most crucial.
Here’s what they said…
We sat down with Olivia to talk about the pros and cons of three different wholesale outreach methods: email outreach, trade shows and walking into stores to introduce your work.
We are so excited and honored to share an interview that we had with (the great) Elise Blaha Cripe on Elise Gets Crafty. We talk about getting started with wholesale, what to expect from stores, what you really need to jump into wholesale, tips on terms and conditions, and more!
Liz Sieber’s stores are simultaneously super-friendly and exquisitely curated and designed. Walking into Omoi Zakka or Sieber’s new store, Select Shop 215, feels like stepping into a story that unfolds shelf by shelf. The gorgeously practical is nestled next to the outrageously creative -- and it’s all with a consistent voice and point of view. Handmade goods sit alongside Japanese imports; luxurious splurges and economical little items both have their spots. It’s the kind of place that is as inspiring as any museum, but also so accessible and welcoming that you feel instantly at home.
Last week, we ducked into Moon and Arrow from a cold rain and tucked our umbrellas by the door. As always, we felt like we’d entered a palpably distinct space. Lights sparkle off glass and bronze and scents waft over lovingly made displays. There are tea towels by Native Bear nestled near jewelry by Forge and Finish, by a rack of vibrant vintage, alongside pouches by Peg and Awl.
Looking for other deep dives? Check out: our Wholesale Training & Inspiration center, all our articles on Growing Wholesale, everything we have on Faire & Marketplaces, and our articles on Line Sheets.
Paris Woodhull is a Knoxville-based illustrator with 14+ years of retail experience, including running her own storefront. In this conversation, she gets into what stops great products from selling in stores, what makers consistently misunderstand about the store owner's reality, how to approach a shop in person without making it awkward, and the one thing she'd tell every maker to fix first.