About CustomMade

CustomMade is an online matchmaker connecting Buyers who want one-of-a-kind Creations with professional and passionate Makers.

Promote Your Business With Quick Response “QR” Codes

Posted by Marcie in For Makers, The Pro Shop on November 21, 2011

By Guest Blogger Doug Turner of Turner Custom Furniture

If you start looking for them, you’ll find QR codes everywhere these days, and for good reason: they are a really easy way for tech savvy smart phone users to get information quickly about brands, products and services.  And believe it or not, they [...]

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The Maker Movement

Posted by Pedro in For Makers, The Pro Shop on November 15, 2011

Who can save the economy? Who can change the world?

The maker movement.

Who are the makers?  In the Forbes article “Moving the Economy: The Future of the Maker Movement,” blogger TJ McCue identifies them: “The people who create, build, design, tinker, modify, hack, invent, or simply make something.”  The definition of “maker” is also [...]

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Rise Above the Noise: Differentiate, Add Value, Create Community

Posted by Marcie in For Makers, The Pro Shop on November 7, 2011

Guest contributor Patrick Kennedy of Superior Woodcraft, Inc.

In today’s market it is more important than ever to inform potential clients about your company.  It’s no longer enough to take out print ads informing the market that your company creates great products at competitive prices. That’s a message that every company touts for every product and [...]

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Steve Jobs and Lessons for Entrepreneurs (with Corollaries for Custom Artisans)

Posted by Pedro in For Makers, The Pro Shop on October 31, 2011

The death of Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple and the force behind the “iRevolution” (bet you’re not far from an iPod, iPhone, or iPad), is a great loss for all of us.  However, Jobs was “more than just a tech-wiz,” blogger Alvina Lopez reminds us.  He was also “an incredible innovator and [...]

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Unique Future? The Growing Popularity of Mass Customization

Posted by Pedro in For Makers, The Pro Shop on October 24, 2011

“We all want to be unique – that’s what makes us all the same.”

So writer Dave Masters begins his recent article for Humans Invent on the union of our “drive for individuality” with high-tech innovations.  In “Tailor made for the masses: A manufacturing revolution,” Masters takes a look at how mass manufacturing companies are [...]

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Multifaceted Benefits: Custom Jewelry Design and Customer Preferences

Posted by Pedro in For Makers, The Pro Shop on October 17, 2011

With the recession affecting both consumers and jewelry businesses, what are the advantages of a focus on customer preferences for custom jewelry artisans?

Writer Jonathan Devin of The Commercial Appeal found a custom jeweler in Memphis, TN, who has kept her business going at a brisk pace with “a little less bling” and more customer [...]

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Custom Jewelry Strategies for Adjusting to the High Price of Gold

Posted by Pedro in For Makers, The Pro Shop on October 10, 2011

All that glitters is not gold.

Indeed.  Especially if gold jewelry acquired wholesale by merchants must then be retail priced so high for any hope of a return that customers are unwilling to purchase the pieces.

In a recent Los Angeles Times article, “Jewelers slammed by high gold prices,” Tiffany Hsu examines an unintended consequence [...]

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Consider a Strategic Merge

Posted by CustomMade in For Makers, The Pro Shop on October 3, 2011

Can’t beat your competition? Why not join him or her? It doesn’t make sense for two struggling shops to compete with each other, and everyone else in town. Forming a limited partnership (two businesses working symbiotically) which clearly outlines responsibilities (and lines that shouldn’t be crossed) has many benefits:

One partner may be able to [...]

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Marketing Idea: New Twist on the Wooden Nickel

Posted by CustomMade in For Makers, The Pro Shop on September 26, 2011

My grandfather ends pretty much every visit I have with him with the lighthearted reminder “Don’t take any wooden nickels!” Patrick Kennedy of Superior Woodcraft has decided to get back to the roots of this 1930′s-era marketing technique and bring it back to life. It was, back then, a great way to create a new [...]

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The IFDA predicts how home life in America will change between now and 2020

Posted by CustomMade in For Makers, The Pro Shop on September 19, 2011

The popular home design blog ApartmentTherapy recently wrote an interesting article summing up how 2,000 members of the IFDA (International Furnishings and Design Association) predict that home life will change between now and 2020. Here are few highlights of the article that may be interesting to makers of home goods and furnishings out there…

Small [...]

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