Next step...

So, what's the next step? Here, I have three hanks of spun yarn - the first straight alpaca, and the other two alpaca and silk mixed.


( Image-heavy wonderings about what's next )

Selling methods

I've just seen two very different approaches to customer interaction and service. How would you react?

Example One: Wendyl Nissen's Green Goddess website, and associated online and physical store. I was directed there by a lady at church on Sunday, when I had a laundry question. (Ladies at church are an amazing source of useful information!)

Wendyl's website is full of useful recipes and tips, how to make almost any cleaner you need, and ideas for living more naturally and simply. (These two things do not always happen at the same time. Sometimes you have to plan very carefully in order to live simply.) Her attached online store has the all of the cleaning items which she's given the recipes for, and the harder-to-source ingredients, and books, which contain the same recipes and other handy hints. These are all also available in her physical store.

What I thought when looking at this was "Great Idea". On the one hand, she is offering free information to make your life cheaper and more natural. Then, she offers (for a small fee) the products which you could produce yourself, but thus supplying the lazy ones of us (a-hem - yes, I bought some pre-made stuff). And she sells you books containing the information freely available. (And, yes, I bought some of those as well, because one day the internet might break. And because they are pretty.)

Example Two: Then there's this store which was reported on the news tonight. An Australian shop which is going to charge window-shoppers $5. If you buy something, the $5 is, um, uncharged. The lady is complaining that people come in to browse, get information for free, and then go and buy the stuff cheaper elsewhere. I'm afraid I really think she should follow Example One's (for lack of a better word)example.