As Mexico By Hand prepares for the AI revolution, wondering if I will eventually embrace it and see the benefits for our business, I want to take a moment and discuss something I'm definitely comfortable with now--the internet search. Recently I've had some interesting requests from new customers who found us by googling. (I'm going to still use that word even though I personally search other ways.) If we didn't have an online presence, recent custom orders I've received would never have happened. So that's the upside. But there's also a lot of shady crap going on, and every once in a while when I dare to spend a bit of time exploring sites like Etsy, I frankly want to tear my hair out.
The salsa bowls above were listed as a "rare find", but most people in the U.S. don't realize that you can find hundreds of these in the village of Capula where they are made. And these people are charging $150! We would charge probably $40 for that style. Also, the information about the process is incorrect, and they don't specify that they are lead-free, which probably means they aren't. Our lead free bowls (below) with a similar design we price at $32. We have bought many in Capula, and though they are not rare-- they are indeed lovely and a customer favorite.
Then there are the so-called "vintage" items which drive me crazy. Just because something is what one might call "rustic" or used doesn't make it vintage. If I have seen it in a Mexican market in the last ten years, sorry, but it's NOT vintage. And I see a lot of pottery online that you can find in the markets in Michoacán that would cost you under $5. Yes, someone had to bring it over the border, but charging over $100 is robbery.
But there is no Etsy police, no monitoring of keywords and categories, so it's basically a free for all. And it means that shoppers who don't know exactly what they're looking for might end up exhausted scrolling through irrelevant low quality stuff before they find one of our listings. So twenty years ago we decided to pass on using Etsy and created our own website. There we control the quality, have purchased the items from the artisans ourselves, and actually know a lot about them. Customers who are familiar with us know that we have high standards, our prices are fair, and we are trustworthy. The challenge for small businesses like ours is how to compete with Amazon and Etsy. For customers searching for a specific item, Google searches often bring them to us. For example, a woman who lost her collection of handwoven guest towels in the L.A. fires. She found us online and I was able to get her some replacements. And another whose Mexican jewelry was stolen in a burglary discovered that Mexico By Hand can get her the extra large silver hoop earrings from Cherán that were so precious to her. I was very sad to hear of the women's bad luck and it feels good that we were able to provide the authentic quality they were looking for. I was also very happy they were able to find us when searching--and they were too. So in spite of its scams and our frustrations-- and there are many-- I say hurray for the internet, because otherwise we would never have made the connection! In another post I'll tell you about the other cool custom projects we are working on. Stay tuned!
Silver hoops from Cheran and woven towels/napkins are available on our website: www.mexicobyhand.com