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Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




North Carolina

I'm assuming this is where this thread belongs. If not, Mods, work your magic.

I have questions... So I make and sell pre painted terrain on a few sites. (Ebay, Etsy, and the Swap Shop here) This stuff is lightweight cast resin. I don't paint it to a Golden Demon standard or anything, but I think I do a pretty solid job (pics at the bottom for reference). I've managed to sell quite a few pieces but I'm not really selling the volume I want to. I don't expect to quit my day job and sell terrain full time or anything, but I think I can do better than I am. I sell these pieces for around $40 a piece + shipping. I don't think that's unreasonable considering the materials and labor involved. I have around $15 in material for each piece and about 1.5 hours. It sucks that shipping the resin mountain across the country cost me around $20 but that's legitimately the cheapest shipping there is. I sell on Ebay, Etsy, and Dakka because they're relatively cheap and give me some exposure.

So here are my questions..Is there a better place to sell pre painted terrain than Ebay? Does my stuff seem too expensive? Is it so cheap that people think it's a scam? Is it just not the terrain that people are looking for? Is it just not really worth the money? Any advice you may have will be greatly appreciated! I take criticism pretty well. I've got tough skin.You can lay it on me, haha. Anyways, thanks for reading!

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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/10 01:06:07


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Hey man, I've contacted you before about your product, and I figure this is a good place to make my thoughts public. First off, I think your terrain looks amazing in the photos. Like, it seems good enough to be in any White Dwarf battle write-up, in my opinion. I can't speak to the functional quality or durability, but I assume that it's like anything else in this hobby: relatively fragile but able to easily withstand normal and careful use.

Price-wise, I don't see how you could go much lower and have this endeavor be worth your while. Sounds like you're already pricing yourself at about $15/hr, which is extremely reasonable for the consumer, in my mind. I mean, it's expensive overall, which is the reason I don't own a closet full of your stuff. Including shipping, it sounds like a table full of your terrain would cost somewhere in the $600-800 range. Again, I find that a reasonable price for a premium gaming table set-up, but I just don't have that cash on me at the moment. There are plenty of people who would love to get in on a few pieces here and there, though, I'm sure. I just tend to go whole-hog on projects like that, so I'm more likely to buy all at once.

Regarding marketing, you're hitting some good sites, but you're missing out on a key opportunity: Reddit. The Miniswap Redditors will eat this stuff up. There's a lot of cross-traffic between there and here, but they tend to be quite a lot busier than the dakka swap shop, generally speaking. I haven't seen your eBay listings, but it's all about keywords there. Make sure you have the most popular mini games (40k, AoS, etc.) in your title so your stuff pops up when someone searches "Warhammer terrain" or whatever.

Regarding shipping, there's got to be a way to cut costs. I've shipped some fairly big, bulky packages for well under $20. The USPS has fairly reasonable rates if you use their economy services. Even priority mail can be useful. You might look into shipping these via media mail, as well, but I'm not sure that will fly. It'd cost you next to nothing if you could get that to work, though.

Hope that's useful food for thought!
   
Made in us
Daemonic Dreadnought





Eye of Terror

Personally, when I think about terrain, I am not thinking about the outdoors so much as ruined city scapes, temples, alien vistas, etc. So I might not be your target audience.

YouTube videos of making terrain are always a hit with me. I see how much work is involved and go back to painting miniatures. I could see how people could be searching for popular topics, realize what they want is available at a reasonable price, and go after it.

The other thing people have to have to use terrain is a table. Not everyone has a basement or a spare room to set up a 4 x 6 permanently. If the terrain was available with a folding table that could be easily stored but is fairly rugged (won't wobble when someone knocks into it), that might motivate me to want to buy a set.

But the other thing you might want to think about is battlemats. Terrain that agrees with the battlemat itself is more desireable to me and other players, I personally can't stand seeing a ruined building on top of a white sheet. Battlemats are printed on materials that can be easily obtained from foreign manufacturers at a low price, you may want to look at those and think about how to make this part of your inventory.

All that said, it's not the terrain, it's how it all comes together that's important.

   
Made in us
Powerful Phoenix Lord





You're not based out of Raleigh are you?
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






HATE Club, East London

Have you considered selling at conventions? I know that when I go to Salute I am more likely to drop money on something I can see and hold and KNOW the quality than something in photos. Once people have one or two of your items, they may buy more.

