The ultimate 8 steps to creating a collection that sells

Deciding that you want to create and launch a collection of creative products properly, is one of the most crucial decisions to make for your creative business. It will move you from a ‘hobby mindset’ into the ‘creative business mindset’ and it will save you a lot of money, time and energy too!

Want to know in more detail why creating collections is crucial for your creative business? Click here to read why it is so important to create collections.

In this article we will focus on how to create a collection that sells. But first …

What makes a good collection that sells?

• A good collection has around 5 – 15 items and are recognised as being similar, often through a visual theme (e.g. the colour, material, techniques, or function of the items are related). Think about it as ‘belonging to the same family’. For example ceramic mugs, cups & saucers, cake stand and small plates. Products work individually, but also together, and they are often purchased together.
• Your collection has a story to tell; there are similarities but differences. Share with your potential clients why you created this collection, the concept and ideas behind it. Who or what inspired you to create this collection? Sharing that with your clients online, on social media but also with your trade buyers will really make the collection stronger.
• The individual pieces in the collection are aimed at a similar client group, who like your particular style and products. For example, colourful, hard-wearing metal gardening products for children; beautiful handmade ceramic coffee cups and mugs for ethical coffee geeks; functional but beautifully designed notebooks and stationery for old-fashioned paper and graphic pattern lovers in their thirties.
• A good collection often mixes different product types e.g. a hat with scarf and gloves, or a short and a long necklace with three different pairs of earrings.
• Think about the price levels of your collection and individual pieces in advance to make sure that you position them correctly. Pieces in a collection often have similar price levels, although creating a collection can be a great way to include both more affordable, medium-priced and higher-end products in one collection. I often recommend to have different price levels within a collection, ideally 3 price points: from lower to middle and possibly a higher price range. Think for example the same ring in silver, gold and platinum; or offering a notebook as well as a framed screen print and an original piece of artwork. This ‘trick’ will help you to sell more as your prices are affordable for a broader group. And if clients love your work they will often come back for more of the same!

8 steps to create a collection that sells

I share these 8 steps to creating a collection in our diary planners. You can purchase our diary planners (full of practical creative business advice, thought-provoking questions, and useful tips) here.

Step 1: What is working well already?

Before you start creating a new collection it’s a good idea to find out what has worked well in the past for you:

• What are currently your best-selling products or services? Don’t guess, check your accounts and receipts! Are you aware of the so-called Pareto principle or the 20/80 rule? It turns out that very often 80% of your turnover will come from 20% of your products or sales, so which products and services are working hard for you now?
• What are your most profitable products or services? Again, do check your finances and go into some detail here. Do you know the cost price of your products? Have you checked what the income and expenditure are for your key items? Your bestsellers might not be profitable after all …
• Which products do you need to drop? It’s good housekeeping to delete around 25% of your products each year! Many makers are hoarders and keep on creating more and more stock … Is it time for a good clearance sale? Do you want to increase your price points?  The easiest way might be to stop producing some items and introduce new ones.
• Are there gaps in your current collections? Are there products or services missing? Have you got good ideas to add to your existing range? Have your (trade) clients asked for something or given you suggestions? Could you add new colours or new products that would make your current collection more complete?
• What would you really love to design and create? What are your new product ideas? Have you learnt a new creative skill or would you like to use a new production method or material?

If you want to create a collection that sells well in the future than evaluating in detail what’s currently working for you is a great first step.

Step 2: Who do you want to create your next collection for?

To create a collection that sells you will need to become more aware of who your ideal client is. Not just in terms of age and gender, you will need to go deeper than that. Think about creating various collages about your ideal clients, and answer questions such as:

