Pottery Boutique Goes Mobil | Kylie Osmond | Episode 829

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Kylie Osmond | Episode 829

Kylie Osmond is a mostly self taught potter and the owner of Smiley Seahorse Ceramics, a business that she runs full-time with help from her husband, Tim, in New Brunswick, Canada. Kylie and Tim make colorful ocean inspired pottery that they sell online and out of their mobile boutique – a 6×10 cargo trailer converted into a tiny nautical store.

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What size trailer did you get for this?

So we have a six by ten trailer. So it’s a little bit on the short side, we don’t really accommodate tall people right yet, but it does the job for now.

So how tall are the ceilings?

They are six feet. Or just over six feet.

So six feet wide, ten feet long, and six feet tall.

Yes.

How long did it take to get it all fitted out and painted and and get it looking the way you wanted it to?

I would say it took us about 2 months working on it very gradually, little bits here and there. And that includes painting it twice because I painted it and all the paint chipped off and I had to redo it better the second time.

Is the size of the trailer big enough?

I think the size of the trailer for how many pots I want it to hold is big enough. I do wish that the ceiling was a little bit taller, because basically…I mean most of our customers are women, but if any body is on a little bit of the tall side, you know, six foot five then they are kind of crouching. So I would like it to be a little bit taller but otherwise I think it’s a good size.

Are the party lights enough to light the space?

You know it honestly depends on the day. It depends on how much natural light we are getting and if it’s overcast light or if it’s bright sunny light. For the most part I do find the string lights that I had in before, they were doing the job. I recently switched to solar lights which are not as bright but I like the way they work better. So I am going to have to figure out a compromise between the two I think.

How do you spread the word so your faithful fans can find you?

You know mostly it’s been through social media, specifically Instagram lately, but I would like to move away from that. we also have a newsletter, but I would…I don’t know, I am looking for something else that is not so reliant on social media.

You mentioned a newsletter. Are you in the process of collecting emails for an email list?

Yes, I do have one because I would like to move away from social media. So it is slowly growing. I am not super consistent at sending out newsletters yet, but that is the goal. To do that and maybe do posters or something that I can do around town.

When you are setting up what kind of inventory works best for selling out of a trailer?

So mugs definitely are our number one item but I find that having things in sort of a range of prices, so I would say probably seventy percent of our inventory is mugs and then the rest is smaller stuff. We’ve got trinket dishes, we’ve got ornaments, and things that are suitable for a smaller budget. We have a few bigger items but because we are hoping for a lot of walk by traffic you don’t really sell a lot of those big things. So mugs and smaller things are basically what we stick with.

Book

Social Oblivion Raised Black in Canada by Thandiwe McCarthy 

Contact

smileyseahorseceramics.com

Instagram: @smileyseahorsemobileboutique

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