Market Opportunities for Stained Glass??

Oh, good. Another basement bandit.

Unlike my blunt , top posting friend.....I believe everyone has a right to earn a living doing whatever they want, the marketplace will sort it out. Having said that.....depends on the stuff she is doing and the price range she is in.

If her stuff is unique, highly artistic, and she wants to deal with the clientele of Artist's market, apply to the ACC shows, and sell to the galleries and the gift markets. Her stuff is OK in originality but not highly artistic, and want to market locally, do the art fairs. Both of the above assumes she is designing her own stuff, NO patterns from books, NO bevel clusters made in third world countries. All totally original work.

If the above doesn't apply, then sell thru the local gift stores and kitchen shops, if they will do it, consignment work is OK, but not the best way to go. You as vendor , take the biggest risk , and gain the least.

If her stuff is small and cutesy, do the flea markets, seems to draw that crowd...

You have to do the same research as everyone else has done, but something you must NOT do cut your price just to be under the other guys price. EVERYONE loses then. Match or go higher, everyone wins then.

The best money in stained glass is in repairs and commissions.

Good luck..... this field is dying. Driven to death by all the overseas imports.

have to agree there.....we only hope to use it as a hobby or part time income----IF we get to retire ! I educate people as much as I can about the "Imported" crap----and how much quality & love is built in by craftspeople ---here & europe etc....not by an assembly line of chinese kids making thousands of the same pcs.....maybe we could call it "fast food" stained glass???? McGlass!!!

Kitty

While I agree that everyone has a right to compete in the marketplace, what is overlooked here is the blatant presumptiveness of the original poster, wanting those of us who have 'paid our dues' in this business to blithely hand out marketing information to make it easier for his beginner wife to further muddy up the waters in an already diminishing market.

Asking "what types of S.G. do customers want to buy?" and then wanting to know what sales venues are best shows a complete lack of understanding of the business process. The old saying about making a better mousetrap and the world beating a path to your door is really true. If you don't intuitively know what products you want to make and how to market them, you probably ought to just keep on making suncatchers and giving them to the neighbors for Christmas presents. Your mousetrap isn't any different from thousands of others.

And I'll just be damned if I'm going to show you how my very successful S.G. business works...at least not for free.

And I agree with that point also, been paddling up that stream for a very long time. I guess when I have been over the falls so many times I have gotten the attitude that no matter who comes along, "they won't be here that long" and I keep going. Nearly, but not all, in my area work from their homes. So I'm kind of used to it, in fact, as a stress reducer, wish I could do the same. BUT, the marketplace will sort it out.....

Been working from the home for three years now. Just about to move into an established glass studio in Salt Lake. Working at home is nice but I think I can get more done by leaving the house and "going to work" each day. I will certainly meet more contacts.

I disagree. And the complaining about imports gets old.

The guy who buys a $10 knock-off oil-painting out the back of a truck was never going to buy a $2,500 original oil painting out of a gallery. The same is true of glass.

If the artist adds unique value then the artist will not suffer at the hands of cheap imports. If the artist doesn't add unique value -- and most stained glass artists working from pattern books are little more than cottage manufacturers -- then they are subject to being unseated by more efficient/cheaper manufacturers.

If you make lamps then there will always be someone making lamps cheaper. You better know why your lamps are unique and if it comes down to a technical explanation of technique or process then you've lost.

- Paul

I disagree with you. That guy buying a crappy assembly line oil painting from a trunk ---would never be any craftsperson's customer. He is a slug. We on the other hand --live on the USA economy and must support ourselves on the USA economy. Therefore we must charge a reasonable price based upon labor & materials, to make a living on our economy. People seem to forget that the Chinese have HUGE assembly lines with basically "slave" labor making things by the millions at a 1/20th or 1/30th of our "cost". That would be fine if we LIVED on the Chinese economy--we don't. So people who buy this crap are basically "traitors" and hopefully their livelihood will be eliminated due to "cheap" imports.

my 2 cents Kitty

While the efficencies of the Pacific Rim manufacturers are undeniable, it seems to me that we ought to looking at "why" they managed to get a foot hold and have usurped the USA in many areas of commerce.

And it basically goes back to two areas, in my opinion.

First was the Marshall Plan directly after WW2. For some reason, the American government has forgotten the old adage that "to the victors belong the spoils". We got attacked, won a long war, and then spent ourselves deeper into debt rebuilding the losing side. And we continue that stupidity to this very day.

