If I make it will they buy it

I have put together a fairly respectable shop and now after years of collecting tools i want to do somthing with them besides make more of them with them. I dont want to do one off type stuff that is a pain I already do that for a living I want to make lots of one thing over and over again and sell them just the way I make them. I want to make high end copper cookware. I have no idea if this is a viable pursuit the stuff sells for about 200 bucks for a frying pan and I can make one for about a hundred. Chefs and gourmet cooks love this stuff just like you and I love our tools and they are willing to spend the money for it. I would obviously want to sell mine for more than two hundred. I have experience in making and selling luxury goods but they have always been one of a kind and that makes it impossible to grow your business when the customer is buying you not just your product. Just so you guys dont think I am a complete idiot and pulled this idea out of my you no what I have made custom sterling silver tea sets and holloware and use my machine tools to make dies and stakes for forming metal.

I am interested in hearing from people that do produce a product and sell it, and if they sell it wholesale or if they market it directly to the customer. So many of the basic necesities of life are mass produced and sold for so little that I am apprehensive about even trying it.

If you can come up with a good marketing campaign, it'll take off. If you can't, then it won't, regardless of how good your stuff is.

You know and love metalworking so you're off to a good start. Since you're getting into high end cookware, you should probably also know and love cooking.

You've got at least four hurdles to overcome. First, no brand name or reputation in the culinary world. Second, no distribution. Third, you'll only be making a few models, not an entire line of kitchen stuff, so it will be harder to get either distribution or a recurring customer base. Fourth, you'll have to price your $100-cost item well above the going rate of $200 to compete, especially if you don't sell direct.

I'd suggest talking to cooks who buy high end copper pans and see if you can find a special appeal or niche. Maybe you can match the pans to their exact cooktop size? Maybe you can guarantee the pans are dead flat, and then offer some sort of affordable refinishing to keep them that way even if they are overheated? Maybe there's some ease of use feature? I don't know enough about cooking to suggest what special design or features you should incorporate, only that you need to be best in at least one significant respect.

For higher volume products, one of the rules of thumb is that the manufacturing cost needs to be about 20% of the final retail price to account for manufacturer, wholesaler & retailer profits along the way. Depending on the route to market you go with, you may be able to cut back on that a bit.

As you say, you may be able to bump up the price a fair bit above the $200 mark. There's always a market for the best of anything in any field, where people buy on emotion rather than raw value for money.

Steve

My 2 cents is to not use any "middle men". With the way the internet can be used by a lot of the buying public, including ebay, I don't see the need for some person/people that do nothing but hold some stock for you and answer a phone (i.e., sales and marketing/distribution).

Not all products have to have a huge warehousing and dist. network, particulary if you can do this yourself, or locally from a small facility.

How many of these items can you make in one day? How many can you sell in one day? Can you envisage selling all of the items you make, in the time it takes to make them?

There is a lot to be said for low volume/low overhead/high margin production. Examples: companies that build/sell homebuilt aircraft components, homebuilt cars (for complex items), or companies that make actions for rifles (i.e., RPA [brand name], Stolle etc).

They probably dont sell 1000 units per day, so therefore, dont need to make 1000 units per day, if you get my angle. Still, that is the market they are serving, low volume, high margin stuff.

This is directly opposite, to say, Toyota MoCo. If they sell 1,000,000 cars per year, that is 2739.72 cars per day sold, but....imagine making 2739 engines per day, or gearboxes....that is a lot of engineering and machinery making chips!!!!

Im curious how you bond the inner stainless surface to the outer copper surface when you make one of these?

I'm not sure what you mean by high-end cookware. Are you talking about competing with Mauvier or All-Clad?, etc Making stainless-clad copper pans, or tinned?

The market in high-end cookware is already pretty big, and has expanded a lot in the last decade. Competing with companies likes All-Clad and Mauvier seems like it'd be very hard for a small shop. These products have worldwide markets and are manufactured in large quantities.

That said, I think there's a niche for what I might call "super high-end". Cookware that combines ultimate functionality with unique style. There's a sizable market of well-to-do people (esp retiring baby boomers) who plow hundreds of thousands of dollars into kitchens, with $15,000 refrigerators, imported italian stone pizza ovens, etc. These people like several qualities: professional-class functionality, exclusivity, high-tech, and old-world style.

I could envision cookware that combines these features. As a simple example, something like a mauvier pan with an improved handle, perhaps hand-forged or something unique and high-tech, but marketed as superior, unique, and stylish. For example, I have a 10" mauvier saute pan (it costs almost $400) and it has a nice old-world looking heavy cast iron handle. They have been made this way for 200 years, but the truth is the handles suck. They taper toward the end that end you hold, and are too skinny to get a good grip on, they are slick, and they get hot. I'd like to see a handle with some old-world look (that is, would look good hanging above the 400 year-old stone hearth in my Tuscan villa) but which had a good grip, and maybe had some little sandwich of 21st century "aerospace" non-heat-conductive material.

