I spent a good part of today reorganizing the way I store and manage my finished Alchemy Stones.
In truth, this is actually a delayed organizational effort that follows on the event we attended a couple of weekends ago. After all, I need to get reorganized in time to head out to the Festival in Oregon a couple of weeks from now.
This might not sound like a big deal, but we're actually talking about 300-400 unique items to track.
The thing I realized is that it really makes more sense for me to be organized for shows as opposed to what I have always done before which is be organized to accommodate online sales.
The sad realization that goes behind this reorganization is the fact I don't actually sell anything significant online so why should my organizational system be primarily centered around something that isn't actually happening?
There was a time in the history of Alchemy Stones where I was hopeful that they would generate about $1,000 a month in online sales. Back around 2013 to 2015 online sales were actually heading that way. And then everything cratered.
A bit of a postgame analysis essentially amounts to that being about the same time when the worldwide "Friendship Rocks" phenomenon took off and suddenly everybody and their kid was painting patterns and designs on stones and leaving them around in parks and public places for people to find for absolutely free.
My art form — if you want to call it that — went from being something very unusual and esoteric that you hardly ever saw, to being something that was given away for free on a regular basis.
The interesting effect in it all is that the friendship rocks movement didn't really have all that much of a negative impact on my in person sales because most people were able to pick up on of my rocks and determine in about three seconds that what I do is a world away from what their kid is painting on a rock.
However, in terms of online awareness that difference is far more difficult to discern. What's more, people who are searching for "rock painting" and "painted rocks" these days are not searching for rocks they want to buy, they're searching for tips and instructionals on how to paint rocks.
That said, the Friendship Rocks craze is kind of slowly dying out... much the same way "pet rocks" of the years of yore have also more or less disappeared into the mists of the history books.
But getting back to organizational stuff, my bins are now set up in such a way that they accommodate being able to set up a vendor booth quickly and easily, but it'll take some effort to find the appropriate rock if I actually sell something online. And that tends to be a very big IF around here!
The only drawback — if we want to call it that — is that I have to be absolutely meticulous and on point at all times in terms of removing sold objects from my online stores when we return from shows. I will no longer be able to just look in the bin easily and compare it to my online listings and determine whether anything is missing.
Theoretically, it should only be any issue if we've had some stones shoplifted at an event... which sadly does happen. People do steal everywhere including from struggling artists! I wish they would just stick to shoplifting from Target and Walmart.
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Thank You!
If you enjoy painted rocks, do check out The Hive Rocks Project and help spread the word about Hive, while also being creative!
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