Me with a pile of orders ready for the post office!

So – it’s currently madness with all the Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions circling around in the world – though, of course, here in Australia, the big ‘sale’ day of the year is actually Boxing Day, which is still to come.

However – you’ll not ever see Epheriell participating in any of these sales events. Sure, I’ll occasionally do something special for our Silver Service Subscribers – like a free shipping coupon or a discount for a special occasion (like a birthday special) or as a loyalty bonus – but we don’t really ever have ‘sales’.

Why?

Well – sales really only exist (or, did originally, before they became marketing tools) to move/sell off stock that was just sitting around gathering dust.

The point of a sale is to make something on a piece of stock that otherwise loses you money, because of what you invested in it to make it in the first place.

If you have stock pre-made, then having sales – and participating in sales events – makes sense, because you want to capture some of the money that excited bargain hunters are looking for. For my fellow makers who have pre-made items, it definitely makes sense to participate. For those still struggling to grow their businesses, even those with a made-to-order model, participating in sales events to build their profile can be a good idea.

For us? Not so much – because we don’t have pre-made stock lying around. Every single piece of Epheriell jewellery is made-to-order when you purchase it.

This is why Nick and I don’t participate in these sales events. It just doesn’t make sense for us.

We aim to price our work in a way that means we make enough money to support ourselves, while still ensuring our work is reasonably affordable. This is our livelihood. Neither of us have jobs, so all our energy goes into our business (and into Create & Thrive for me, too).

We are fortunate enough, thanks to your support, and the growth of our business over the last 6 years, to be in a position where we are getting regular orders all year round.

We owe it to our customers to give every single piece we make our full attention and love.

By discounting our prices, we would just end up with more orders than we could handle, and end up stressed and rushed trying to get them all made in time. Frankly – it’s just not worth it! It feels like it would be de-valuing our work and our time.

We like living the ‘slow life’ – where we still have free time every day – to walk, read, game, chat, hang out, practice archery and yoga… basically, to embrace and enjoy life. A little bit of extra money from some extra sales at a discount would be the antithesis of this for us.

Our aim has always been to make *just enough* sales to support our simple lifestyle and allow us the time to do good work for each and every customer. We don’t want to hire staff or expand. We like making each and every piece of jewellery ourselves. It’s a balancing act that all micro-biz owners have to do – and everyone has different dreams of what they want their business to be.

This is ours, and it’s now a reality. And through doing quality work, we hope we can keep it that way – for us and for you 🙂