#mslo

One of the things I've learned starting this creative business is that after all your sweat and tears to finally grasp a semblance of ground footing– a little market place traction and notoriety–even just getting your name in a few more ears– many offers of "partnership" begin to crawl out of the proverbial woodwork. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally flattered that any third party company would feel my work is a boon to their own brand and see the value in my wares! But as a biz-lady trying to make the best decisions for my company for the present AND future, it takes a discerning and objective eye to see these offers for what they truly are. Many times, online companies want to resell your goods on their site to skim a little profit off of each sale. Other times, they'll set up a fairly normal wholesale type agreement. In either case, you need to take into consideration if the company is in competition with your own potential online sales and what the trade-off will be. Often, these partners will not compensate you for the time and effort they will ask of you in pulling together the "backend" of the online retail side; such as providing photos, writing descriptions, supplying manufacturing details etc. (And often times these notes are required in their own specific language, style and via their complicated submission platforms.) It's your job as the artist/designer to determine what the trade-in value will be for your time-and in the end, money! Will the reseller be promoting your goods via any advertising-if so, how? How many subscribers and followers do they have? These things will most likely make a big difference in the number of sales you will potentially have via their shop & make your additional work worth it! 

Another sort of collaboration that has been thrown my way many times in the past is a partnership with flash-sale sites. If you're not familiar, these retail sites will offer an item for a limited window of time, and often at a pretty decent discount from the retail price. In order to partner with these companies, you must undercut your costs beyond what you normally charge wholesale- which a lot of times is very difficult for a small business! Especially one producing all of their goods fairly in the United States- our profit margins are small and it's sometimes a bit hard to align them with flash sale margins. In addition, you are not even guaranteed sales! You allot a certain quantity for the flash sale to sell, and if they sell out- GREAT! But if not, you again need to be prepared for the time and effort it took you to curate the sale & accompanying backend details. Also, many times any of the aforementioned online retail partners will ask you to drop-ship the sold merchandise. This means, they'll forward you the order receipt and it's up to you to fulfill the order, (+ time & money towards shipping supplies) account for shipping and tracking & get it to the post office.

As you can see, there are just about a million factors involved with determining if–and which–online retail partner offers will be worth it for your brand. I've only learned through trial and error, but each learning experience seems invaluable in the long-run & is making this right-brained lady into a more savvy (balanced?) biz owner! Alas, we are happy to share two thus-far successful and mutually beneficial collaborations. One is with Brit+Co, a fun and fresh lady lifestyle blog-that I actually enjoy! (gasp!) The other is with my old comrades at MSLO. Their newly launched Martha Stewart American Made Market is a great collection of USA made artisanal goods.

Met MsLo and showed her around a bit. Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Empire State Building, 5th Ave Library, Crumbs bakery...

She has been safely delivered to her hotel. We are back at ours. Contemplating Chipotle for a late lunch.