Product Line Glossary

When developing a product line for your sewing business, it’s important to design with purpose.

You shouldn’t randomly create a bunch of different products; each product should work together and have a purpose to maximize sales and better serve your target market.

Each type of product in a product line should help to:

• offer different price points
• address different customer needs
• appeal to different buying behaviours

 

Important Note

One product can cross over into different categories of products. For example, oven mitts may be a core product, an add-on product, and/or an entry-level product.

Don’t get too hung up on where a product might fall (e.g. “Would this be considered an add-on product or an entry-level product?”).

The point of this strategy is to ensure you’re offering enough product variation to give shoppers options, appeal to different segments of your target market, and to maximize your sales. It will help you look at your product line from different angles to ensure you’re covering all your bases.

 

1 – Core Products

Price range: Mid – High

Your core products will be the main products that take up the majority of your craft show table or online store, and be what you want your business to be known for.

Think of McDonald’s. Their core products would be their Big Mac, Chicken Nuggets, or a Quarter Pounder.

For a small handmade business, you likely only need 1 – 3 core products.

These are your proven bestsellers.

If you don’t yet have sales stats to work with, you may plan for your core products to be the more highly desirable/popular products with consumers.

Example:

• Core products: oven mitts, aprons, and tea towels

Those are common household products and are ideal for being my product line’s core products.

Fewer people are familiar with reusable bowl covers and casserole cozies, so they may not be as popular of an item in my lineup.

If, after selling at several craft shows, my sales stats show that my bowl covers and cozies are more popular, I’d adjust my product line and make those my core products.

 

2 – Add-on Products

Price Range: Mid – Low

These products are designed to work with one or more of your core products, so people want to add them to their order.

At McDonald’s, when someone orders a Big Mac, they’re going to be asked if they’d like to add fries. Or fries and a pop. Those are McDonald’s add-on products.

Imagine a customer is purchasing one of your core products (e.g. an apron), and you must use the sales pitch “Would you like _________ to go with that?”.  What would you fill that blank with? 

If they have an apron in their hand, you wouldn’t ask if they want to buy another apron or add a pillow to their order. 

But you might ask if they’d like the matching oven mitts 

They should be lower priced so that it’s an easy decision to add them to a purchase.

Add-on products aren’t necessarily the items someone goes to a business for, but when spending money, it’s easy to add them to an order. 

Think about the shoe cleaners and protectors that are suggested to you when buying a new pair of shoes. You didn’t come into the store looking for a shoe cleaner, but when you’re spending $50+ on a new pair of shoes, spending an extra $10 to protect them is an easy choice to make.

Example:

• Core products: aprons, oven mitts, and tea towels
  • Add-on products: hot pads, cone pot pinchers, skillet handle sleeves, and dishcloths

The individual hot pads probably don’t bring shoppers to my craft show table/online store, but when they see a hot pad that matches the apron or oven mitts they’ve picked out, they may want to add it to their order.

If someone has a set of tea towels in their cart, they may see the coordinating dishcloths and decide to buy them too.

 

3 – Upsell Products

Price range: High

These are the highest-priced products in your line because they offer all the bells and whistles. They take one of your core products and upgrade it.

At McDonald’s, upselling is when they ask, “Would you like to supersize that?”

Example:

• Cose product: apron
  • Upsell products (upgraded): aprons in better quality materials (e.g. linen), items with more details (e.g. ruffle or bow details)

 

You can also introduce new products for your upsells, which may simply be the more expensive items in your line.

Example:

• Core products: bowl cozies and casserole cozies
  • Upsell products (new): aprons

OR

• Core products: placemats
  • Upsell products (new): table runners, tablecloths

 

4 – Entry-Level Products

Price range: Low

These are lower-priced products, similar to add-on products. However, add-on products are designed to be added to an order, whereas an entry-level product can be purchased and used on its own.

Examples of entry-level products at McDonald’s would be Happy Meals or McValue Meals, which are smaller and cheaper options.

Imagine a craft show shoppers says, “I love this, but it’s not in my budget right now”. What type of product might you suggest?

For example, if someone is looking at a full apron in a color and style they love, but they seem hesitant about the price, you could suggest a half apron in the same color and style.

Your entry-level products and add-on products may be the same, depending on what you make.

The difference is in how they’re presented.

Entry-level products should feel complete on their own and be an item that can be used on its own.

For example, in a shoe store, shoe protector would be an add-on item, but it isn’t a great entry-level product because most people don’t walk into a shoe store looking for a new pair of shoes, and settle for buying shoe protector until they can afford the shoes they want.

