Black Friday / Cyber Monday

Small Business Saturday was originally intended for ALL small businesses, although obviously retail can make best use of it. Sadly the name “Small Business Saturday” itself has now been trademarked by American Express, so it’s difficult to involve organisations in promoting it without paying a fee to Amex.

As for BFCM, it’s the weekend of the last payday before Christmas for many people. Promote our items, yes definitely. Reduce the price, certainly not!

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I am English not American - enough said :smile:

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Any discounts on unique items at this time of year seems odd to me. I you can’t sell your work full price now when can you?

I can see that big companies that are all selling the same things try to undercut each other to grab the sale - but their profit margins are completely different to ours.

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I think we have unity on Folksy!! Let’s see how things progress then! :smile:

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I agree why must we follow what the Americans do???

This is Folksy not Etsy now that’s an American site where they can do their Black Friday / Cyber Monday. . . It all just sounds crazy.

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I won’t be reducing anything for ‘Black Friday’ or ‘Cyber Monday’. Not because it’s an American idea but because I can’t see it making any difference to sales for me.
If I thought a sale (at any time) would get me lots of visitors and sales then I would take part but I don’t think it will make any difference.
I have a shop over on Etsy and I won’t be giving any sort of discount there either, my prices are as low as I can go so why would I take a loss (even if I did get a sale)

Well, I’m from Canada and although we celebrate Thanksgiving at a different time, the day after the American Thanksgiving is still the kick off for Christmas selling. The end of the season is Boxing Day as it is here. In the US, they start with their “January Sales” the day after Christmas (they call it “White Sales” too).

When we sell online we are competing in a global village Why cut off your nose to spite your face? If you price it right, people will buy. Until we reach the cut off date for posting to Canada and the US from the UK, I think its just good business to price to sell!

And believe me, you Brits sure have a culture of your own. It’s taken me 15 years to figure it out LOL

Yes we are competing globally, but Folksy’s pitch is that it is a place for British craftspeople (people based in Britain). I feel that would be diluted somewhat if we started adopting practices from other parts of the world.

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That may apply to supermarkets and big retailers but, as independent designer/makers, our competitive edge shouldn’t be based just on price - we make and sell handmade, original, quality items and that’s what our customers are looking for when they buy from us. If they expect us also to be the cheapest, they’re not being realistic and are not our target customers.

For some people, the ‘right price’ is always going to be cheaper than you are selling at - you just have to let those customers walk away. Profit is also an important element of pricing.

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Christine, of course you are right. The handmade element is crucial to the formula. When I say price it right, I am not saying price it so you are “cheap”, just competitive. You can maintain the ethos of traditional handmade and a still have a well priced product. Many of us are not hobbyists and rely on the income derived from their shop. To ignore a trend, I think is folly. Even designer labels go on sale on occasion, I get the email’s from Harrods every month. Yes, this portal is based in the UK and celebrates UK makers, but it doesn’t mean that sales do not come from elsewhere. I say, follow your own path but not everything that is American is a bad thing.

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But competitive with who, Leslie? I’m not competing with the giant retailers who can afford to slash their margins from 300% to 150% in the run-up to Christmas. If I cut my paltry margins by any amount that would make a difference to the customers looking for a bargain, I’d be selling at a loss and making for nothing. At the busiest time of the year, what would be the point of that? I’m not desperate to shift excess stock, I need to make as much profit as possible from the stock I have while people are buying. If I was buying goods in, or could mass-produce more items, then I could sell more at smaller margins, and that’s what most retailers do. I’m not a retailer, I’m a small designer/maker and my market is a different one.

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Well said Christine @ciesse

Thanks for all the replies - it’s great to hear your comments. It seems like your thoughts are pretty much in line with ours. So if anyone wants to do a Black Friday offer, the discount codes should help with that and you can promote it across social media using the #blackfriday hashtag, but Folksy won’t be doing anything specific.

PS. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who’s from across the pond!

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Hi Camilla, I just received an email from Folksy promoting shops that are doing Black Friday discounts. Doesn’t that count as doing something specific?

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Hi Carolyn. I felt strongly that Black Friday wasn’t something we should be pushing, but as a lot of sellers had set up discount codes for it, we took the decision late yesterday evening to send out a newsletter to support makers by promoting their offers. I tried to make the email as “non-black Friday” as possible and tried to include a range of offers (not just Black Friday ones).

I don’t want people to feel that they need to discount their products, but because so many makers wanted to use the Black Friday tag as a chance to promote their work, we also felt obligated to support them. It was a very tough decision, but I hope the email also highlighted how important we feel it is to buy handmade and that buying something designed and made by a skilled maker is more special than any discount.

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Just seems to be promoting a few people again, when the rest of us would be happy with a bit of extra promotion too…we’re being penalised for wanting to stay British.

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Disappointing.

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Personally if I can catch from sales from either day, I wont be complaining! lol!! :smiley:

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I was surprised to get that email too !!!

Thanks for your reply Camilla. Personally I find it disappointing that Folksy felt obliged to jump on the Black Friday bandwagon. It’s a shame the mailing wasn’t used to highlight the unique qualities of goods on Folksy and emphasise that we’re not chain stores and don’t ‘follow the herd’ if you see what I mean!

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