The post-SU! leadership buzz I keep reading about in various nooks of the interwebs is about discounting. I don’t discount unless it a system wide offer available to everyone like the current Valentine’s Day offer that expires 1/21, or when they give a discount when you buy both a Framelits set with its coordinating stamp set. Sorry.
I can’t profess to know every single demonstrator’s situation, nor why they discount. I do know that for me, continuous deep discounting would have a slow financial death spiral associated with it, and I’d eventually be paying for not only my hobby, but someone else’s. That is how I view it for me, but I’m not going to judge anyone else. It simply doesn’t work for me. What does work for me is trying to figure out something unique that benefits everyone involved. Honestly, if someone wanted my discount, then I would show them how they can get their own. I hope this didn’t sound holier than thou or anything of that sort, but I thought I would share how and why I changed my attitude around when it comes to this particular topic.
However, I do give away product. Specifically retired product. See that Virtual Grab Bag? Yeah, that. These are items I give away with an online, in person, email, or phone order (US only please), or re-bookings because they would otherwise take over my office/studio, and I will probably inadvertently demonstrate something retired if I didn’t give it away. That would go over really well… “hey, look at the versatility of this amazing Designer Series Paper from two years ago that you can’t purchase!” People don’t know stampers — they’d come after me with torches and pitchforks.
Yes, I give every single person who places an order a freebie of some sort. Every. Single. Order. You see, there are thousands of SU! demos. Thousands. And if you actually took the courtesy to select me out of thousands to place an order, heck yeah, you’re getting something for free that you select yourself. And I have a whole system set up to replenish the Virtual Grab Bag so it always has a good amount of stuff in there to choose from. I value relationships, including business ones. Let’s be real: if I didn’t send out something promised, then the whole world would hear about it on the internet and I’d never get another order. Again, this is for US residents only.
And if you are one of my first orders, then guess what? You’re picking from the most high value retired stuff I have: stamp sets. I even print out the old catalog pages that feature ideas using the set you selected and include it when I mail it so you can get some ideas on how to use it since I can no longer demonstrate it. That’s how grateful I am to you for not just the order that my husband (who I love very much) is convinced I’ll never get (let’s prove him wrong), but making much needed room in my retired stash both he and I think is much too big (more him than me, but that’s up for debate). I contact you after you receive your order, you pick something out of the Virtual Grab Bag, then I send it to you. Simple.
As you can see, I simply don’t have the space. I paid for these items long ago, and now I can’t really use them. Well, I could use them for personal use, but when retirement lists come out, I shove it all into drawers in order to separate them from current items. When those items are hidden away, they are truly out of sight and out of mind, and I very rarely use them. They simply take up way too much space, as I keep my current sets out on a small shelf, and now I need those drawers back if I order a few new stamp sets. So when someone places an order with me, they get to pick their free item even if they didn’t have the minimum required for SU!’s benefits they give out. Everyone wins in this scenario: I get an order, the customer gets something of value that they selected for themselves, and I get to buy new stuff.
I could eventually sell them, but what is the fun in that? I see some of these retired sets selling for a pretty penny on sites like Ebay and stamping sites (and the huge amount of retired DSP I have isn’t up on the Virtual Grab Bag yet because I still haven’t determined a really good way of mailing it without it getting crushed, but patience — I will figure it out). If a customer of mine selects a retired set from the Virtual Grab Bag after they place their order with full intentions to sell it on Ebay, then that is none of my business. I hope they take the money from that successful sale and place another order with me to get another pick from the Virtual Grab Bag. Even SU!’s Clearance Rack brings in a good amount of revenue for them, and all that stuff is retired. Heck, I regularly shop off the Clearance Rack for retired ribbon or Designer Series Paper in current colors, or Big Shot dies I always lusted for but couldn’t get for whatever reason when they were current. Ask Meg — my whole order from her except one item was off the Clearance Rack. And maybe in a few months, I’ll go through all my stuff again, realize I never used that Big Shot die I got off the Clearance Rack, and put it in the Virtual Grab Bag for someone who also wanted it, but found out it was sold out and couldn’t purchase it at the time. So now I just made someone incredibly happy, and I can go buy some more stuff. Rinse, repeat.
The same thing applies to retired Stampin’ Rewards sets. I always try to get at least one every time I order from SU! because they put a lot of thought into those sets. They tend to be extremely versatile, include more stamps than the average set, and if you look at the value price without hostess dollars, you’ll see they are pretty expensive and your hostess dollars can really chomp off a hunk of that price tag. I wind up getting at least two Stampin’ Rewards stamp sets with my hostess dollars rather than spend it on regular stamp sets because of this. Eventually these sets will retire (has anyone heard of a hostess set carrying over to a new catalog?) and I’d have to add them to the Virtual Grab Bag when they do. This also equates to me having the Virtual Grab Bag list continually stocked, but you get the idea.
Look at the picture above — those are my current sets after not being a demo for more than a year. For those curious, I put a Cherry Cobbler heart on current annual catalog sets, and a Baja Breeze flower on the current half year supplement or limited time stamps (and when you think about it, every stamp set is a limited time offer). I skipped an entire annual catalog cycle, and my set inventory diminished when I rejoined because of the sheer amount of sets that retired. I used to get upset when a bulk of my sets retired each year; I would think I did a horrible job picking out what would be the long lasting ones or mourn the money spent. Not any more. Now I can’t wait for stuff to retire — I can justify getting more current sets, and I have more giveaway inventory! When I snapped out of my old thinking and turned it into something positive, I gained freedom to get whatever items I wanted without any emotional or financial baggage. I felt like a total rebel ordering from the bi-annual supplements and special one time offers. The old me would’ve lectured the new me for hours about that. You know where stuff doesn’t retire? My Digital Studio — even the old colors are still available to use in there!
And if this isn’t your business and you just like to paper craft and stamp, I suggest going through your own personal inventory at set intervals through the year — say every three months. We have to creatively manage our own personal hobby inventories in order to get that one thing we know must have to spark that mojo, and it doesn’t hurt to let go of stuff we haven’t used in a very long time. There is probably some DSP pack you love every pattern of that has two sheets of each pattern. Take one sheet of each pattern and put it aside. Sell the rest at a garage sale or craft fair, or pay it forward with another crafter by simply giving it to them as a gift. And then immediately try to use the paper you set aside for a spontaneous project. Now you just made room to treat yourself to something new. Same for embellishments: take a pack of brads or buttons and divide it in half to lighten the load, then get some new ones in different colors or styles.
Creativity sparks when it has a purpose, and your stash should give you freedom to reasonably replenish it instead of tying you down to it by thinking you have way too much. I’m completely guilty of it too, and now I go through everything every few months, especially during the winter. I set aside any retired stuff in a large Sterilite tub to sell at our spring garage sale, and then again at our end of summer one. I simply cannot afford to be a collector anymore; the energy for collecting supplies is now channeled into creating with those same supplies. And when I pare things down significantly, I somehow manage to create more because I can find everything easier — and I actually use stuff up! Look, I fully admit to having a sickness when it comes to Stampin’ Emboss powder. I have yet to use up a container of it, so I found it hard to justify buying yet another one. So I divided every single container in half, gave away that portion as “product samples” or gifts to others, and kept the rest in small ziploc containers. This week, I finally made a visible dent in my Whisper White Stampin’ Emboss powder. So I’m going to treat myself to the Pool Party Stampin’ Emboss powder from the Spring Catalog on my next order.
This system obviously isn’t for everyone, but it is what I do to make sure I’m staying updated and not bogged down by stuff I purchased years ago. What is your system? Please share in a comment below.