• What’s their job and what hobbies are relevant to your creative products? For example, a yoga-loving mum wants her day-to-day jewellery to be easy-to-wear, but she might be curious about a quote on a pendant or is interested in jewellery inspired by nature and the sea. A female lawyer who wants to show her feminine side at work and in meetings might go for a bigger statement ring in pure gold or a large necklace made from natural stone.
• How would you sum up the style of their house (if you create home and gift accessories) or their wardrobe (if you create jewellery and fashion accessories)? Are they living in a seaside cottage in Cornwall that has a mix of found objects, own artworks and second-hand finds (with a special love for retro pieces from the early 1960’s), or are they a single gay man living in a Hoxton apartment who loves dark and moody colours and fabrics?
• Where would they buy your kind of products or services? Get specific. Which design shops and craft galleries in particular? Which online marketplaces or which craft fairs or trade shows would they visit?
• When and why would they buy? What’s the motivation for them to purchase e.g. because they are looking for a special handmade Valentine’s card or Mothers’ Day gift, or because they are designing a gorgeous nursery for their first born? Is there a specific trigger or time of year when it is more likely that your clients will buy? That’s the time for you to launch!

You might find this blog post with 10 questions to get to know your ideal clients useful too.

CREATIVE EXERCISE: It might be really useful to create 4-5 different client collages as a result of these questions. Really bring them alive! Give your clients a name, a job, hobbies and show their wardrobe and home. What would they say about your kind of products or services? What are their questions or worries about your products?

Step 3: What market research do you need to do?

Doing practical market research isn’t easy! Avoid the common mistake to only listen to what you want to hear, and not what you need to hear … Also, most ‘big’ marketing research reports might not be that useful to you as a small business in a niche market.

But doing a little practical market research can really help you to increase the chances that you create a collection that sells, rather than one that flops.

Firstly think about what you need to know about your ideal clients. What questions do you want from them? And how would you get the answers?

• Do some online research about what competitor products are out there already. If possible visit a shop or tradeshow where similar products are being sold and ask the sellers about the product. Who buys it? What’s the price range? Evaluate what’s already out there and try to identify what would make your product better than what’s already out there.
• Instead of doing a survey or questionnaire try to see if you can observe your clients. Start with actually checking the need for your product or service, and how are they currently using your kind of product? Observing rather than asking questions can get you to the truth quicker as people mostly want to please you – what they say and do is often different!

Step 4: Positioning: standing out from the crowd

Where do your new creative products fit in your market? You might decide on your position from a price point of view (e.g. low end, middle, exclusive), based on style (e.g. contemporary, luxury, detailed) or on other client benefits or values (e.g. ethical, environmental, local).

If you have identified 5 – 10 of your closest competitors who create and launch similar products then it becomes much easier and more specific to identify what makes you and your next collection different. Why should people buy your work? What makes it different and better than what’s out there? The better you can answer this question the easier it will be to get interest and sales later on.

Identifying your positioning clearly will help you with setting the right price point for your new products (and making your business more profitable potentially!), and will also help you to create a memorable and confident brand.

Let’s be honest: You don’t want to create a collection that only sells … you want a collection that shows what you are about and that makes you money too!

Step 5: Sketch your product ideas

I often push people to spend at least a whole day creating sketches with product ideas for their next collection. This is the time to really stretch yourself and get loads of your product ideas quickly on the table! This is the time to come up with at least 50 product ideas and variations for your collection. Really push yourself and get out of your comfort zone. This is the time to be really creative.

Creatives are known for always having lots of ideas. This is the time to really get going and dig deep – use your own knowledge and experience, and the practical research you have done already to come up with innovative ideas, relevant product ideas, and a story that connects your products into a collection. Allow yourself to get into the ‘flow’ to come up with loads of ideas – some will be rubbish, some might be brilliant! The point is to get the ideas flowing.  

Keep your ideal client in mind at all times during this stage. If you have created some ideal client collages then you can visualise the various clients much more, how they might use or wear your product, or how they would buy it and when.

In fact, I often suggest that creatives don’t just focus on developing one product collection but sketch out three completely different ranges. Again, this is to push yourself and to avoid the trap of focusing too much on just one idea.

At this stage don’t criticise yourself or worry about costs, production or whatever (we come to these considerations in a minute!). Allow yourself to be creative and get loads of related product ideas, colours, and materials on paper. I would suggest that each product idea would go on one page so you end up with loads and loads of sketches at the end. Don’t be too precious or detailed, just get the ideas out of your head at this stage.

