You might remember that in my ‘Illustration Goals for 2019’ blog post I had mentioned that one of my goals for 2019 was to have my products stocked in 2 stockists. I had approached a couple of stockists last year but I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I didn’t understand how to price my items properly or how to present them to stockists as opposed to individuals. After attending a brilliant workshop on approaching stockist with Debbie from Moonko I felt a lot more confident and informed. I knew what I needed to do and when I would have the time to do it.
The most important thing I needed to do was create a ‘look book’ of items to present to stockists. This will include clear terms and pricing structures as well as product information. My goal was to create this in January to distribute throughout the year and hopefully secure those first two stockists. I had expected January to be a quiet month so it seemed a perfect time. However, January ended up being far from quiet and so my look book still consists of nothing more than notes at this stage.
Hang on… isn’t this blog called ‘new stockist announcement?’
As it turns out, there seems to be a lot of stockists looking for new artists and makers in January. I can only assume that this is down to the increase in sales over Christmas. I imagine that this means stockists have more shelf space and more money for wholesale items. With January being a quiet month too with shoppers feeling the post-Christmas pinch stockists must have more time to process applications. There is always the chance, however, that some makers only work with stockists in pre-Christmas busy months. This could potentially make shelf renting a risk at this time of year. I don’t believe that this is the case though, I am just acknowledging that it could be a possibility!
With all these opportunities presenting themselves it seemed almost too easy to approach stockists who were asking for applications without a look book required. Happily for me my application to Birds Yard was accepted and I will join the team in February 2019.
Woohoo!
Birds Yard is an award winning independent shop in Sheffield City Centre. The shop has run since 2012 and sells a great collection of items by local and international makers. When I saw that they were especially looking for Sheffield themed items I knew I had to apply. The shop will stock my Sheffield themed prints, patches and some of my quirky ghost prints too.
I am incredibly happy to have made such good progress on my goals so early in the year. So far this year I have been feeling so determined and working harder than ever. There are a few more things in the pipeline related to some of my other goals too. I am hopeful and happy that I will soon be writing a blog post on how close I am getting to achieving those too. I also still intend to write my look book soon. Once that’s done, surely my second stockist can’t be far behind 🙂