To Merch or Not to Merch
Ten years ago when I started this farm business, I remember preparing the farm store.
I didn’t have much to offer in the early days. That first farm event, I honestly had maybe a total of 20 skeins of yarn made from my first 3 alpaca.
I could see it on everyone’s face when they walked into my cute but super bare farm store. That look of…genuine encouragement…but honest let down.
They wanted to support me but most of the folks visiting didn’t knit or crochet.
Over the years, I’ve expanded by offering finished garments ala our annual Harvest Knitwear Collection of hats, scarves, mittens, and more. Plus more yarn options for those who do enjoy fiber arts.
I will say, the Collection and the yarn have been wildly popular and overall have become a successful way to keep the lights on in the barn year round.
But I still see the same look on faces still today. It’s hard not to. Seeing it still makes my stomach clench. I still awkwardly try to fight off the prickle that comes to my eye.
My products are expensive. I know this in my bones and I wish it weren’t the case.
I could rattle off a hundred reasons why growing a raw product and then manufacturing something from it…from start to finish in America…is just inherently expensive. But I won’t. I think we all know that anything American made is inherently expensive.
I’ve been approached by countless well meaning people that suggest I offer merch in the farm store.
They just want to support the farm but they can’t spend $75 on a hat, or $100 on a scarf. I totally get that. But as a farmer and an artist…in my heart of hearts…
I really only want to sell what I produce and create.
I want this farm to flourish on the back of my own labor. Not from “stuff” made elsewhere, in God knows what conditions and costs to the environment.
I want this farm business to succeed by selling purely what it produces. Not just for pride sake, but also because I know it is possible.
That’s part ego, I know. But when it comes to marketing, promoting my own products is easy because I can tell you every single thing about them…because I did the work to make them come to life. I can’t do that for stuff made elsewhere.
And selling is hard enough as it is.
But as you’ve heard me lament plenty, it really does take me nearly 2 years to bring one fiber harvest “to market”. A year to grow the fiber and the better part of the next to make it into something.
With costs rising and only 24 hours in a day, I’ve done just about everything to bridge the gap. My seasonal flower bouquet operation has helped tremendously in the cash flow arena. As do my agritourism events.
Every year I think I have a handle on it. Trying to pay myself a living wage without getting to the point of having $800 hats and $1000 scarves is a constant juggle. What I cannot cash flow, I put on credit and cross my fingers at the end of the year there’s enough to pay it off.
It’s just getting so hard.
So a few years ago, I started buying handmade (in Peru) alpaca figurines/ornaments from a wholesaler. I don’t mark them up like a traditional retailer would, but there’s enough margin to make it worthwhile. And I can barely keep those little toys in stock. But even those little toys are getting more costly as the years pass.
Lots of folks have said they’d buy a logo shirt or a ball cap.
Pride aside, that kind of merch is like a separate business venture in itself. You gotta stock a variety of sizes. Then there are minimum quantity requirements for each size — because lord knows the only profitable way to do traditional merch is by buying wholesale. Once you get past that, then you gotta have a place to store them when they’re not being sold.
Ugh. It might sound like whining but that’s a lot more crap to do for a one-woman-show. And like everything, that takes money upfront. The other piece is, I still have deep reservations about buying mass produced fast fashion made in questionable circumstances.
In a perfect world, I’d offer 100% American made and sewn cotton t-shirts that I slap our logo on and then dye with farm-grown indigo. (Perhaps, one day?)
Never the less, I’m still getting asked for logo merch…all the while costs are rising for every single input for my own products…that I think I’ve found an alternative.
STICKERS & LAPEL PINS.
While it still costs a pretty penny to purchase them — at least they have a small price point and can store easily into the farmstore cabinets.
Plus, they’re American made, too!
Best of all, the sticker design was created by a good old friend from high school…back home in Indiana!
Isn’t it cute?
Right now, this merch is only available in our farm store…during the limited on-farm events we have.
What a tease, right?!
Friends — that’s simply because 1) I don’t have the ability to keep track of sporadic merch orders while running the farm, and 2) I haven’t figured out shipping. Shipping isn’t cheap when you’re not Amazon.