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FlyTyer15

Selling flies

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When you say just order a few medium sized orders and ask for commercial discount, do you mean from fly tying companies or the regular fly shop?

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Mine was from a fly material company in Canada, stores may be different but on the same path, I get 15% off anything at a larger fly shop slash fishing store for just being a loyal customer and politely asking what can you help me out with?

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I've been a loyal customer at my local fly shop and I get 10% of just about anything. But I think that if you get registered as a "company" you get more discount at the wholesale fly tying suppliers?

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Selling to shops and guides is how I got started. Then after some years, I began getting retail orders from those guides' clients unless the guide was associated with a shop then I would be obligated to have them order the flies from me through the shop.

Doing that also helps you develop some good flies; the guides I dealt with were very discriminatory and had me tweak flies and even create new ones to work a specific way. Many guides know what they want a fish to see and where the fly needs to be, you use your tying skills to develop with them the perfect fly for their needs and your sales will go up.

 

Kirk

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I believe b uying wholesale fly tying supplies requires a federal (USA) id number.

That would explain how he does it then, thanks.

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Oh, BTW, I believe the most important thing in selling anything (other than delivering a quality product) is to build a solid customer base, IMO the best way to do this is at small fishing shows and swap meets, set up a simple and professional table, talk to as many people as possible, hand out lots of cards.

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Thank you everybody. I made my first sale to a hunting and fishing shop. Hopefully they order more and I also have other shops looking into me and an online fly shop. So far so good. These are the flies i sold.

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post-48396-0-69702900-1399172910_thumb.jpg

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I have made a bit selling "gift set" sorts of flies, or just 6 or a dozen here and there to people I've met. I would never want to try to do it for a living; I'm too slow and easily distracted by things.

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Thats great news!!! What was the shop you sold your flys to, if you don't mind me asking?

It was Cheap Seats in Athabasca.

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Good luck. I use to sell smallmouth bass flys that was only found in this area. The biggest mistake I made was selling to cheap especially to my friends. I also started off of forums and created my own website. Sold them all over the US just should have priced them more. One guy even liked 1 lb in setting a lake record in Califorina on one of my smallmouth flys. If you have a product that will catch fish people will buy.

 

Get you some good contacts and a good market plan.

 

I will always remember a sign in this store I saw. We sell products that catch fish not fisherman.

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Whoever it was above that said it has a high potential to kill your passion spoke for a lot of people who have tried it. Many commercial tyers tie only one or two patterns. After a few thousand of them it gets really, really old.

 

Someone above is also correct that you cannot compete well on the standard stuff. Specialty flies or original patterns that work in a specific area offer an entry in some locations, but most of those don't sell widely or for very long.

 

Making a living tying flies is not very realistic. It can work as a supplementary income or a sideline (see below) to something like guiding.

 

In the Rocky Mtn west, many guides tie their own flies for use with clients. Some of them tie then for their shops when guiding is slow and that is the way they got in the commercial tying game.

 

One of the best ways to get into the game is to get a job in a local fly shop. When they get to know you can tie quality stuff you can often get the job of filling bins that are getting low when a pattern is hot and there is no time to get some from a supplier.

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Thank you everybody. I made my first sale to a hunting and fishing shop. Hopefully they order more and I also have other shops looking into me and an online fly shop. So far so good. These are the flies i sold.

 

 

Congratulations on the sale. Those flies look great.

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