This was a conversation started on the very enjoyable Wheel Talk Podcast (episode 143) and something I took to my stories on Instagram to get a wider sample of thoughts.

Initially my question was to other makers and just asked if they sent anything out as a gift and, if so, what it was. The majority of replies said they did, with a wide range of gift items.

The most popular was small ceramic items (like fridge magnets, key chain ornaments, jewellery, etc) followed by consumable food items (like chocolate, tea, etc) and things like soap or candles where appropriate.

A lot of people included business cards, stickers, and/or personalised thank you notes.

Some of the replies said that they never gave gifts.

Where I thought it got really interesting was the discussion that formed around whether a gift was actually a negative thing and detracted from the overall customer experience. This wasn’t a view I’d considered in any real depth before, but it does have some very valid points.

Including Gifts - Pros and Cons

Cons

I’ll start with the downsides and potential pitfalls when including a gift (and in this context, I’m looking at anything included in the box that wasn’t explicitly on the listing) with a handmade order:

Cost - This is a fairly obvious one. The gift has a material cost, and somebody has to pay for it. Either the seller makes less money or the customer is paying for it as part of the cost of the main piece
Disposal - If a gift is unwanted, the customer has to dispose of it. It’s a requirement even with simple things like recycling unlaminated paper, but the task becomes far more onerous when it’s something that can’t be dealt with so easily.
Environmental - Following on from that point, there is an environmental cost to be paid for the production and shipping of everything. This will be felt more keenly by the customer if they don’t want the gift and have to dispose of it, but it’s true regardless.
Perceived value - This is an interesting one. This one didn’t resonate with me so I might not do their argument justice, but some people felt that having a gift with an order lowered the enjoyment or value of the thing they had paid for. One reason was the choice of artwork was very specific and to have another artwork (in the case of fine art prints) with a different aesthetic didn’t respect the considered selection process. In some cases it seemed to be that they felt there shouldn’t be any excess time in the maker’s day (and if there was, it meant the piece was overpriced). In some cases it was just the negatives of the three previous points impacting the enjoyment of unpacking the parcel.

Pros

Connection - What separates purchasing from an individual maker rather than a big store is the direct connection between the maker and the buyer. As a maker, the only way I can keep doing this full time is if people keep seeing the additional value in my work over an IKEA mug, and I appreciate it every time somebody does. Including something extra in the box is one way to demonstrate that.
Cost - There is a big difference between cost and value, and a gift can be a great way to make use of this. For example, the material cost of a small tumbler might be around £0.30 (clay, glaze, firing) but the value to the customer (how much they’d pay if they bought it) could easily be 30x greater. It costs a lot less than the value it delivers.
Promotion - This isn’t so true of ceramics, but if you have multiple consumable products (e.g. you sell dozens of flavours of tea/chocolate/etc) then adding a small sample of a different flavour can be a great way to give something that will also introduce a customer to something they might buy in the future.
Experience - For some people, unpacking an order is an enjoyable ritual and adds significantly to the experience of purchasing a handmade piece. Adding something to the package that makes the process more involved can make the whole process more special.

Options

I’ve mentioned in passing a few different ideas/categories, but here they are with my thoughts on each option:

Stationery - Business cards/Stickers/Postcards - In my opinion these are the lowest value option, although they can serve very useful purposes. I use small unlaminated cards to say thanks and give instructions on how to dispose of my biodegradable packing peanuts, but I have to pay someone else to print the cards and I know they go immediately into the recycling bin. If it wasn’t for the information they contain, they might well cost me more money than the value they provide to the customer.

Samples - Not a category that applies so much to pottery, but a sample of a consumable product is a great option. Nuditea have individual tea bags as free sample gifts, allowing customers to try other flavours. It’s a great gift and a great marketing strategy, especially as it makes use of the cost/value difference (the cost of a teabag to them will be lower than the effective cost if a customer was to purchase it, so they benefit from lower cost than perceived value). I’ve teamed up with them to start including the samples of my two favourite blends (After Eight Thirty and Gingerbread Chai) with my mug orders. If you’re stuck for ideas for a gift but know a local company who produce something consumable of a similar quality to your work, partnering up like this might be a good option.

