How to Approach Smoke Shops to Sell Your Glass Art

Research & Target Selection

Your first priority before boldly kicking down doors with a box full of your glass is to prepare yourself so that you’re not going blind and wild. Researching which shops would be the best fit for your glass helps narrow down the list of businesses of interest. Visiting or browsing local smoke shop floors or websites can give you a good idea of the type of glass they typically offer, and whether or not their line-up aligns with the type of glass you wish to sell. Smoke shops that share similar vibes or price ranges to the glass you’re offering would likely be more inclined to feature your glass as well. Repeat this for as many smoke shops as you can to craft the ideal target list that’ll improve your odds of successfully networking with smoke shops.

Product Samples & Catalogs

Having a sample selection and a detailed catalog of your work gives smoke shops a tangible idea of exactly what you’re offering. Showcasing samples that are various but indicative of your type of glass helps demonstrate the range of your work for smoke shops. Pairing a diverse sample set of your glass with a thorough catalogue of your work helps inform interested smoke shops of not only your sense of style in glass, but also their pricing and order quantities, which overall illustrates the professional quality of your glass and your own business acumen.

Pricing, Terms & Margin Planning

Knowing the fine lines of pricing, terms, and margin planning will keep both the expectations of the smoke shop and yourself aligned. Smoke shops will be considering the markup they can put on your glass to make a profit. This markup will usually sit somewhere between 80% to 150%. So, having realistic pricing for wholesale prices as well as potential bulk order discounts that both you and the smoke shop owners are comfortable with will make negotiations much smoother in talking up getting your glass in there.

Cold Calling vs In-Person Visits

One option is to cold call (or email) the smoke shop you’re making contact with. Leading with a brief and courteous introduction, advertising yourself as a local glass artist interested in promoting your wares is a solid way to catch interest. This method works best for smoke shops that are regularly busy and where an in-person visit might inconvenience the owners, or if the smoke shop is a little too out of the way to make an in-person trip on a whim. However, if an in-person visit is also a great way to make a lasting first impression if you can approach a smoke shop at a convenient, non-busy time in which you can quickly pitch your glass art.

Consignment vs Wholesale

These two artist-to-merchant styles of business are very different from one another, so considering which one will work best for you is crucial. Pursuing a wholesale style of business involves selling a bulk of your glass upfront at a fixed price. Here, you have the benefit of a quick and substantial payout, at the cost of lower profit margins. With consignment, you leave your glass at the smoke shop with the intention of being paid only once your glass sells to a customer. Of course, you can always adapt either strategy with different smoke shops to provide yourself with both large buyout sums of cash with wholesale and the chance to see higher profit margins and brand exposure at the much slower pace of consignment.

Going into business with your local smoke shop is a lot like keeping a girlfriend; you gotta keep putting in the work to build a lasting relationship. It’s one thing to find a smoke shop to sell your glass, but if you’d like more lucrative business relationships, then building a trusting partnership goes a long way.

Feedback, Communication & Adjustments

Once you see your glass proudly displayed up on the storefront, don’t pack it up and slink off just yet. Keep in touch with the smoke shop to track how your glass is selling, who is buying, and general feedback on the good and the bad. Don’t be overbearing, cause no one likes a needy relationship, but don’t be a ghost either – so keep consistent contact without overstepping the lines of communication. This, in turn, will build your relationship with said smoke shops and help you adjust on whether you need to make more deliveries, respond to re-orders, or adjust prices.

These strategies will go a long way in getting your glass into smoke shops and sold consistently; however, there are other things to consider, such as scaling to more shops and maintaining consistency and brand integrity. Some smaller factors that actually will play a big role as your glass business takes off.

Scaling to More Shops

Once you’ve started making a name for yourself, it’s high time to scale production to more shops. Use your initial relationships to branch out to other smoke shops. If the ones you already sell to hold you in high regard, then finding other smoke shops is much easier. Actually scaling up, though, requires bringing attention to your inventory, patterns of orders, and your capabilities of production. In a way, it requires starting from square one as you reorganize your pitch to other smoke shops with the new details of your scaled-up glass business in order.