Need your advice

[Ronny]

Howdy dear,

 

I'm new in ceramic work, all I know I googled everything so far, and I want to open ceramic cups and planter manufacturing unit. I don't have anyone to guide me for my startup. I opened a online store a year ago but not go so well and here is some planters I have . 

 

Can anybody share some precious thoughts,

[Stephen]

While I do understand what manufacturing means I guess I would ask you to clarify. Do you mean renting/buying a large building and putting ceramic manufacturing processes in place to produce these pots with both labor and machines or do you mean you want to make your living from making these pots in your studio yourself and sell them? 

[Stephen]

On 1/31/2021 at 3:22 AM, Ronny said:

I opened a online store a year ago but not go so well and here is some planters I have . 

I will say that it is not unusual that your online pottery site has not sold many pots. From what I can gather from others here not many have actually sold much online other than to their existing customers. The pandemic I think has changed that dynamic a bit though so it will be interesting if the potters here that have some activity on their sites during the pandemic will continue to get sales at the same pace after the vaccines kick in and people start venturing back out.

[Ronny]

Howdy sir 

Yes sir, corona hit us hard and I'm in debt, that's, it's hard to rent a space for my startup, I'm thinking to use my house backyard and after sometime I will go for renting.  please share your views and advice sir in setting up everything. Processing and manufacturing.

everything I will do it by self with my mom.

 

 

[Stephen]

Hey Ronny,

Ya know I am not sure this is the right place for manufacturing per se. You are using speech like 'I will' so I am assuming you did not make the pottery items currently in your online store but want to start making your own, is that correct? Do you or your mom currently make pottery?

When I see the word manufacturing I think of a manufacturing process with lots of specialized equipment geared toward mass producing products. While that description does somewhat describe many of the folks here that make and sell pottery, most potters on this forum see themselves as  part or full time artist/artisans and they either use a technique called slab building or wheel throwing to make pottery and a smaller group here that use slip casting. Most of us make scores or hundreds of things but we don't really mass produce anything. Slip casting would probably lend itself more to making many multiples of one vase design though so that might be the one you key on.  Plenty of potters use all three methods depending on what it is and how they sell them.  None of this may be relevant if what you want to do is have a little mini factory making thousands of each design.

If however you want to start smallish, those three terms 'wheel throwing', 'slab building' and 'slip casting' in google and/or here on this board under the search bar should get you started reading on pottery processes so you can decide how you want to make your pottery. You can also go to YouTube and watch videos on all of those methods. It is possible to teach yourself how to make pottery but it takes a lot of practice and repetition to become skilled. If there are any pottery classes in your area I would jump at that if I were you because then  someone will get you grounded and help you get to a starting point. If there are no classes close by then on YouTube there are a number of potters who do video classes and many, if not most, are free.

Good luck, have fun!