With an attitude instilled by unions, and winked at by corrupt city and state governments, the American worker has done less and less work for more and more money until he basically does virtually nothing for what amounts to a small weekly fortune, and then expects the company and the government to maintain that standard of living until he dies. The work ethic in this country is essentially gone, we have dumbed down our educational systems, pandering to the lowest common denominator.

We have a Congress that is more worried about whether some overpaid jock takes steroids than they are about catching Islamics who are trying to kill us. We have NCAA officials banning team names and symbols from post season competition rather than worrying about whether the athlete graduates. We have a government that is more worried about whether some damned owl's nesting area is disturbed than they are about the thousands of people who lost their jobs in the lumber industry.

We have a media that worries more about some POW raghead's "rights" than they celebrate the 25 million Iraqis that are now free to form a democratic government.

Basically, our priorities are all upside down. The Asian economies are outworking us, and outhinking us.

I agree with you in every way. But how can we compete>???? we would have to drop our economy down to the level of China....average pay of $1.00 per day!!! fine with me as long as cost of living does the same!

Kitty

We don't compete with them on their playing field, ie the cheap stuff. Create better quality goods, in both design and technique, and refuse to repair the imports. It was junk when it was made, and does not deserve my attention. What do I lose by doing that? a cheeseburger? I should lose more of those... A potential customer, usually not after I explain why I won't fix it. They can buy another if they like that costs less than my repair bill

we would have to

and that is not going to happen, the only thing any of us, individually , can do is control our own environment, our own little "community of creation" of the things we do. If the public consumer doesn't like or can't afford what we do, we need to change us, or find a different consumer. Sometimes we need to "go there" and "do this", to make things better for "us".

Actually, the Chinese don't use "slave" labor for this type of work. Slaves or prisoners ar ethe ones that build roads and things like that. Employees of large companies in China actually get paid a decent living wage...for thier economy. You also have to remember that the Chinese have been around for a long long time and thier way of thinking and thier morals are much different than ours and that doesn't mean they are wrong.

Andy

A view from the other side of the Atlantic: Your government actively encouraged the export of technology (glass-making) to China and sanctioned payment via contra-trade, ie exporting of glass back to the US. The development of trade in finished glass goods (much of it now very good in quality, if not in originality) is a natural extension of the process as US seeks to get close to China and its' markets. The low prices are not the product of slave labour, but rather of the need of China for hard currency. The makers get paid wages at the going rate in renminbi while China earns valuable $$$

As far as survival in a changing market goes, the watchword as ever is "Adapt or die".

If all you are looking to do is mark up the price on labor and materials then you are correct.

An artist/crafts-person better bring more to the table than that. Otherwise you are just a one person factory.

That was exactly my point.

There will always be competition. People who whine about it die hungry, feeling they are the victim of some great injustice.

People who find ways to add unique value and match it with customers who recognize it succeed.

- Paul

(Quote) A view from the other side of the Atlantic: Your government actively encouraged the export of technology (glass-making) to China and sanctioned payment via contra-trade, ie exporting of glass back to the US. (Unquote)

While that may be so, the majority of small businesses in the US did not support our government in this. Large, overbearing, dominant corporations shoveled money into the pockets of congressman to get all this passed.

Andy

Hourly rates and costs of living are all relevant.

The house I grew up in was purchased by my parents in the early 1940's. I was thinking yesterday as I made a bank deposit for a couple days of worth of checks for my services, the deposit I made was more money than they paid for that house. I just bought my wife a new Jeep Cherokee that cost more money than my first house did. I frequently make more money in a single morning than I made per month in my first job right out of college.

I'm reminded of the situation years ago when the first Jap cars hit our shores. They were ugly, not particularly powerful, but they were cheap. Price got them a foot hold, and as the US consumer began to flock to the lower price cars, Detroit had to match designs, and prices to some extent.

Funny thing, though. The Jap cars now are mostly better products than our domestics, and sell for the same money. It's curious how "made in Japan" used to be indicitive of junk. Now, some of the best products in the world come from there.

Now, the junk manufacturers are some Chinese and definitely all Korean.

Talking about extremes almost always works in an argument. Unfortunately there's alot of customers that fall into the gray area. When the difference is $1000 with us for great quality or $300 with them for OK quality. If we work on a 50%-70% markup, and the gray area we're losing is 10-20% we're in alot of trouble. Bottom line is that we'll never make up those sales again. Survival of the fittest, quickest to adapt, that's who'll be left in 10 years.