Can we ask you all a question? We’ve asked this in the Clubhouse Facebook Group too but we know you’re not all on there so we wanted to ask it here too.
What would you, as makers and sellers, like to see Folksy do for Black Friday / Cyber Monday this year? They’re on Friday 23 November and Monday 26 November and we’ve approached it in different ways before.
In 2015 we used the tagline “Craft not Chaos” and asked anyone who wanted to take part to let us know their offers and then compiled a guide, listed all the offers on the blog and sent out promotional newsletters.
In 2016 we ran our own Celebrate Handmade campaign to coincide with Black Friday weekend, highlighting what makes something made with skill and love so special - “ditch the discounts and bring something handmade into your life.” As part of that we also ran the Weekend of the Maker event in Sheffield with Crafty Fox Market.
In 2017 we didn’t run our own campaign but instead encouraged Folksy sellers to join in with two other campaigns: IndieFriday organised by Just A Card and RainbowFriday created by the lovely @bycharlieshand.
Which approach would you most like us to take? Embrace Black Friday/Cyber Monday as a big shopping event, build on the Celebrate Handmade campaign and focus on encouraging people to buy from independent makers, or ignore it completely?
I Hate the idea of Black Friday. I see no point whatsoever in having a sale when we are at our busiest. This is an American idea and is to suit their way of working / their calendar re Thanksgiving.
Let’s just promote the Celebrate Handmade Campaign … far more meaningful to us all here.
I don’t get involved in the whole ‘sales’ culture at all - especially at this time of year, when we should be busy selling as much as possible at full price - so I just ignore it. It’s really aimed at mass-market re-sellers, who can afford to cut prices and still make a profit by selling at huge volumes we can only dream of! Handmade doesn’t work like that, so it’s irrelevant to me. That’s my opinion anyway.
I think a counter-campaign celebrating the small maker, handmade, something-special, is much more appropriate.
I don’t like black friday either. It’s just an american culture thing and as Christine says is more for the big sellers not handmade. Buying handmade crafts is much more meaningful than high street shopping so I think we should focus on that. Meaningfulness and the special-ness of buying from an individual who has spent years developing their skill and style. There is so much more value in that.
Maybe as black friday is all about making things low cost we should promote the idea of value.
I think that Black Friday/Cyber Monday is a bad thing for most retailers, even the likes of John Lewis and Debenhams. The reason being that it encourages customers to overspend in November and most particularly to spend on electronic goods. The shoppers have then blown their budget before the full Christmas range is in stock in most shops and, indeed, on platforms for craftspeople, and are subsequently wondering if they will have enough to buy the luxury food items and decorations they need for the festivities. This benefits Amazon hugely, and increases the amount of electronic goods people receive as presents (whether they want them or not), benefiting Apple and Sony. In short, it is a calculated trick on shoppers by a certain sector of the retail market. The figures from last year back this up.
The question is, how should more traditional retailers and the sellers of more traditional goods respond to this. Sadly, I don’t have any ideas beyond last years “Rainbow Friday,” but neither does anybody else, and Debenhams and John Lewis no doubt have enormous teams of marketing specialists working on it!
I would go with another Rainbow Friday, because I thought it was effective to a certain extent last year in terms of views and I liked the graphics used by Folksy to promote it.
I don’t like the Black Friday/cyber Monday thing! As Folksy is a British not American site I think the celebrate handmade campaign would be more fitting.
Celebrate hand made please! I agree with Joy @JOYSofGLASS and other members posts on here. We want to sell our reasonably priced hand made items and any marketing will be very welcome.
I agree with the previous posts. Black Friday is American, only benefits huge global businesses and has no place in the handmade community. Instead I think we should celebrate handmade as an alternative; highlighting the uniqueness and beauty of handmade items crafted with love and care.
I’m with the majority of replies so far in that we are a British Handmade Craft Site and Black Friday is an American thing. I think we should celebrate British handmade and leave the Americans to do their own thing.
I thought folksy was British site so why promote something American?
Also, I know a lot of people have sales from time to time but it’s difficult enough getting people to value the cost of handmade items as it is without promoting huge discounts.
Like others have said before the idea of discounting at one of our busiest times is silly. The ‘craft not chaos’ has a nice vibe to it so we’d go with that. ( so has craft not cr*p but probably not allowed ) So celebrate handmade as an alternative to mass market madness has got to be the way to go.
Celebrate British Handmade, or Celebrate Handmade Christmas, but as I never get promoted in any gift guides by Folksy I can’t see the point in my joining in. Sorry
Quality handmade at Christmas
We are British we don’t have to take on the USA model which has nothing to do with us.
I will not be doing any sales in my busy time of Christmas.
We are British individual designer/makers, we are not mass re sellers of cheap goods or huge companies selling white goods.
We have our Boxing Day if we feel we want to do a sale after Christmas. Not that I do sales it just encourages people to de value our work and wait until we reduce our prices.
same as I said on facebook…we are British and proud to be British.
folksy is British and proud to be British crafts.
Why follow what the Us is doing…instead, let us had a “Happy Monday!” event.
I love the idea of a “Happy Monday”, or maybe a “Handmade Monday”. I would definitely prefer a Celebrate Handmade theme, with no discounts required please.
I hate Black Friday. For me, I don’t think it has anything in common with handmade and craft.
I keep my prices as low as I can all year round. I put my heart and soul into every piece, why should I discount it? Just my opinion btw, it wouldn’t stop me from buying something I liked from another shop, but I tend to avoid Black Friday all together.
The high street retailer I also work for avoids Black Friday and sales in general for the most part, for ethical reasons, and I’m happy about this.
) So celebrate handmade as an alternative to mass market madness has got to be the way to go.