I think you could find a direct market for this sort of stuff with high-end outlets like Sur La Table and probably the bigger places like Williams Sonoma once established.

I suspect that he'd use a traditional tinned interior.

I have a nice set of "made in France" copper/stainless pots. Great investment. They were pricy to buy, but they've proven quite durable, even aginst the occasional bout of forgetfulness.

I wonder if the copper/stainless material is available pre-bonded?

I know some people that are in low-volume production in the motorcycle industry. Their best sales tool is to secure a review in a magazine. This means that a press release is sent, then a month later, the product is sent for review.

Since cooking has "rock star" chefs & TV personality chefs, perhaps your design phase can involve a known chef to incorporate innovative features. Perhaps something in materials -- ceramic handles, maybe?

Also, endorsements can play a part. I'd expect that to be a paid relationship, however.

I agree with Racer Al about the magazine review. And I will add that I'd make some pans and give them to chefs at hotels and resorts in your area. I'm no longer in business but when I was I sold both direct and wholesale.

As others have said, at the top of the market the search for exclusivity and a viable claim that the product is not just world class, but superior to all others in some function and style is never ending; and "they" will pay for it. It has to be wide enough circulation that owners are part of an "exclusive" group, not solitary iconoclasts, though the frisson of that notion is part of the appeal.

Get it placed in a movie, mentioned by a starlet, or used by some famous chef, etc. and it will be very successful.

The person who will make the fortune will be the one who then knocks it off for mass production of a crude simulacrum in India and sells it on late night TV for $49.95 in three easy credit card installments.

smt

a general comment from someone who has been both a mass producer, ie lower margin, higher volumn, and a specialty producer, ie lower volumn, higher margins. You can have 100% margins and still loose money if you don't have the volumn to pay the overhead etc. Making alot on one thing adds up to not much when you are running a business. if you are making stuff as a week end business then it is hard to go wrong but if you are making a living things are different. The little guy needs a ballance between volumn and margin. Also, what seems like alot of margin to the guy starting out oftens looks like a looser once you see the costs it has to cover. That is why company founders are so cranky, "hey kid, those pencils don't grow on trees you know!"

Thanks for all the response it is real helpful. I am going to make traditional tin lined pots since I have no clue how to bond stainless to them. My overhead is so low and all of my machines are paid for and I already work out of my house and have been doing it for nineteen years and making a living at it, it isnt like I am quitting my job and starting a business from scratch more like adding a product to what I already do. I am glade to hear that some of you are crazy enough to buy 400 dollar pots and pans. I love the idea of the improved handles and I will definitly talk to some chefs. thanks again.

Some solid stratagies for a little guy include:

Special product for a single customer. What item can IBM use in every office? what problem do they need solved? Advantage, no marketing and you will get paid.

Add on, what very successful product needs a add on to make it work better? for instance a cup holder for Mini-Coopers. You can sell thru the OEM or figure out who their dealers are [ask them]. Warning , small retailers will screw you for a flicking nickel, sell on credit cards only to these guys.

Association Marketing. Selling thru a organization. For instance, We used to sell into the Direct Sellers Association, big volumn users who liked to buy from fellow members, apparently we were easier to not pay. What does every Mason need? Every Pilot member of EAA, Every Realator, Every Judge. Believe it or not, 30 years ago my Father's company made special bags for Nights of Columbus hats! Association marketing is probably the most effective method for the small seller. THink about it!

I made and sold products for 15 years or so, not cookware, but to similar high end niche markets.

If you can make a pan for $100, well, then its no cheaper than the pans that sell for $200. In fact, you already may be more expensive. Unlike Walmart, which operates on tiny margins, most small "boutique" type stores, like cooking supply stores, double the cost they pay, then add in shipping, at the very least. So they are likely paying $75 for a pan they sell for $200. I dont know about Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table, but the places like Crate and Barrell or Hammacher Schlemmer, which I did sell to, usually did better than doubling my stuff. As did the higher end department stores- I sold to both Needless Markup (Neiman Marcus) and Nordstrom at various times, and they always got at LEAST 125% markup.

So dont expect that you are going to undercut any prices, unless you only sell direct to the consumer. But, if you do, then all those marketing costs are your expense, and then you deserve that extra 100% markup as well.

I would not shoot for professional chefs- in my experience, they own their knives, and thats all. Everything else belongs to the restaurant, often even the fancy chef outfits, the pants with the chili peppers on em. And even if the chef is the owner of the restaurant, once it gets to business, they buy lots of cheap stuff, not high end copper. I have been backstage in some very fancy restaurants, and they have 3 dozen cheap restaurant supply pans stacked up, not 1 great copper pan. Sure, there may be the occasional super gourmet place with more expensive cookware, but then they want the name brand stuff.

No, you want the hobby chef. And to get to em, my guess is you want to sell to the network of privately owned, gourmet cookware shops across the USA. If you can break in there, you can then attract the attention of the bigger dogs.