Food - Separate to promotional samples but in the same vein, some people choose to purchase and include chocolate/sweets with orders. I can see the appeal in this, but I think there’s a challenge in finding a single type of food that will travel well, won’t be an issue for people with allergies, is of appropriate quality for your work (as in, the people buying a £50 mug might not be the same people buying Haribo), and will have a broad appeal. If you can think of something that works for you, then this can be an inoffensive gift option. It still has the issue of cost/value, where you might be paying significantly more for it than the recipient assigns value.

Ceramics - (I say ceramics because it’s applicable to me, but if you’re a maker in another medium then it would be the equivalent gift in your medium).

This is the route I have personally chosen to go down, for a few different reasons. I can make small tumblers quickly and with minimal materials. I can use them for glaze experiments, essentially as a step between test tiles and full pieces. They’re in keeping with the main piece, so there’s less chance of it being totally unwanted. They fit inside mugs, so the only effect they have on shipping is the weight increase. They can fill gaps in the kiln around larger pieces, so often don’t have any impact on packing efficiency. Essentially, they don’t cost me much at all (time or money) and will hopefully be valued much higher than the cost by the buyer. There’s a less common benefit, which is that if the purchase is to be given to someone else as a present, the small ceramic gift can be kept by the buyer.

I would suggest considering something like small flat disks of clay that can be glazed and have magnets stuck to the back as fridge magnets, or made as hanging ornaments. These are incredibly quick to make, take up almost no space in the kiln, and can be glazed to match the piece you’re sending. A larger gift could be something like a small bowl or tumbler. If you make it the same form as the larger piece then it will nest inside for shipping. I personally feel it works better when they’re items that aren’t for sale. It makes them more exclusive and harder to assign a specific financial value.

A Handwritten Note - Part of the reason that people pay more for handmade items is the connection they feel to the maker, and this is even more of a factor if you’re very present in your social media content. Someone might not be buying a mug purely on the merit of the mug itself, but because they’re invested emotionally in the process and the person making it. A personalised, handwritten note is a great way to make them feel seen and valued (which they are!) especially if it’s someone who buys from you repeatedly. In some cases this probably has the lowest cost and highest value, but it will vary depending on the business and customer.

Paying For It

One point that came up a few times (from buyers rather than sellers) was the feeling that they were essentially paying for something they didn’t want. On one level that’s true, there a cost to any additional material and that has to get factored into the price at some point. I intentionally avoid charities who spend a lot of money advertising, as I feel like that’s where my money is going instead of going to something productive, and this feels like an extension of that logic.

On the other side, there’s the cost/value calculation. When selling a mug for £50, a small portion of the calculation for the price is down to material costs and making time. The overall price is a much wider range of factors and the day-to-day of running a pottery business probably has an equal amount of time on non-making tasks as making (emails, social media, packing orders, prepping materials, etc). This means that your workload and costs would nowhere near double if you sent out a free £50 mug with every order of a £50 mug.

On the customer side, if you decide the enjoyment you will get from a £50 mug is greater than the effort required to earn it (or the loss of ability to spend the £50 on other things), then the purchase is a good use of the money. Whether the free gift makes that purchase better or worse depends on whether you want the free gift (you now have more enjoyment for the same price) or whether you don’t (you now have the burden of disposing of it, and possibly feel that the work itself is of lower value as it was only a portion of the contents). It doesn’t change anything about the piece itself, or the price paid, but can change the feeling of the value of the piece.

Someone suggested that you should be able to opt out of the free gift and get a lower price on the order. In principle, this makes some sense given that there is a cost to including it, and makes even more sense as the gift cost and value converge. For example, the gift tumblers I send out have a material cost of £0.30 but I would charge at least £10 if I was selling them separately (due to the admin in taking and shipping an order, as well as additional costs (transaction fees, packaging, shipping, etc)). This means if you opted out of receiving a gift with a value of £10+ you would get £0.30 off your order. However, if I had purchased it for £10 from another maker and was factoring it into the price, then leaving the gift out should make the cost significantly cheaper.

Should you include a gift?

The answer is a lot less clear cut than I would have said before reading everyone’s opinions.

A good gift is one that improves the customer experience and strengthens the connection they feel to the maker/piece. Ideally it would be one that costs very little but has a high value to the recipient.

A bad gift is one that is unwanted, hard to dispose of, with a high environmental impact and perceived cost. It becomes a burden and lowers the overall satisfaction of the purchase.

One recurring theme throughout is that nobody (makers or customers) wanted gifts to feel like an obligation or for it to become the default. There should be no pressure to add them, and adding them should be done thoughtfully. Not having a gift is better than including a bad gift!

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