Clams to Cash: How to Make and Sell Giant Clam Shell ... - eXtension

Clams to Cash: How to Make and Sell Giant Clam Shell ProductsPage 33Keep some shells unpainted for customers who prefer “natural” earrings but do usethree or four shades of neon spray paint to spray both front and back of the shells. AtMMDC, the best sellers were pink, lime green and orange.Incidentally, customers will sometimes ask how the shells were colored. Never say,“We spray painted them.” Instead, volunteer this:“The actual formula is proprietary, but I can tell you this: these earrings were triplecoatedwith neon pigments and polymeric elastomers. The colors will last a lifetimebecause they’re molecularly bonded to the shell.”This is another way of saying you spray painted them, but it sounds better.An enormous variety of beads is available for use in making earrings. The beadsrange from inexpensive chips of glass or shells to gemstones of various types to silver andgold. To get a cheap source of beads for the clam shell earrings, we bought necklaces fromBetty’s Imports in Honolulu for about a dollar each, then cut the string of the necklace toproduce several hundred small shell beads. We also used silver-plated balls, but they werequite a bit more expensive.Earrings are best displayed on cards, which you can obtain from River Gems or makeyourself. The cards may be hung on rotating countertop displays called “spinners” or hung onwooden pegs set into the shop wall, a supporting beam or a wood carving. Many options areavailable for displaying earrings. Try to choose something that uses local materials andcraftsmanship. At the MMDC Gift Shop, we inserted small wooden pegs into locally carvedstoryboards to create earring displays. This made efficient use of vertical space and allowedthe earrings to be placed in high-visibility areas, such as next to the cash register.French wire earrings retailed for $7.99 to 9.99 at the MMDC Gift Shop, but thesewere also sold in the Palau Pacific Resort’s Duty Free Shop for $14.99. The Duty Free Shoppurchased the earrings from us for $5.99 and applied a markup factor of 2.5 to get its retailprice. We required Duty Free to order a minimum of $250 to get the wholesale price of $5.99each.June 1996