by Sara Tams of sarah + abraham
Last year I shared a timeline of how I started and developed sarah + abraham over the past three years, and last month I talked about a few collaborations that I’ve been a part of. In both of those posts I mentioned several new products that I’ve begun offering along the way.
Product development is a lot of work (deciding what options to offer, product photography, creating listings, etc.), but also a lot of fun. Every time I decide to begin offering a new product, I feel really energized and enjoy promoting it. When it’s time to send out my monthly newsletter it’s so much more fun to write when I have a new product to share, especially one that I think my customers are really going to love.
But I also try to keep the products that I offer on my website limited to only the ones that are really good sellers. I want to keep my site clean and not cluttered with items that no one is buying. When someone visits my website I want them to immediately see the best of what I have to offer and not see any products that I don’t feel great about.
Sometimes the products that don’t sell well are items that I wasn’t too sure about to begin with, and it’s easy to let them go. Other times I realize that something that I absolutely love and thought would be a big hit just isn’t selling. It’s much harder to let go of those items, but I’m ruthless about it. When something isn’t selling (like the cute stationery items pictured above) or isn’t working for me (such as icing decals), it has to go.
Over the past couple of years I’ve added 570 items to my website and deleted 380 of them! I’d hate to know how many hours that adds up to for developing products I no longer offer, but until I put something out there, I won’t know how well it will do. For several months I was hesitant to begin offering plates and bowls, but once I did, they quickly became the top selling items in my shop. So I keep that in mind any time I start to question the time I’m spending on new product development, and when I decide to get rid of something, I get rid of it and don’t look back.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on adding new products and getting rid of the duds. Have any of your products surprised you with how well or how poorly they’ve sold?
