Mayari’s Blog

Yesterday, my brother and I went to the backyard market at brick lane (near spitalfield market) to sell my latest product: Recycled Magic Wallets. I thought this would be a perfect place to sell them, since it’s famous for its innovative products made by young designers. We didn’t book a stall in advance but were lucky enough to get a space in the back of the market hall.

Around midday the place started to get relatively busy. Most people were curious to learn more about the Recycled Magic Wallets. Showing them how the wallet works, their reaction was very positive. “Cool”, “wow” and “very clever” were common comments. But I realised that liking an idea or product is not an incentive for people to buy it. Sometimes, a new idea (in this case a new way of storing your money) can be fascinating because it’s new, but at the same time it can be just to new to handle it. Changing habits is an effort. Also as soon as I told them how much the Recycled Magic Wallet would cost (explaining why), most people said thank you and went on.

It was a little sad to see that the Italian man next to us (see my brother’s blog post) was successfully selling his mass produced sun glasses made in China for five pounds, while most others offering unique and hand made products didn’t sell much. It seems that most people still do not value unique design and local craftsmanship much. Not in terms of spending much money on it. I got a lot of compliments and encouraging words. This doesn’t make a living, but it makes me happy.

So now, I have go on and find and make work, that also pays my bills.