On the other hand, they might settle for a faux leather pair of shoes until they can afford the high-end leather shoes. So the faux leather shoes would be a good entry-level product.

Example:

• Core products: aprons, oven mitts, and tea towels
  • Add-on products: hot pads, cone pot pinchers, skillet handle sleeves, and dishcloths
    • Upsell products: casserole cozies and products in better quality materials (e.g. main line is cotton, upsell items are linen)
      • Entry-level product: coasters, hot pads, and bowl covers

When hot pads are positioned as an add-on product, they may be sold individually and displayed/photographed with the matching oven mitts.

When hot pads are positioned as an entry-level product, they may be sold in a pair or set so they feel like a complete purchase on their own.

.

5 – Bundled products

Price range: high

You can take 3 – 5 products that work well together and group them into a package.

For example:

• Kitchen Starter Set: Matching apron, oven mitts, and tea towel
• Tea towel set: 3 coordinating tea towels
• Baker’s Gift Set: Apron, oven mitts, cookie sheet hot pad, bowl covers, reusable cookie bags

When you bundle products together, it makes it easier for shoppers to buy more than one item and offers an incentive to do so.

Often, bundled items are slightly discounted. A customer buying 3 items may warrant a slight discount over someone buying one item is because they’re raising your UPT (units per transaction) and reducing your costs.

• Instead of having to pay 3 transaction fees (for 3 different customers buying one item each), you’re paying one transaction fee
• Instead of using 3 shopping bags/shipping boxes, you’re using one.
• Instead of spending time completing 3 separate transactions/shipping 3 separate orders, you’re only completing 1.

Bundles don’t always need to be discounted, but there should be some perk.

For example, the bundled items might be packaged in a beautiful gift box.

 

Optional Product Variations

Once you have your product line, you can make small changes to those products to create variation.

This variation can appeal to different segments or preferences in your target market. For example, a collection of organic linen aprons can appeal to a eco-concious baker. While different colors of aprons can appeal to varying preferences (e.g. “I prefer blue over pink”).

 

A) Limited Edition

It’s a good marketing strategy to offer temporary products in your line. Think of how many more people buy a coffee from Starbucks when their “available for a limited time” Pumpkin Spice flavour launches. Or when McDonald’s brings back their McRib.

It can help you build a loyal following and push sales by creating urgency.

Example:

• Limited Edition Christmas Bake Set (consists of an apron, oven mitt, and tea towels in a Christmas printed fabric)

Once those products when they’re gone, they’re gone.

The key to a successful limited edition line is that is has to be desirable, unique, and high quality. It should feel a little more special than your regular line of products. 

You might:

• Use a unique print of fabric
• Add extra details, such as gift packaging
• Try a different design or introduce a new product

 

B) Collection

A collection is how you:

• add variation to your product line
• offer more options
• appeal to the segments within your target market
• create interest throughout the year

For a small handmade business, having 1 – 5 collections at any given time is ideal.

How many collections you offer depends on your:

• products – some products have more opportunities for creating multiple collections, while others don’t. For example, if I sew items using leather, I don’t have as many materials, colors, or detailing (e.g. adding ruffles) that I can play with.
• product line – if I only have a 3 products in my product line, I may have the room to develop more collections. On the other hand, if I have 10 types of products in my product line, I may want to limit how many collections I offer so my workload and craft show table/online shop don’t become too full or overwhelming.
• target market – consider how your target market shops. For example, if I’m selling table linens to people who love to host dinner parties, I know my target market probably likes to update their table linens for each holiday and/or season.

Once you determine how many collections you’ll offer at once, then you can determine how many times throughout the year you’ll launch a new collection/collections.

For example:

If I’m selling cottagecore table linens, I may offer:

• a floral collection
• a stripe collection
• a solid collection

I would have 3 collections at the same time.

Then I may decide to launch a new collection for:

• Spring – Focus on pastel colors for my 3 collections (floral, stripe, and solid)
• Summer – Focus on yellow, pink, and green for my 3 collections (floral, stripe, and solid)
• Christmas – Focus on red, green and gold for my 3 collections (floral, stripe, and solid)

You can change any product feature you like to create a collection.

For example:

• color (e.g. pink, blue, beige, different shades of a color, different color combos, etc.)
• material (e.g. cotton, linen, flannel)
• pattern (e.g. polkadots, plaid, stripes)
• details (e.g. ruffles, bows, lace)
• size (e.g. small, medium, large)
• personalization (e.g. non-personalized and monogrammed)
• etc.

Think about what type of options your target market might like to see and how you can create collections for them.

 

You can get started with a Table Linen Product Line! This article has patterns to build a full line.