Shameless self-promotion...make me rich!

[Kruzin]

OK...So a few months ago I went to work with my dad, at his shop up in the mountains. We design and build houses (I've done his CAD work on the side for years) about half the time. Right now, we have two spec homes under construction. One a true log home on about 5 acres, the other a custom traditional framed home on 35+ acres. I take care of the CAD work, dealing with engineers and going to the county to get the piles of permits required to build. Pops takes care of the paperwork, subcontractors, and a million other things.

The other half of our time (which is what this is really about ) we make rustic western/southwestern home decor goodies. We do prototyping and local custom orders, and my cousins in Iowa run a larger production shop out there. We just filled a 1200+ piece order for a big national park, where our stuff will be in their gift shops. Just picked up an order for 500 expensive slate picture frames for a ritzy hotel here in Colorado. We've had products in several major home decor catalogs for the last few years. Buiz hasn't been too bad, but not a huge success.

Sooo.....I've been asked to get some on-line sales going as fill-in work. To that end, I've started up an eBay store. Only a portion of our products are currently listed, but I try to add something each day. Take a peek

http://stores.ebay.com/Conifer-Creations-Home-Decor

We have a full-blown web site that a friend of the family set up and manages, but it's sales are almost nil. If you like this stuff, and want to see a more complete product list, visit www.conifercreations.com . But don't buy from that site. Tell me what you want, and I'll get it on the eBay store right away. We need to build up some good feedback there...and I get the commission from the eBay sales, but not the main site

[Marshmallowman]

Best of Luck

[Kruzin]

Thanks. MMM
At least one of my MURC family cares

[KvHagedorn]

LOL.. poor Kenny.

Hope you and your Dad are really successful in this venture.

[Kruzin]

We'd be more successful if ya bought something

[Jammrock]

I can't get my wife to let me buy some replacement headphones for my dying Sennheisers...

Good luck. The stuff looks really good. If I were rich and could afford a 35 acre ranch in Colorado I would give you a call, though

Jammrock

[KvHagedorn]

I'll do better than that. I will tell you how to sell a lot more of this sort of thing. Contact some interior decorators/designers and have them sell your products for you. Retailing them yourself might be a good idea if you could find a way to get enough hits, but this would probably work best for you. Start locally and work your way outward. Colorado, then Wyoming, then New Mexico, then Texas and so forth.

Print up some nice glossy literature with pretty pictures, and mail them out. The way to really make this happen would be personal contact, though.. calling on the decorator's business. You might be able to sell them through art or knicknack stores as well. Persistence and pounding the pavement is the key, but you might become more successful this way than you would have imagined. It looks like very nice stuff.. you just need some proper distribution.

[KvHagedorn]

Here's one.

http://www.rockymountaindesign.com/aboutus.html

[Kruzin]

KvH-
The buiz has been going for a few years already. I just recently joined in.
Pretty much everything you suggested has already been done.

Nice catalogs have been circulating for the last couple years. In fact, I have been spending most of the last week assembling our latest edition, with some great new glass candles and other goodies.

We are in large industry markets in Denver, Dallas, and Minneapolis. (We have a big show in Dallas in late June).
Have been in several major home deco catalogs for the last couple years.

We are in at least a dozen regional home deco stores in Colorado, and several in nearby states, as far south as Texas, as far north as Montana.

All of the houses we build have some degree of our own design work in them (we just did a kitchen and bathroom of all slate, trimmed with etched wildlife images as seen on our other products).

So, your good suggestions are already in play. Now it's time to try to get some kind of on-line buiz rolling....

[Kruzin]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn
Here's one.

http://www.rockymountaindesign.com/aboutus.html

We have sold some special-order slate coffee, end, and sofa tables to them in the past

[KvHagedorn]

[KvHagedorn]

One suggestion for your website.. get a real credit card account and don't use PayPal. Enough people hate PayPal that it could hurt your sales, and using PayPal also makes you look like more of an amateur business. Image, baby!

Another thing you should be good at is seeding the web browsers. I dunno how it's done now, but used to be is you wrote the word "slate" or "granite" or "coasters" or whatever 1000 times in 9pt white invisible lettering on your pages and you'd go up on the list. You could also make the site a bit snazzier and more high-end looking.. I'd suggest some glossy black borders and a bit more vivid green. And, no offense, but your little tree logo looks a bit lopsided. People want to be inspired with confidence if they are going to buy something online.. perhaps if you made it a bit sturdier looking and straighter..

[Kruzin]

We are set up for credit card purchases. It is an option in our payment choices when you purchase and check out. But of course eBay and PayPal are joined at the hip, so they promote each other heavily, and try to make it look like PayPal is the only choice up front...

I do plan on making a custom main page for the store eventually, but at this early stage, I'm still working on getting products listed between my other daily tasks.

I'll pass on your suggestion about the logo. I can see how it could be beefed up visually, without a big change from what we have now...

[Brian R.]

For example in the slate clocks, is the material really slate stone or is it some other material and is slate colored?

[Kruzin]

Real slate.
Everything you see is made of the real stuff.