Thoughts from a hobby potter about the business side

I never thought I'd proudly state I'm a hobby potter.  But after retiring from being a Seniors Activity Coordinator and finally making as many pots and sculptures as I wanted, I found that it's really a hobby.

I don't want to produce a zillion of one thing, which production potters do. Studio potters make the same-thin-only-better-over-and-over also. Each time is critiqued, and the next replication should have improvements. I get bored pretty quick doing that.

But I do admire the perfectionistic potters, and the sculptors who copy things from photos...often of other people's works.  My ethics keep me from using the designs of another artist...even to the use of replicating patterns onto clay. Sure things from a kitchen store might be fun to play with to see how pretty those leaves look on a pot...or even a rope. But for me, I want my designs to be totally mine.  I might use a photo of an animal, or a scene - both of which I hope would be taken by myself...and then use it to inspire my own development.

But let me also sing the praises to those who do make pottery for a living. It's hard work! I purchase what I can, to keep their livelihoods going. It's kind of hard when my cupboards are also full of my own works.

And I am not a good business person. The retail side of selling pottery is not really comfortable for me. I used to sell for 3 hours every Saturday during 6 months of the year at our Tailgate Market here in Black Mountain. I sometimes still cart pottery to an indoor show to sell. But I don't enjoy much of that process any more. I may back away completely one of these days.

But I want to give you a story about a pottery business which I read today. I first saw it in the NC Clay Club site. 
Here's the Link to Business of Home's article.  But I'll also copy a bit below.

A tiny mistake cost East Fork $66,000. Then customers started giving the money back - the title of an article in Business of Home.  



The East Fork Pottery is local - manufactured in Asheville NC.  Three founding potters, Alex Matisse, John Vigeland and Connie Matisse now have 70 employees.  



They sell their seconds (tiny mistakes made in about 30% of their wares) on line with a discount. That's how the mistake happened...in 4 minutes the discount was applied twice to 2000 orders. They discovered it and took it down...apparently they do business on Instagram.

And just because I found this interesting, here's another quote from the article:

As it turns out, discounting errors are made by companies large and small, old and new. Last year, the country’s biggest Burger King operator mistakenly gave customers Value Meal prices on regular purchases for six months. The loss? $8.2 million. Online, technical complexity makes such errors even more common. To pick one example from hundreds: Last year, as part of its Prime Day run of promotions, Amazon mistakenly discounted bundles of photography equipment. For 40 minutes, customers were able to buy $2,000 cameras for $95.

East Fork’s founders: Alex Matisse, John Vigeland and Connie MatisseCourtesy of East Fork