FICH colour palettes

Guys, I need to tell you something, but shh, it needs to be kept between us as our little secret..

This is the first place that I am announcing the release date of my Autumn Winter colour palette 2018, say whaaaaaaaaaat? That’s right, by the end of this post you’ll given a date that you’ll be able to put straight into your diary.

But first, a little introduction to what the FICH colour palette is all about. 

The FICH colour palettes have been created to give you contemporary hand-thrown ceramics, coated in the colours from the latest trends. They also allow you to pick a collection of colours that seamlessly work together, rather than having to stick to one colour out of uncertainty of whether they will compliment each other.

Autumn Winter 2017 was the first colour palette FICH ceramics released, this palette looked like this;

This colour palette was released on 13th October 2017, making it nearly a whole year since the first colour palette was released at the time of writing this post, time flies! With this palette I wanted to capture the essence of what the English Autumn and Winter feel and look like. The warming tones to represent the warmth of being inside with the fire on alongside contrasting tones representing the coldness of the outside.

The second and current [at the time of writing this blog], FICH colour palette for Spring Summer 2018 was released on the 1st March 2018. I was blown away by the response to this colour palette, I was glad everyone loved it as much as I did. In this colour palette we saw the introduction of three brand new glazes; the forest green, mustard and speckled.

Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

This leads us nicely to the release date of the BRAND NEW FICH colour palette Autumn Winter 2018! I have decided to bring it forward a bit from last year and release this palette on the….

“duh duh duhhhhhh”

27th September 2018!!

The time of the release will be confirmed nearer the time, you’ll be able to hear it first through my newsletter by going onto my website, if you would like to be one of the first to know please sign up. I will also be announcing it through my social media pages, you can follow me on Instagram and/or Facebook.  You can also follow me on Pinterest which may give you some hints on what to expect from the FICH AW colour palette.

 

I hope you’re all excited as I am!

 

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My Etsy advice

Hello again,

 

I’ve realised that Etsy is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I thought it would be the case of uploading a picture of my product, putting a price next to it and a brief description. Oh how wrong I was. There are so many different elements to it, in all honesty I’ve found it hard to keep on track with it. When I first set up my Etsy shop I was planning on doing an update every month but that just isn’t doable. I thought I would do a list of everything I have learnt from Etsy so far, so if you’re planning on opening a shop, hopefully this’ll help.

 

These are the main lessons I’ve learnt from being on Etsy so far..

 

Some of the things to do when you first set up are;

 

• Join your local Etsy team! This has been the best bit that has come from having a shop on Etsy because I’ve made some really good friends from doing so. The people in the team are going to probably be the only ones who can totally relate to what you’re going through and can give you quality advice. Even if you don’t do much with your Etsy shop it’s such a great support system, you end up chatting about things which have nothing to do with Etsy

 

• Take decent pictures of your products – if you don’t have a decent camera or know how to take lifestyle photos it’s worth getting a professional to take some, the time you waste in taking photos would probably equate to the amount you would pay a photographer.

 

So these photos show you how my photography has changed on my Etsy shop. I know which pieces I would rather buy if i was a customer! You can see more here.

 

Older Etsy photography

Newer Etsy photography

 

 

• Write your ‘about me’ ‘story’ ‘shop members’ This is one of your USP’s (unique selling points) and will make buyers know who they are buying from, people love spending their money on a small business where £20 means a hell of a lot more to us than a big company.

 

• Make sure to do your shop policies, Etsy have their own standard ones but it’s worth making sure you’ve covered everything in your area.

 

• Make sure your descriptions cover everything about your product, try and think of every question a customer may ask and try and answer it.

 

• Find 4 people who make similar products to you, see if your pieces are in the same price range because you don’t want to price yourself out of the market either higher or lower than your competitors.

 

• Have a good old nosy over their shop, you can learn a lot from other people. By no means am I saying copy but It’ll make it all a little bit less daunting when you have an idea in mind of what other people have done.

 

• Tags, tags and more tags. I hadn’t realised that the more keywords you have in your title the more likely someone will come across your products… sounds so obvious but I presumed at the beginning that ‘blue plant pot’ would make my products the top of every search list.. I even have to put ‘fish’ in my titles now because of Autocorrect!!

 

• This next point comes with a warning… When I first got an Etsy shop, I joined lots of Etsy help groups on Facebook. On one hand, they’re helpful because you can ask questions to other sellers who have been selling on Etsy for years and you can see that other seller’s shops are facing similar hold backs. BUT, and this is the warning… They can actually make you worry about issues that may arise or tell you stories about nightmare customers. I for one have never had a horrible/difficult customer (touch wood) but I do worry that one is just around the corner and I don’t think that’s a healthy way to prepare yourself for a difficult customer. So by warning you, I’m just pointing out they are there IF you need them BUT try not to read about the horror stories because you end up worrying yourself that you’ll be next.

 

And just something which I had never considered before starting up an Etsy shop;

 

Reviews are SO important to us small businesses, a review which may only take 5 minutes to write will make our day. If you do buy something from our shops we’d all love it if you gave us a rating and write something even it if just a thank you. Reviews not only help future customers more likely to buy from us but they also help our SEO.

 

That’s all for today guys, please feel free to comment below with thoughts or questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them. If you’d like to email me them, my email address is info@FICHceramics.com.

 

Remember you can follow me on Instagram by clicking here. You can find my website at www.FICHceramics.com  and my Etsy shop here. Christina, one of the Etsy gals I was talking about earlier, does Etsy workshops so if you would like further help, you can reach her here. To read my previous posts, please click on the title you’d like to read; Me, Myself and I, My 5 top tips on how to work Instagram as a maker  and How to make the transition from making your hobby a full time job, a little easier.

 

Thanks again for reading my rambles, I hope I’ve said something useful which may be able to help some of you get started! 🙂

 

Fi x