I was recently inspired to buy some magnetic spice tins after seeing some really nice pictures of some on Pinterest. Unfortunately if you’re after this sort of thing there is pretty much nothing decent available to buy in the UK so I decided to make my own.
As I had to buy everything in bulk, I had an awful lot of materials left over - tins, magnets etc. and so out of curiosity I’ve now keen to try and sell my remaining tins online to see if anyone else out there would want any.
I realised that while the tins are great for herbs and spices, a lot of people already have spice racks! I am wondering if these tins could also be perfect for people that are really into crafting or baking as they are the ideal size to hold all manner of crafty bits and pieces and they can be stored really nicely.
Somebody pointed me in the direction of Folksy and it seems like it could be the ideal place for something like this. Do you think anyone might be interested and would it be worth setting up a Folksy store?
Hi Tinman glad you found us it was me who pointed you over here from the craft forum.
I can now see more of your tins and they look great I think they would be very useful not just to people who craft but for putting allsorts of things into.
Just thought great little tins for storing nuts and bolts away in a garage for instance attached to metal board hanging on a garage wall.
I think they are a brilliant idea and could be used to store anything small or just a fun way to decorate your fridge. (why do I have the urge to put a plastic fish and water in some so that they look like the view through portholes?) Folksy is wonderful but be prepared to do plenty of promotion although if you get some great product shots I’m sure you’ll get featured in gift guides and the like.
Sasha
Thanks so much for telling me about Folksy, Eileen. What a great response so far
I think I will definitely set up a store on here. Do you think it would be a good idea to take more pictures to show all the various uses? At the moment I only have the ones with spice and the ones with the buttons, elastic bands and sweets.
I think it would be a really good idea to show them mounted on a metal board like you said to show they can be used on something other than a fridge too.
Sasha what a brilliant idea about the portholes. I might do that tonight and post a picture!
I’ll post a couple more of the photos that I do have below as I’ve actually got 2 sizes of tins available. Also a couple of the people I’ve managed to sell to on ebay were kind enough to send me some photos of how they’ve got them set up in their kitchens.
If you think your customer photo’s are good enough quality to use in your folksy shop then you’ll just need to get their permission to use those photos.
You don’t want old customers upset and filing a take down notice for copyright infringement as they own their photo’s. Having two sizes is even better
Oh have you experimented in how much weight one can hold and still stay attached that would be very useful information.
oh yes and you could make up the metal sheet boards to sell as well but you have to learn to cut metal and file it so no sharpe edges or surround them in wood frames. Then you would have two connecting products the magnetic tins and board for these who want to us them in other places and not just the kitchen.
Haha yes I have already asked them if it would be okay to use
In terms of how much weight they will hold, I did a test a while ago and filled a large tin to the brim with lentils which was the heaviest thing I owned at the time. I think there was a little over 250g in there and it still held onto the fridge just fine. The medium tin will hold about half the amount but as they use the same magnets as the large tins they will hold up just fine too. I should really do some definitive tests though.
I think selling the metal could be a really great idea, along with a little set of screws and wall plugs for mounting. I’ve actually just started to test using different magnets that are slightly bigger so I only need to use 2 of them instead of 3 for each tin and as they are arranged in a straight line on the back of the tin, they lend themselves much better to sticking onto narrower pieces of metal. I could just sell a strip of metal instead of a big sheet.
Thanks everyone for all your ideas and comments so far.
I have now created my shop and added the first couple of items.
If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on how I can improve my listing I’d love to hear them
I would remove the photo with the 2 sized containers though as that might confuss some people especially if they are looking via a mobile phone and can’t see all the listing.
The listing is a wee bit long as you’ll find not everyone will read the whole thing. I would suggest taking out the bits about other websites and other tins as people tend to see that as dishing other sellers and that does put people off. Just say something along the lines of extra strong magnets or best quality magnets.
Don’t forget to tell your potential customers what the see through lids are made from is it glass or thick Perspex and if it’s scratch proof. That’s the sort of thing customers will want to know.
you might want to redo some new photo s for your larger ones so the customer can see better how large that set is.
Now you’ll need to promote your items
Here is a list of places you can do this
Pinterst there’s a pin it button on each listing so once you join pinterst that’s easy to use.
Twitter
facebook but make sure you set up a business page otherwise facebook will see you business posts on your personal page a spam
Theres Google place here’s a link for you. https://plus.google.com/
There’s Wanelo http://wanelo.com/magic
There’s instagram others who use this will tell you more if you fancy trying it
And of course there’s Craftjuice
All those sites are free to use and will get your items seen by more potential customers.
I’ve pinned your smaller ones to my Glorious June on Folksy board on pinterest. and I’ve also shared it on Google plus so I’ve promoted them to my followers for you.
Hope that helps and if you copy the url for your small set onto the weekly listing thread in the showcase section then others will promote them for you as well.
Wow Eileen thanks fo much for all your help.
That’s definitely a good idea about the product description. I tend to get a bit wordy. It never even occurred to me that people would be interested in what the windows are made from so thank you for pointing that out.
I’ve updated the product descriptions so they’re now less wordy. I’ll have to take some new photos tomorrow and start trying to promote myself on those websites that you suggested
Absolutely, I was wondering when someone was going to ask this.
My sister has some GRUNDTAL tins and they do seem to be very good for the most part. They’re a little bit bigger than my medium tins but my large tins are a bit bigger than these. The issue I had with them was the quality and strength of the magnets.
The IKEA tins use the same sort of magnets you’ll often find on regular fridge magnets which are perfect for light items like paper and foam shapes for crafting but not so great for some of the heavier spices and mixes. They’ll start to slip down your fridge once they’re filled up a little over halfway. That being said they are still very good and look nice and most people probably wouldn’t want to fill them up completely anyway.
My tins use strong neodymium magnets and have some grippy foam on the back so they won’t slip down even when they’re full to the brim of something heavy like lentils. But to be honest it’s all down to personal choice and what works best for you
Having two sizes is even better
