Hello makers - per your suggestions the board will look at appointing and interim consignment lead at the May board meeting. Our current lead Mike B is a great guy but pretty busy also leading the safety committee and we’d like to see who else is interested. Even if you just want to help out, fill out the survey.
There’s lots of other committees on there as well so if you’re new, jump on one! It’s a great way to get your voice heard at the makerspace. Many of them have no required meetings or time commitments, you just help out where you can.
I took a stab at writing a job description for this committee, but like all leadership positions you get to make it your own. Use this form to share your vision with us, we want to hear what you think!
Consignment
Help makers sell what they’ve made in collaboration with our brand
Reach out to local retailers to form partnerships where we could sell products we make
Set up point-of-sale systems to collect payments during shows and public events
It’s got me thinking, and maybe we could talk ahead of the board meeting… several of you have brought up the fact that MakeICT isn’t a great venue for selling stuff. We’re open four hours a month. We’re not a shop, we’re a makerspace.
So should we even have a consignment committee? I see value in vending machines, having sodas is great, maybe we could expand that model to sell consumables like masking tape and sandpaper. But for selling stuff, maybe I could just go out to some local retailers and ask if MakeICT could have a section there, rather than letting stuff get dusty in the glass cases? Going out to retailers doesn’t take a consignment lead I could just do it.
I would love to see consignment go away and be replaced by vending machines. but with everything else we have going on, who will build the machines and make sure it is done in a timely fashion? We have a lot of unfinished projects at make ict, what is most important? Card readers on equipment? Electronic locks on lockers? Cleaning up areas? Finding members to teach classes? Fixing the fireball? Or worrying about longer term limits?
We need volunteers and support for the people that do most of the work around the makerspace. Someone help us…
I tend to agree with Jeremiah about maybe ending consignment. I think the tshirts and lanyards and that type of stuff is great, but with the exception of big public events like open Streets, i just don’t see much chance of selling our stuff to each other all the time.
I do know some members who are already selling their stuff in local shops and even more who sell on etsy. Maybe a MakeICT etsy shop, Amazon marketplace shop, etc. Would go well. Shopify is an ecommerce platform that allows you to upload products to one online storefront and then create instances of your product line across all the “marketplace” sites (etsy/amazon/ Facebook). It’s also an extremely easy ecommerce solution.
Something like that will take a team. And i don’t even know how much profit it would generate with fees and percentages going to so many organizations.
Edit: there was some kind of etsy expo thing going on at century 2 around this time. It may have already passed though.
Having run an etsy shop that had lots of sales, I do not think online venues are easy at all. It’s a lot of work to photograph, measure, describe and tag each listing, then you think about shipping materials, pack and ship stuff, it’s nuts. When I did break through and have a big year selling on etsy it was actually craft supplies I was selling not my handmade stuff, there’s a big market for supplies. I also realized it was too much work for one-off stuff, so if you’re the kind of person who likes making a different bowl every day etsy isn’t worth it. If you can make the same exact bowl 15 times and you can have one listing it makes more sense. So anyway yeah if we had a volunteer wanting to set up an etsy shop for us I’d be all for it but it’s no small undertaking. The more doable path is a local shop, that’s why I mentioned that I could go that route, but that shop will want 40-60% because they’re saving you that work. People think consignment cuts are extreme but as someone who’s done the online thing, I say worth it
To JB’s point, there is a lot going on at the space, as a leader don’t get overwhelmed. Do the things you can and advertise the opportunities for others, that’s our job None of the things you listed are going to make the space fall DOWN if they’re not done. Priority wise, the educational program (finding teachers and managing classes) is the most important thing to me, so I’m trying to get that class interest survey done before the next newsletter goes out, and hey now’s a great time to plug the How To Teach A Class class coming up this Thursday - invite your teacher friends, especially the ones with a summer off!
Sharetribe is interesting. I’ve been looking at it for a while. Sellers create individual “store/profiles” and handle the entire transaction themselves. MakeICT sets percentages.
Update: At last night’s board meeting we decided we didn’t need a consignment committee because this is not something we need to dedicate a bunch of space to.
I’m going to approach a few local stores to see who’s got the best deal to help us sell our stuff. Suggestions welcome!
