Made To Order

[BadBob]

I have a serious storage problem for the items I make and sell in my shop. I am considering going strictly made-to-order except for new items. I would make one, list it, and switch to made-to-order once it sells. I would only keep in stock best sellers and new items.

Do you see any issues with having a primarily made-to-order shop?

[kmmcrafts]

I sort of do this for a few items and I always relist a item that sells as a made to order so it's available to order and once I get a new one made I switch it back. 

I'm not sure how you have shipping set up but the way I have it is I have profiles set up for instance "Desk Clocks" and then I have another exact copy of the same profile calle "Made To Order Deck Clocks" The only difference is the processing times. This way when I re-list a sold item I change the shipping profile so Etsy won't give a false estimated time so it won't end up being delivered later than expected. I also make the first sentence of the listing description something like this. " NOTE: Made To Order Item... Please Allow Up To xx Days For Item To Be Made Before I Can Ship It Out... Thank You... " This way the shipping times "should be" clear between the processing times shown and the first sentence being bold text etc.. they should understand that it's not going to be mailed the next day, LOL.. 

I get customers that'll message asking " is there anyway to pay more to get this faster " pay more to bump it ahead of someone else's" etc etc. 

You do loose a fair amount of business unfortunately because it's not ready to ship.. But the majority of times I'm able to make everything and have it in the mail within 3-5 days.. only 1 time have I came close to my 14 day processing time and that was during the busy holidays. I don't know how long it takes you to make things or how busy you get.. I really could probably change my processing times to not be so many days but I gave myself a nice cushion of time on that for those just in case times like if I got sick or back in the day if my kids got sick and I needed to keep them home from school or whatever.. 

IF you do the shipping profile things it's quite easy to go to your shipping profiles and see how many made to order items you have and what you need to "catch up on" etc.. so this works well for me short of loosing some sales because of the processing times etc. Each profile I have has a duplicate and one being made to order with longer processing time. Sometimes during the busy times I will go to my made to order profiles and deactivate the made to order items for a few weeks over the holidays if I'm starting to get backed up. Then I go put them back on after I start getting caught back up.

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by kmmcrafts

[BadBob]

@kmmcrafts

I have a shipping profile for 1-2 weeks processing time. It did not occur to me to have different profiles. That is a good idea.

Many of my items take several days to make. I need to cut, sand, and dry-fit all the parts. I wait 12-24 hours for the wood glue to cure, while paint needs 24-48 hours between coats. Shellac is faster. Oil and wax are fast too. I use a little polyurethane that takes several days to cure well enough to ship. I have the full range from unfinished that I can do in a day to items that will take at least a week.
 

 

[kmmcrafts]

@BadBob 

You'll just have to decide what processing times work for you best and maybe have to trial and error it.. I originally had 3-4 weeks but learned I really only need 1-2 weeks.. most times I can get a order out within 5 days.. The quicker times you set up the more customers you'll attract and get.. we live in a day where people think we're a machine and should be able to build something and have it in the mail in the same day, LOL.. If they can't get it in a good timeline then they'll look elsewhere to see if someone else can do it in their timeframe they need. 

If you go to your dashboard and click settings then on the dropdown click shipping settings it'll bring up this page.. You can see I have 7 pages of shipping profiles... under the active listings is the number of listings in that shipping profile.. if you click the number of active listings within the shipping profile it'll show you all your listings in that profile so it's easy during slow times to go in there and look and print the patterns for those that you want to restock to build up your inventory for the busy holidays.. I try to have most things on hand by Oct. so I can focus on packing orders when the holiday rush sets in. I have 51 clocks to make before then and 27 different ornaments to stock on this first page of shipping profiles.. Life this time of year is pretty laid back just build inventory and make new items to add to it. 

Now keeping track of what I have on Amazon and the other sites along with Etsy is challenging sometimes.. That's another topic another time as that get's complicated, lol 

Edited July 10, 2023 by kmmcrafts

[BadBob]

I will run with 1-2 weeks for now and see what happens. What concerns me the most is setting the processing time too short and getting a bunch of orders simultaneously.

I'm working on my goimagine shop. That took most of the day just to get to the point where I could start listing things. It's not as easy as Etsy to set up. Having two shops is going to present some inventory issues. I'm unsure how I will handle it, but made-to-order is a good solution.

[kmmcrafts]

I've been thinking about opening up a shop there.. I like how they seem to be trying to work "for the sellers" and not so much for profits.. I think that place "could" have a good future provided they stay on track. Artfire was very similar, was very unfortunate that one of the main folks that run the place got a job offer to be a actor in a movie ( I think it was ) and the replacement person (s) run it into the ground and out of business in just a couple short years.. That is why I keep my foot in the Amazon and my own site door so to speak. If Etsy was gone tomorrow I don't have to start from scratch on Amazon, eBay or the other places I keep a few things up and running and do a little promotion to just have as a backup.