I’ve got all my shop items in little individual press-closed baggies, at the moment just put into tubs. The ones listed on here have numbers on them that correspond to the file on my laptop that has all their photos.
Then I have the items I’m making for fairs and not listing (yet). They don’t have numbers.
I’m just imaging the chaos though that’s probably going to arise from craft fairs and having them all displayed together, out of their wee numbered baggies! There must be a better way of keeping track!
I’m not sure if I can be much help as I don’t do fairs, but this is how I store my stock.
Each type of item has it’s own storage container, so I have 4 smaller containers, make up bags in 1, small purses in another, large purses another and then a 4th one for embroidered decorations/bookmarks. I then have 3 large conrainers and they are split into1 for tote bags, 1 for drawstring bags, large zipped pouches and hand bags etc. and the 3rd one for oven gloves, pot holders, cusions. I’ve never had more than 100 items so it works fine for me and I always know where to find something.
As for photo’s, they are all stored on my PC and backed up to a hard drive. My ‘Folksy photo’s’ folder is split up into different folders for each item type, and then each of those folders are often split into sub folders. For example, I have a ‘bags’ folder which is split into more folders for the differnt types of bag I do. The ‘totes’ folder is then split again into ‘canvas bags’ ‘bags with faux leather’ ‘cotton bags’. I also have a ‘sold’ folder in each section and move the photo’s of items sold in to that so that I know what photo’s are for current stock. If I make the item again I can just move the photo’s back, but if I am not going to re make then I delete most of the photo’s, just keeping maybe 1 for my records.
I have sections in my shop with reference numbers eg PB1 then have a corresponding cube box with all the stock in. Easy then to find an item if sells. Used to be a nightmare s had massive boxes. Went smaller as easier to take off a shelf. Some sections have up to 3 boxes. As have over 900 items in my shop have to be organised. Below gives and idea what part of the stock room looks like, down one wall have a wrapping and packing station, that needs a tidy hence no photo.
Gosh, I am so pleased I only have a few items. I have shelves in huge cupboards in my sewing room and currently 3 are for stock items. I use to have them all in display cabinets downstairs but needed the space for other things so they moved into my work room. Smaller items are in organza bags but as I don’t have a lot of stock I don’t really need a system for it, they are also easily distinguishable. My large bears do take up a lot of room though that I really need for wool and fabrics, I never have enough storage space even though I have a good sized room. My photos are literally just on my phone and tablet mixed in with thousands of personal ones. I use to be very organised with seperate albums then a few years ago I was so busy and didn’t have the time and got behind with it all, now it’s a huge job to sort it all. I feel quite overwhelmed at the minute as there’s so much to do and think about, I feel like I am drowning under a sea of to do lists, it’s hard as the ocd bit of me is screaming at me to sort everything although I do have a bit of an obsession with labelling and sorting, my cupboards are organised with ‘very useful storage boxes’ and of course labels .
At the moment I’m using presentation boxes to store and display the items. I plan to use this to at craft fairs too. If you look at my shop you can see the boxes in the photos.
I have a spreadsheet of all the items each with a reference number, photograph everything, tag the photos with the reference number and then write it on the back of the box. That makes them easy to store as well.
I get them from eco-craft.co.uk and they’re quite cheap per pox (just over 50p each if you order in 10s). I get them from there as it’s all recycled paper & card.
Thanks for the replies everyone. I am lucky that my items are very small and don’t need a whole spare room!
I just realised there are site issues this evening @ProgressCrafts , so I’ll have a look at your boxes when it’s back online. A spreadsheet is a good idea. I like a good spreadsheet, I’m surprised at myself for not thinking of making one for stock!
I’m afraid I don’t have a filing system for my work. I just store it all in 4 big plastic storage boxes, then in each one of those are tubs with different subsections of work.
Somehow, I just know where everything is!
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