Comments on: 3 Cheapskates and How to Respond

By: Brooke

Brooke — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 06:13:14 +0000

Beth,
They could also be asking because you avoid the fees of a credit card. If someone asks me to pay in cash, if its a small amount, I will sometimes not charge tax because I am saving on fees and it gets them through the line quicker.

By: Beth

Beth — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:10:28 +0000

Great article and great responses! It always feels like a sticky situation when people ask for a deal at a craft show, but most people feel like “it doesn’t hurt to ask”. Luckily, 9 times out of 10 when you tell them you can’t offer a discount, they will buy anyway. It also bugs me when people ask if they pay in cash, will I not charge the sales tax. They are basically asking me to break the law by being sneaky and not reporting my cash sales. I do not appreciate being put in that position, and I am also not interested in paying their sales tax!

By: Sol

Sol — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:16:18 +0000

When the people want to know how I make things, I tell them that from time to time, I offer classes in a specific technique. Of course this is for a price. That way, if they really want to know, they will pay for my expertise. It has worked out fine. Many of my students are regular clients as they’ve come to realize that creating something takes time, expertise and patience.

Yes, for discounts I have a mailing list. I offer two major discounts through out the year and plus the occasional friends and family discount.

By: Links – June 18, 2010 « Beautiful Flower Pictures Blog: Floral Photography by Patty Hankins

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:08:42 +0000

[...] Smallerbox has 3 Cheapskates and How to Respond [...]

By: Meredith

Meredith — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:43:34 +0000

You just have to be analytical about giving away freebies. Some high profile press will also ask for freebies and in those cases sometimes it is worth it to pay to play.

If you are dealing with a blog, you can get an idea of their site traffic from trafficestimate.com. Then you do some math. If they get 90k visits/month that’s around 3k/day. If you expect 5% of their readers will click through from the review you can expect 150 clicks, and if you expect a 1% conversion rate you should sell 1-2 things from this placement. Maybe a few more over time, since online placements stay up forever usually, and often bring sales months or years after the placement goes live.

You can play around with those numbers trying out best and worst case scenarios but you’ll see if the blog only has 50 readers/day it’s statistically unlikely you’ll get a single conversion from the placement and thus probably not worth the expense. You can get numbers to play with based on performance from past placements. (See what your site’s average conversion rate is. See how many click-throughs you got from past press placements vs. how much traffic the site had total, etc.)

I actually wrote an article about this specific topic last year. You can find it here:
http://smallerbox.net/blog/pr/giving-away-the-store-how-to-know-when-giving-away-product-is-good-for-business/

By: Faith

Faith — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:28:52 +0000

Meredith- this is so good to know. A lot of newer sellers are not aware of the blogging for freebies tactic.
I would recommend only dealing with reputable blogs and magazines. The reputable ones will have a return policy provided you supply return shipping fees. I know Somerset Press does because I’ve had something published in Altered Threads, one of their magazines centered on upcycled garments. They prefer to have the object in shop so they can photograph it, but they returned it unharmed and I was only out the amount for shipping. They still get their content, but the artists gets to keep her/his artwork. Not bad at all!

By: Jen

Jen — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:49:51 +0000

Good post, especially for those who have a difficult time saying “no” for whatever reason. I do think #3 isn’t a terribly big deal…Some people really are just curious about the working process and do not want to steal ideas. They’re the sort who love watching “How It’s Made”.

I can’t believe bloggers are out there asking for free samples. When I did write an indie finds blog, I never once asked for a sample…I just looked around every night, found something I liked on Etsy or a shop site, and wrote about it. The end.

By: Meredith

Meredith — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:33:23 +0000

Faith, quite honestly most “bloggers” asking for samples will not agree to this. They aren’t asking for samples because they need content, they’re asking because they want a free gift. People start blogs all the time for the sole purpose of getting freebies and do no real work to build a sizable readership. They don’t have a legitimate interest in helping the businesses they are collecting freebies from. They rely on finding gullible businesses who won’t check their site traffic.

By: Faith

Faith — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:13:30 +0000

I have been noticing more and more blogs requesting free samples. One alternative might be asking these blogs if you enclosed enough funds to cover the postage for mailing items back, would they consider working that way.
Reputable magazine publishers like Somerset Press has artists send their work with funds to cover return shipping and it works great! Maybe the smaller blogs could consider this to provide a break for the crafters out there. Both would benefit- the crafter gets exposure and the blog gets access to great content- and exposure, and the crafter gets her/his item back.

By: business buzz 6-12-10

business buzz 6-12-10 — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 11:09:39 +0000

[...] 3 Cheapskates and How to Respond – Great advice on dealing with requests for discounts and freebies. [...]