Starting our online business
It has been 4 weeks that the website is online, and Dirk has spend quite some time editing and tweaking the appearance. The shop got more and more items, and we had our first online sale. We have been promoting the shop and website on facebook and instagram. Thanksgiving is coming up, and there is an initiative to create an art sale event on the Sunday after Thanksgiving: #ArtistsSunday. We are participating in that. Hopefully that will generate some business. Since the local farmers markets are not really an option to sell our wares, we rely almost exclusively on online sales these days. The Kohala Co-op has a few sales, but the last few times that we manned the shop there, we had no customers all day. In December the Co-op will have a Christmas market where we plan to sell gift sets. We still have to make them; our plan is to include Ho’ola Honey and Tiana’s products in wooden boxes with mugs and other pottery items.
The Makeke Market on Oahu which sells Hawaiian goods online invited Kailin (Ho’ola Honey) to sell her delicious honey. She is including our honeycomb mugs there as well. Her own online business is also going very well, and she keeps buying more and more of the honey comb mugs from us!
Tourists are back with the recent new travel regulations that allow you to skip quarantine if you test negative for COVID. We can see that in our macnut sales at the honor stand. There were hardly any sales in October, but now we are putting the macnuts out every day and sell 2-4 bags most days. Hopefully those customers will see the pottery stand and get interested in buying something there as well.
Jill has started a collaboration with Tiana (Waking Willow Workshop). Tiana makes salves and deodorant as well as other product with natural ingredients, and will now also sell the deodorant and ouchy salve in ceramic containers made by Jill!
In other news: the chicks have grown up to be almost the size of the hens. They are now living with the hens in the coop rather than having their own sleeping quarters. It took a few days to get them to accept that, and they are still a bit reluctant to spend the nights with the hens. The hens occasionally pick at them, and they are clearly afraid of the bigger chicken. During the day all the chicks still hang out together in a flock, but have the run of the yard most of the time. The wild roosters in the area are a concern, but it seems that the chicks are aware of the mongoose and can avoid them.