Friday 27th November is Black Friday and this year we will be creating a Black Friday gift guide featuring shops/products who want to join in.
We’ll be promoting the gift guide over that weekend on our social channels and featuring shops offering Black Friday discounts in extra editions of our Folksy Finds newsletter too.
If you want to get involved and have a chance to appear in the Black Friday gift guide, here’s what you need to do:
Create a discount code for your shop that will run from Friday 27 November to Monday 30 November.
Name the discount code BLACKFRIDAY
(We’ve found discounts over 20% are most effective but you can make the discount any amount you are comfortable with and that your profit margins allow.)
Make sure the discount code is active from Friday 27 November and expires on 1 December.
(It might be an idea to set a reminder on your phone so you can activate it!)
Tag items in your shop #BlackFriday to help us find them.
Tell us your discounts in this thread.
If possible, highlight your BLACKFRIDAY discount by adding it to the tagline of your shop so shoppers can easily find it.
Once the gift guide is live, we’d love you to help us tell the world about all your amazing offers. Here are a couple of graphics you can share on your own social media channels, which you can post along with your own code and a link through to the guide (we’ll add that link here when the guide is live).
I’m really disappointed that Folksy are jumping on this particular bandwagon, and won’t be supporting it at all.
I feel that hand-crafted, handmade work has no place in what is essentially a marketing stunt by large online wholesalers and retailers with obscene profit margins to shift a load of mass-produced, imported stock at rock-bottom prices. They will still make large profits on Black Friday despite the discounts - most small businesses and artisan sellers will have to sell at a loss to drop their prices by that much. It puts ridiculous pressure on sellers and encourages buyers to look for bargains rather than for quality handmade goods at a fair price.
I believed that Folksy was about supporting handmade - we may as well all go and sell on ebay instead.
Completely understand the opinions of those above - however I think it’s a recognisable way to pull people into to buying something hand made and indipendant that they wouldn’t necessarily have considered before. We will be offering 50% off for Black Friday and would love to be involved
I do agree that it is a marketing gimmick. I tried a black friday sale last year and didn’t sell a thing. A waste of energy for me.
However, my sales have been so poor recently I am willing to give anything a try. I will take part if Folksy can help promote us. Thank you Folksy. I will be offering 20% off at https://folksy.com/shops/eanjewellery
Folksy is a UK-only site so why do we have to embrace an idea from the USA in order to get publicity from the site? The whole reason for being a small business, and offering different, handmade and unique items is originality, not following the herd. This goes against the grain in so many ways. To be honest, it feels a bit like emotional blackmail to be told “sign up to this or we wont be promoting you”. My face-to-face sales are far better than my online sales and I will be concentrating on that this year (as I did last year).
I can’t disagree with any of that! I have been thinking about upgrading my Folksy shop but I’m now having second thoughts. It has to be borne in mind that Folksy, like eBay when it offers promotions, is looking at its own income, not ours.
I totally understand all your reservations, but we wanted to support makers who do want to get involved. Black Friday/Cyber Monday is the busiest weekend of the year for internet shopping, so as more people are online then that at other times of the year it could be a really good opportunity to be seen.
Also, wouldn’t it be great if we could steer some of those thousands of people who will be online away from mass-manufactured products and towards the wonderful things made with love, care and skill on Folksy.
But please, please don’t feel obligated or pressured to be involved.
…but not makers who don’t want to get involved. Surely you should be supporting & promoting all makers on this busiest weekend of the year, not just those who choose to reduce their prices.
i agree with you about the whole ‘black friday’ thing @ciesse - it’s not for me, personally,so i won’t be taking part in it myself, or be looking to buy anything from anywhere just for the sake of (alleged)“bargain”.
but!..
that’s a bit like saying; when folksy promoted halloween things the other week, it was unfair on all the shops who werent making halloween items.
@fionaT…I know Folksy can’t promote all shops equally all the time, but themes are a bit more acceptable - we all make different things and some themes fit better than others with our designs. I don’t make halloween items, so I know my shop won’t be promoted on that occasion. Basing promotion on discounts alone just seems wrong - not all shops can afford to reduce prices, so they’d have to make a loss to get promoted.
I think it cheapens the whole site to have this sort of promotion.
I completely understand that Black Friday divides opinion and can relate to everyone’s comments so far. I’ve never taken part in any Black Friday sales before but am giving it a go this year.
Hi Camilla
I do agree with most of Christine’s views @ciesse. Many Folksy shops already sell at rock-bottom prices and simply can’t afford to discount their whole shop by 20% or more. In my limited experience, dropping the price has no impact on sales. In fact putting the price UP seems to generate more interest - in terms of views at least! Also, Black Friday creates a bottleneck whereby sales are squished into one weekend. This is a problem for those of us who make a lot of items to order. However I am willing to dip a toe in the water and give it a try for this year - but I’ll only offer a 10%discount as I’m already running one for second purchases. I don’t understand quite what we have to do. Do you mean put that tag into every single title? Or does it go in the tag box? It will take forever! Does it have to be the whole shop or can you choose certain items or categories, eg just bracelets? Sorry for being so dim about this - I have ventured onto Twitter for the first time this evening and it has left me deeply confused! Pat
Sorry but I can’t bring myself to do it.
I don’t ‘like’ the idea of Black Friday, It caused all sorts of shopping / internet problems last year and it’s American based, because of their Thanksgiving and because they don’t have the British 3 month lead up to Christmas, they sensibly restrict themselves to only a month !
So I really don’t see it’s relevance to us, a British craft / handmade shop.
My margins are very low, my material costs relatively very high, my hourly rate is well below the government designated minimum and I always kick myself when I accidentally price something too low so goodness knows how I would feel if I deliberately sold things at less than I think they are worth or perish the thought, at a loss.
Not for me.
I’m a home crafter on very small profit margins, not a big international company that can afford massive discounts. Also I’m busy gearing up for my local Christmas market at the Dickens Festival in Rochester. Why would I want to offer reductions the week before?
I understand everyone’s reservations. I am new here and would love to make my first sale.
I’ll be offering 50% discount over at www.folksy.com/shops/therainbowpaperie
Shaz
I am not sure about Black Friday for the same reasons voiced by others but I am trying to increase traffic to my shop and this seems like a possible way of attracting new interest. I will be offering 20% discount and keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks Folksy
Wendy http://folksy.com/shops/clarkjewellery.
and I always kick myself when I accidentally price something too low so goodness knows how I would feel if I deliberately sold things at less than I think they are worth or perish the thought, at a loss.