While I’ve written for Tindie for several years now, and at the same time I’ve helped host The Creativity Podcast: Where Art and Engineering collide. In our latest episode, we interview none other than head Tindarian, Jasmine Brackett.
She of course answers obligatory question of “What is Tindie?” for the audience, and talks about selling on the platform in general. Specifically, we delve down on the question of how do you keep things in stock without overbuying? Jasmine has a few ideas on the subject, though there’s definitely no one-size-fits-all answer. One important tip that she points out is that at some point items on the wait list get “cold.” In other words, people eventually move on to other ideas, especially if it’s been quite some time. So be sure to restock if you’re out!
I myself have finally gotten into actually selling some products on this platform. While some have sold little to no volume–which isn’t an issue per Tindie’s nonexistent listing fee–my EZ Fan2 Raspberry Pi fan control board has become modestly popular. Keeping them appropriately in stock has been quite the learning experience, which was actually a lot of the inspiration for this episode.
I even half joking that selling on Tindie should be part of a college business course. Jasmine then revealed that she’s actually seen a number of the same things for sale, which she finally realized was a part of some some sort of educational project. I say that’s a great idea, and hopefully the participants got something important out of it!
The show’s other host, Pat Regan, also runs a store on Tindie, and lists items like his Breadboard Spring Vise. While it is quite clever, he notes on the listing that you should just print one yourself. As far as I know, he was never a salesman. He also lists a cooling fan duct made out of carbon fiber. While it’s probably overkill, who can resist that kind of geek-chic? Probably not anyone reading this article.
Our other guest for the show was Kenny Stier, who owns Cloudfree.shop. His company deals in Tasmota-flashed IoT devices, which allow you to maintain local (i.e. cloud free) control without the hassle of flashing things yourself. I’ve been thrilled with the four switches that I bought, but since that time had some challenges keeping things in stock. Between the four of us, it turned out to be a great conversation.
You can see the whole show in the YouTube video below. The show is also available via SoundCloud on iTunes if you prefer the audio-only version, and we have quite a few other interesting guests in the show’s back catalog if you’d like to poke around!
