Over the past 5 years, our jewelry has trended towards gift ideas in a process we call “giftification.” This concept of “giftification” is often responsible for the demise of online Etsy Shops, where the repetition of saturating social media specialized for particular occasions such as anniversaries and weddings combined with squeezing from competition, undermines the “everyday appeal” of handmade products just enough to shed impulse sales, while gift sales continue on an upward trend. The net results are deeper ebbs during non-holiday seasons and greater floods throughout peak seasons. Seeing a slump, sellers are often overwhelmed by panic that distracts from long-term goals like building up sufficient inventory to handle a holiday rush. Suddenly those same sellers experience a slump turned gold rush in a matter of days and are unable to handle peak demand. The year’s average slides as overall sales fall short of expectations.
Since 2015, NiciArt has seen some “giftification” of products as well as simply the desire to explore other mediums besides metal. With Nici’s Picks spinning off from NiciArt as a concentration in music related products, our discussions focused on wooden guitar picks and wall hangers as new product candidates in 2016. Ambition met reality on down escalator and none of our new ideas came to fruition as our schedule continued with unrelenting orders through wedding season and NAMM.
Having recently purchased a baby blue Stratocaster with a small Orange Crush Amplifier as our demonstration and exhibition display, the idea of creating wooden guitar holders was reinvigorated just in time for show season this March. With several designs already produced and even more in the works, we are happy to spread the love and peace by officially releasing our Wooden Peace Sign Guitar Holder on our website.
Our first wooden guitar hanger features hard cherry, a US manufactured yoke by String Swing, mounting hardware, and a neutral tongue oil finish as a replacement for a varnish that could potential discolour the neck with off gassing. Production requires a drill, jig saw, and a router for smoothing and finishing.
We are also experimenting with white background photography in order to list our guitar holders on Amazon and other large retail sites. Our NiciArt and Nici’s Picks sites will offer personalized options such as engraved copper plates, inlays, or create your own custom guitar holder. While these guitar holders do make fantastic gifts, we also hope the holders will serve as practical items for purchase throughout the year and will provide us with endless hours of creative inspiration in designing this new product line.