Step 6: Research your costs and production issues

Only after you have finished step 5 should you move on to these practical considerations. Indeed Walt Disney’s very successful creative strategy was based on three phases of designing: The Dreamer, The Realist, and The Critic. So far your focus has mostly been on being creative, and now it’s time for a reality check.

Start to select some of your favourite products in the various collections you have drawn. You might already start discarding some of your product ideas – just put those pages aside for now. Then for say around 20 products per collection, you start to research:

• What would be the total cost to create this product? Think about the cost to produce a prototype, how long it will take you, the materials needed, and if you need new equipment. You might even be able to identify the cost price of your new product ideas. What would the cost price be if you created and sold 5, 50 or 500? Creating an Excel sheet will make your calculations and the comparisons between individual products easier to digest.
• What price would you be able to get for your individual products? Don’t just base your price on the cost, but think about what the perceived value is for your potential clients. How much profit would you expect on each of these products? Would you be able to sell them wholesale or direct only? What would the wholesale or trade price be for your new product ideas?
• Think about the production of each of these new products. Would you need to get new skills or equipment? A larger studio space? Would you need to outsource? What would this do to the cost and the price of your products? Again don’t just make a judgement based on the cost and the price, it might be that some of your new product ideas get you really excited or they might attract the attention of a different client group or enable you to position yourself differently than before. All these different aspects need to be taken into account.

At the end of this stage, you should end up with only two collections with around 20 products per collection. Maybe you got some new product ideas or did you tweak your ideas based on this quick financial and production evaluation?  Don’t spend too long on this evaluation as you are wasting your time if you go into too much detail, but do make sure that you have some realistic ballpark figures!

Be a realist at this stage and consider if your numbers are right and if your ideal clients would be prepared to spend this amount. Some items might be too expensive to launch (for now), or can you adapt them to make them cheaper? Or what can you do in terms of branding and positioning or building your profile to make them worth more? This can be a very creative process.

It’s tough to make these decisions, I know, and you might want to skip this ‘boring’ stage.

But checking your numbers NOW will avoid you wasting your time, money and energy in trying to create products that nobody will buy.

We don’t want you to end up with more unsold stock, we want you to create and launch a collection that sells!

Step 7: Get real-life client feedback

Potential clients love it when you get them involved with the creative process and ask for their opinions. Be careful who you ask … your mum or best friend is not your ideal client! And again be careful that you don’t just listen for what you want to hear, rather than useful genuine feedback. And lastly, it’s only an opinion of one person if there is something critical they say, don’t take it too personally! Most of us have the problem that if we get one negative comment we focus on that much more than the 20 nice compliments we also got!

I wouldn’t share your product ideas on social media or online at this stage. Instead be very focused who you share your ideas with – very similar to what you did in step 3. In fact, you might want to return to the people you asked then for some feedback.

If you have a good relationship with your stockists then it might be useful to ask them for some feedback too. Ask them confidently and be specific with your request. Ask fewer questions but observe more … what’s their response when they see your work or hold it in their hands?

Step 8: Select your favourite products

Now it’s finally your turn to select the products that you will launch. Give your collection(s) a name and put all the pieces of paper with the sketches on the floor or on the wall to do a really good review. Look at the sketches and ask yourself these questions:

• Are YOU excited about this collection? (Probably the most important question!)
• Are these indeed the best products that work together as a collection? Are they similar but different enough?
• Are there any gaps in terms of functionality, price point, to make the story complete?
• Do you need to tweak or change colours, materials, size? Do your price points need to increase or decrease?
• Do your products display individually and as a group? Does the collection encourage collecting and repeat orders?
• Do your numbers stack up? If not, then do you need to delete some unprofitable items, do you need to increase their worth or change their price point? Do you need to sell directly to consumers first, before selling to retailers? Do you need to work on your profile, photography or branding to be able to increase your prices?

And … that’s it! Our ultimate 8 steps to create a collection that sells! If you found this epic blog post useful then do let others know who might be interested too. If you have got any questions or feedback then let us know in the comments box below.

Are you ready for the next step? How to launch your new product collection – our 3rd article in this mini-blog series around creating and launching a product collection successfully.