Also, do you have a blog? Having a "story" that can be followed might garner you a following.

Finally, how about bulk discounts for gaming clubs? You could probably get a better deal on the shipping that way.

Oh, one more idea, how about limited-run Kickstarters? You don't want to get TOO MUCH business and be unable to deliver, but can you just allow X number of customers, and then work on fulfilling the Kickstarter orders?

Though guards may sleep and ships may lay at anchor, our foes know full well that big guns never tire.

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Made in us
Major




In a van down by the river

Another aspect is how well does the terrain fit in with what a club/store is doing; while it's not unusual to see mis-matched terrain and tables at stores it can be a strong selling point to look nice and blend in. While you've got reasonably generic pieces going, it might be worth figuring out reasonably-simple shifts you could do to offer more options. For example would it be overly difficult to make a red-dust scheme and more glowy water effect for those who want to fight on a forge world or post-apocalyptic wasteland? A lighter sand color for those who might want an oasis, etc.

I honestly don't know if that'd be very cumbersome to the production or if there'd be incredible demand, but it seems on the surface a way to appeal to a broader market without massive re-invention. The idea of bulk discounts or at least "table sets" of terrain might be good too; clubs might be willing to buy a table's worth of matching terrain if you have enough variety in the pack.
   
Made in gb
Smokin' Skorcha Driver






Fifty has it with conventions, I think you'd make more money from people who can see the quality of what you've done.

Wargamers however are cheap. Its just a fact. So don't expect your volume of sales to increase unless there is a price drop, sad but true. I make most of my own terrain and people are always telling me I could sell it. Sure, if I charged something like £100 a piece, as that's the only way it would be worth my while, and no wargamer will ever pay that.

Have you thought of the option of selling unpainted terrain pieces at a lower price? Even just undercoated grey?

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Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




North Carolina

Awesome Ideas and pretty much all valid points! I appreciate all the responses. They've legitimately been helpful! I'm thinking of doing a Kickstarter, but I'm still in the planning phase! I'll certainly check out Reddit and maybe even the convention circuit If nothing else, selling terrain at a convention would be a way mitigate the cost of finally going to a convention haha. I've also recently started different paint schemes for the casting I've got. As stated, variety will help a lot.





 Elbows wrote:
You're not based out of Raleigh are you?
Nah. I'm a couple hours away in Wilmington.
   
Made in us
Infiltrating Broodlord





United States

For the majority of wargamers, your terrain, due to shipping, is too expensive.

You're audience might be better suited for gaming clubs, conventions, large warhammer shops, etc... Since covering a single table with your terrain costs as much as a small army.

Try various facebook groups as well to sell terrain.

Try Bartertown.com as well.

You are selling an extremely niche product.... So don't expect much from it.

Might be better to have some sort of menu people could pick from, and that would dictate the final cost.

Ayn Rand "We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality" 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Might be better to have some sort of menu people could pick from
I completely agree. I bet you'd benefit greatly from having all the pieces you can cast lined up in one place, even if it's just pictures of older stuff you've sold. That way, people can see all of the items you can make and pick what they want. You can then gauge demand and fill orders as necessary, sending pics of the actual items once they're finished, maybe.
   
Made in us
Brigadier General






Chicago

Thanks for starting this conversation. I've been wondering about it myself.

I've been dabbling in selling terrain. To make it almost worthwhile I've had to find ways to lower the materials cost and speed the production time. I'm been using mostly old toys so I've been able drive down the cost. Also, plastic isn't that heavyso weight isn't as much of an issue but for you it clearly is.

-Are there ways to make your terrain lighter? Perhaps by pressing voids into the the molds?

-Are there ways to speed painting? Airbrushing?

Other folks have good ideas regarding selling locally.

Good luck!

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Made in us
Devestating Grey Knight Dreadknight




Echoing what other posters have said, I think your target audience needs to expand to gaming stores/clubs, since your average gamer may not even have a table of their own to play on. Along with that, I would suggest having "themed" terrain, or package a table's worth that all reflects the same environment (green swamp, snow, red desert) . That way you can offer a slight discount for buying in bulk cause shipping will be less, and if someone is buying terrain often they want a whole table to look the same. On that note, take a look at FLG's and other's gaming mats and make/advertise terrain that will match those ("goes with FLG's worldscape X!").

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. 
   
 
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