Has anyone else read the 2024 CC Survey findings report? It makes great reading for anyone who is feeling frustrated by the market we’re all currently operating in and wondering: “is it just me?”!!
If you completed the 2024 survey, you should recently have had the report emailed to you. I’m not sure if it’s okay for me to link to it here, so I won’t until I find out…
Edited to add: The results are available online - here’s a link to CC’s research page with a link to the report and lots of other research: Research library
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Yes I read it too. Very interesting but not a surprise to us microsellers but I got the feeling it might have been a shock to the craft council how little we earn.
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Yes! If you read some of the older research reports, this one has a very different tone, as if they’ve had a bit of a wake up call and a realisation that things have changed dramatically for the handmade marketplace since Brexit and the Covid online shopping boom. Obviously we all knew about it, but I don’t think they’d appreciated how much of a shift there’s been.
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Totally. I think it’s really important for them to see the figures in black and white. I’m hanging on paying my subscription with them to see if they come good and provide some useful help and opportunities on their website as they are promising.
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I remember using one of the reports circa 2021 for a module when I was doing a business course. It wasn’t that long ago but it does feel like the entire economy has changed, and so have customer expectations. Putting off genuine luxury purchases in tough times is one thing. Conflating a handmade textile or art piece with a mass-produced one and refusing to pay more than a few quid ‘because that’s what it costs on Amazon’ is another. Do not get me started on ‘I could make that myself.’ I’m sure you could, mate, go and have a go instead of looking down your nose at a small business owner doing the roles of eight people and putting years of practise and skill into something unique.
(Rant over until I next read the words ‘Buyers often compare handmade items
to mass-produced alternatives, expecting similar pricing’ when I go back to the report and my blood pressure rises again.)
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