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Alejandra Mangaña | Episode 752
Alejandra Mangaña is part of the husband and wife duo with her husband Luis who combine contemporary design and art using their experiences as a an influence. Each piece is handmade on the potter’s wheel made with food safe glazes in-house with intention to be part of their customer’s daily routines for a long time.
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Is finding customers different for hospitality and wholesale?
Yeah, that is something that we are looking at right now. We are doing research on how to market to the hospitality industry. Whereas with wholesale that revenue stream is geared more towards the mom and pop shops and a lot of plant stores. It is interesting the difference with who your audience is and I think with hospitality we are still trying to figure that one out.
How did you go about finding your wholesale customers?
So with that we do use Faire wholesale and I think it started out with just…before we had gone with Faire we cultivated really understanding and developing relationships with our wholesale customers and shop owners, even congratulating them on their wedding and checking in on them on how they are doing. It is more than just business. I really enjoy the human aspect of this whole thing of building relationships with our customers and the ship owners. I don’t know, I think it is really hard to run a retail shop so I enjoy communicating with them and building relationships and that followed once we got onto wholesale.
How did you go about finding the hospitality customers that you guys have?
Well it started off with this restaurant called Beast and Bounty. I think they took a chance on us and we used to tag them on stuff. The owner was like, Alright, let’s see what up with them. And he invited us over to his restaurant and he showed us what he was looking for and I think it was just building that relationship and that trust. We are not going to be perfect right now but we want to have ceramics that are sturdy that they can rely on. And they were our first restaurant and I’m really happy that they took that chance on us.
How is pricing different between selling to wholesale and selling to hospitality?
I think that is something now that we are trying to figure out. Wholesale we do either forty or fifty percent. And with the hospitality industry it is almost like a different ball game. Trying to figure out how other potters who are in the hospitality industry, how are they marketing? How are they pricing? And understanding, we are newbies. We are new into this game and we can’t necessarily scale up our pricing. We are figuring out how to make a package for restaurants that are barely opening up and are wanting to maybe start getting into handmade ceramics but maybe don’t have that budget. That is something we are trying to figure out right now.
Do you see mass produced work as your competition?
No. Heath, for example, they are amazing, and they are giant and Heath is Heath and they are awesome. I want to make sure that we incorporate out design as we are building our dinnerware. I want to make sure we incorporate the stories and the design work and that has to come in a way that is really thought out when it comes to pricing. I want to make them feel like each one has it’s own mark on it.
Are you able to put your branding (your mark) on your hospitality work?
That is in how we choose color. We are self-proclaimed colorists. Color theory is a big part of how we choose our glazes. One of our things is complementary pairs.
What do you two like to do in your off time?
Well, we love to spend the day outdoors. Going hiking is one of our favorite pass times. Trying out different restaurants, we are self-proclaimed amature foodies. Just going out and trying whatever, but being out in nature gets us out of the studio because we have to have some source of balance or otherwise we work. We are around each other twenty-four-seven and we have to figure out our own hobbies to do by ourselves so that we can miss each other.
Book
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
Contact
Instagram: @echeri_ceramics