I am betting there is a trade show. A wholesale only show, in NYC, or maybe Chicago or Vegas, once a year. Go to it. Fake a company name, pay the admission to be a buyer, and lurk for a couple of days. Check out the competition. Ask for price lists. Is shipping included? What about packing fees? Minimum orders? Do they have regional exclusivity? Back orders on popular items?
These are all questions you can legitimately ask exhibitors, and they will tell you a lot about the quirks of that particular market.

Me, I would rather manufacture, and pay somebody else their cut to sell. Selling is hard work, and its a skill set in itself, one I know I dont have. And retail presence costs a lot.

Now maybe, just maybe, ebay changes everything, but in this market, I doubt it. I have found ebay to be inhabited by bottom feeders, and by mass market products. You want to establish a rep as high quality, hand made, unique designs, and hopefully great functionality. Ebay wants cheap.

I think you would be much better off going wholesale to stores that really know how to sell this stuff, that are already selling $50 salad dressing jars and $125 knives.

You might also consider a rep. I used to have a rep in New York, who would do the trade shows at Javits, the big convention center there. He repped a half dozen lines, and so he spent the $10,000 minimum a booth there cost, and I just paid him a percentage of sales- this was years ago, and he liked me, so it was only 10%, but my guess is realistically its more like 15% or more these days. Another thing to figure in your pricing. But he got me all the big name accounts I mentioned above, and he knew everybody, who was a deadbeat not worth selling to, who was worth bending the rules and sending a few pieces to, and so on. He was worth every penny I paid him.

If you concentrate on quality, and your stuff is unique, there is always a market, usually not huge volume, but at decent prices. I know guys who make the most bizarre things, and make a living at it- but it takes sussing out the market.

I don't want to discourage, but I think the market in tin-lined pans is pretty much dead. I know a lot of people in the restaurant business, and I know no one who uses tin-lined pans anymore. The high-end kitchen places don't even sell them anymore.

Tin-lined pans require skill to use. You set your $400 pan on your 30,000 btu Wolf range burner and the phone rings... two minutes later the pan has balls of molten tin jiggling in it.

The class of customer we're talking about wants to pretend to be Wolfgang Puck, but doesn't want to actually work at it. These people buy $500 electric knife sharpeners, not $20 stones. They use food processors, they don't learn to handle a knife.

And amongst those who do know how to handle tin pans, only the real purists still use tin. It has some slightly better characteristics for browning, but the convenience and durability of stainless outweighs it for all but a few.

Of course there is still a niche, but I think the market for super high-end tin pans is probably a small fraction of the potential for stainless clad pans.

And as for celebrity chef endorsements, don't get your hopes up real soon unless you have a friend. Just pick up any foodie magazine and you'll see all the celebrity chefs have their own special-branded versions of All-Clad, Cuisinart, etc. These chefs are getting six-figure endorsements. You can't compete with this.

Small company, small market, look for a niche! Figure out the product you want to make, something NOBODY else makes, or even WANTS to make because the market isn't huge. Then put your heart and soul into making the product the best it can be. Then hope it sells.

Find the niche.

I've become, effectively, the leading supplier of high performance modifications to skateboard trucks for slalom skateboard racers.

Slalom skateboard racing pretty much died off in the early 80's when the huge skateboard boom of the late 70's imploded. In 2001, a few adult skaters started to hold races, new equipment began to trickle in, and a new slalom racing scene was born. At present there are numerous high-tech wheels, decks, trucks, and tuning options, but in '01 there were conventional Tracker and Indy trucks and these adult skaters with disposible income were looking for an edge.

I began making precision 8mm axles and facing the truck hangers accurately, incorporating a raised bearing seat. Since then I've done hundreds of these. I had axles made by a shop that does specialty fasteners; centerless ground 8640 with rolled threads, heat treat, black oxide finish.

I had enough work that I eventually got rid of my webpage, and now Ive become this mythical figure that people track down to have their trucks hotrodded. It's paid for many tools, and the vintage skateboard stuff I've taken in trade has been sold off for many times the value of the work I provided in exchange.

It's a TINY niche, maybe 500 people involved at any time worldwide, but they all know my name (or nickname) and a version of that nickname has become a verb which means "to have your trucks tricked out in a righteous manner by..."

This longwinded story was to illustrate that in a world where no one knows where to have anything made, offering to make something the way you want can be a powerful enticement to someone who has a pastime about which they're passionate.

Someone may not be inclined to buy bespoke suits or shotguns, but a $500 copper saute' pan with a really attractive machined stainless (titanium?) handle done to their specs may be just the thing.

>"I love the idea of the improved handles and I will definitly talk to some chefs. thanks again."<

Take a drive and show one of your pans to Gordon Ramsey of Hell's Kitchen. If he likes it, great. If he doesn't, he's liable to break it over your head, so be sure to wear a crash helmet!

Rachael Ray........
She's your gal.
Send her 1/2 dozen and ask her to mention it on her show if she likes them.....