Should I put my website address on my hangtags? : Ask a Question Reply
Artists and the Internet April 23rd, 2008The great questions keep rolling in! Here’s another great question from “Ask a Question“. In this one, fiber artist, Kaythe is asking about whether it’s a good idea to remove her website address from her hangtags because of a request from one of her gallery accounts.
Hi Nicolette,
My name is Kaythe. I make hand dyed scarves that I sell in gift shops. I’m finishing up my web page and I’ll be selling some of my scarves online as well. My question is that after I listened to your interview about how to get people to come to your site by putting your web address on business cards and postcards, I thought that I’ll start adding my web page to the hangtags for my scarves. But some of the gift shops I sell to don’t want me to put my contact information on my hangtags. What should I do? Should I make two set of tags and have one set that does have my information and one without? Or should I just not include my web page at all? I want people to visit my web page. How can I do that if I can’t include my web page address?
If you’re selling both online and in retail galleries and gift shops this is a common problem. This is what I wrote to Kaythe.
Hi Kaythe,
This is a common dilemma that a lot of artists face when they are selling both online and in retail galleries and gift shops. I’ve run into this issue myself a couple times where a gallery wanted me to remove my email address and website from my jewelry cards. I even had one gallery that wanted me to remove my company name from my jewelry card because they were afraid the someone was going to Google my company name find my website!
Basically it comes down to this. If you are already selling galleries and want to open up a retail web store for your work, you have to decide how valuable your gallery accounts are to you and how you will handle issues like this. Some gallery owners may be cool about you having a retail website (that is a website where you sell directly to the public) as long as you don’t directly compete with them and some may not be. For some galleries that means that you don’t underprice them on your website. For others that means that you don’t try to direct their customers to your website through your packaging like jewelry cards, inserts, and hangtags.
If you value the relationship with your galleries then don’t include your contact information on your hangtag if they request that you remove it. This is a common concession. You can either print two separate forms of your hangtags, one with contact information for those items that you sell either through shows or online and one set without contact information for those items you sell through galleries. Or you can design your hangtags without your contact info and simply add your website address onto the tag using a small sticker or label so you won’t have the hassle of designing and printing two sets of hangtags.
If you’re hoping that you can use your gallery accounts as a “lead generation tool”…that is you’re using your presence in a gallery as a way to direct people to your website so you can capture future sales, you’re looking at the artist-gallery relationship wrong. Most galleries aren’t interested in being used as a tool to generate new customer leads for the artist. Remember that once you put your work in a gallery you become partners. The customers that come into the gallery to buy your work is just as much their customer as they are yours. And they’ve spent a lot of time and effort to bring that customer into their gallery. Actively trying to cut them out of future sales is not a great way to maintain that partnership.
Before you open your website, you’ll need to decide how you will deal with the hangtag issue and all other issues related with your website and your wholesale gallery accounts. I’ve written a newsletter article called “How to Sell Online…Without Losing Your Wholesale Accounts” that addresses some of these issues and how to deal with them. I’ve attached a copy of the article so you can read it and get more information.
Good Luck!
If you want a copy of my past newsletter article, “How to Sell Online…Without Losing Your Wholesale Accounts“, send me an email at info[at]craftedweb[dot]com, and I’ll send you a copy. If you haven’t listened to my free audio download, “How to Market Your Website Offline“, you can listen to a small excerpt here:
Offline Marketing Excerpt [2:23m]: To listen to the full audio, click here to subscribe my free newsletter.
Do you have a burning question about websites or promoting yourself online? Click on the “Ask a Question” tab at the top of the page and send me your question. I’ll send you an answer to your question personally.
