Isen workshop: adventures in batch production (or not...)

I advise artisan bicycle makers on PR and Marketing, as a hobby.

One day I hope to be able to break free of the city and turn my hobby into a business that I'm passionate about.

Sounds awesome, do you have a blog I can pay to read?

I need to re-evaluate my hobbies

Certainly it's a course on my workspace portal called "Artisan Re-imagination SErvices" or ARSE for short

Just £3k plus VAT

(Doesn't include colour photos or a finished back page. course may take slightly longer to arrive than advertised)

#racingkettle

55 #007

Already built and in the paint pile.

.... Also reading back see that I've not given you an eta. Sine reason is I don't have one, looking like 55's and below will be ready in a few weeks. As discussed they're all welded and frame like so just need a splash of paint.

Paint is the easy bit, right?

Well it is for me, as I won't be doing it.

I really wouldn't want to be wearing a mask and being in a booth for 35 (when taking promo bikes into consideration) frames, I think I'd go mad.

Wut?

I sold this on the basis of Talbot's trademark sick candy fadez.

Now this?

Unless you've subbed it out to Hoops, in which case "nice".

Carens fair hands will be doing the painting, although I may be roped in for some specific 'fading'.

The sickness and candyness will remain, but I still have a load of welding to do, plus machining the new fixtures....

So for a change of tempo. Does anyone have any experience with shopify as a sales platform? Coming at this more from an end user idiot vendor (me) than a site development or design point of view. Is that what you use for LFGSS @Velocio?

Yup.

Shopify is good, but the fees can add up so you need to make sure that you have a regular shop margin, etc.

If I have criticisms of Shopify it is that it's too simple on complex shipping costs, and that sometimes what I feel is basic functionality requires an app to get the functionality that you want.

But... it is easy to use, it is easy to configure product, the customer database and orders are easy to manage and process, the experience for the customer is good, the payment options are good, the risk mitigation of fraud is good... and considering it's a basic fee structure it's easy to get to grips with too.

I do recommend it highly. It's only when you need to go really bespoke on things that Shopify isn't appropriate (when you need to set up a shop like the Rapha one).

Awesome, I don't think we have worked out exaclty how we will take payment going forward. Wheter it is full payment up front, or deposit and payment pre-shipping. I guess the former is the normal route for the sort of purchase that Isen is, I just need to get out of the artisinal, lovingly hand whittled, one at a time ,own fart-smelling custom frame builder mindset...

That will be my one regret, the lack of trademark Talbot photo shoot when these bikes are finished.

Oh, this is for the frames themselves.

I'd probably split the cost, charge half up-front as a non-refundable deposit that at least covers the cost of materials for a given frame, and then charge the rest pre-delivery.

Most people will find that very reasonable, and it commits a purchase. Plus if someone does back out it's not going to fuck you up, and you'll be able to sell that frame at a discount and still be just ahead... which is a fair thing.

Shopify can do this... allow you to bill half now, half later... but it can only do this if you complete the entire transaction within 30-60 days. That's essentially the time (depending on the payment method) that the pre-authorisation for an amount will expire and you couldn't receive the remainder without asking the customer to check-out again.

https://help.shopify.com/manual/sell-in-person/transactions/select-payment-methods/multiple-partial-payments

So if you are turning the orders around within 1 month... then Shopify can handle splitting the payment over two points in time, and you can bill whichever amount you've agreed upon when you accept the order.

If it's likely to take longer than a month... then just communicate a "buy this, and later buy that" process. That works too :)

You can always buy a Talbot?

;)

Could you handle the neediness?

He seems to be coping so far.

It's the rest of us who are suffering...

I'm pretty good at Shopify. Wouldn't recommend for you though.

You just don't have the volume of transactions to make it worthwhile. Nor do you need to ship items or integrate with many carriers / payment providers.

Getting shopify will only serve to reduce your margin.

What you need is a shop-front website full of pictures and with contact details. Then take payment through bank transfers.

It's a hoop for people to jump through, leaving people more likely to forget, dither etc....
I'd have thought at least taking a deposit online via 'buy it now' button would be beneficial for locking people in to purchases?

You're right. Especially for the #buyer audience. Buy now think later
😉