It’s a crafter’s dream: to receive that phone call or email from a big retail store stating they want to do business with you. When this happens, we envision our product becoming well known and in-demand, and in turn, bringing us a lot more money than we currently make.

For some craft business owners, this has become reality — but along with the “glory” comes a host of challenges, some fun to solve and some more onerous. To get the inside scoop on what it’s like when the big retailers come calling, Craft Industry Alliance talked to two successful makers, Molly Hatch (who licenses her designs) and Mimi Tsang (who manufactures her own product line), plus attorney Emily Danchuk, founder of Copyright Collaborative, an organization that advises artisans on all things legal.

Molly Hatch is an artist who licenses her designs to many large retail companies. She began her career as a potter’s apprentice after graduating from college with a BFA in 2000. “I learned an enormous amount about how to make forms and surfaces work together and knew that making pottery for a living was a part of my future,” Hatch recalls. She went on to graduate school and to get a masters in fine arts in 2008. “About two years after graduating, Anthropologie approached me about designing a collection for their stores after they had seen my work in a gallery in New York City. I was excited at the prospect of trying designing on and I loved it. It quickly grew from designing tableware for Anthropologie to designing for almost every product category in their home division. The success of my product led to other companies seeking me out to license artwork and suddenly I had a career as a designer. Today I work with about 20 companies, licensing all over the world,” Hatch says.

According to Hatch, understanding which companies are a good fit for you and your products can be a challenge. “If it’s the first time a company has approached you, it’s good to ask other artists who have worked with the company about their experiences; what was good about working with that company, what wasn’t so good…most companies have their own way of working with artists and you need to know if the way they work is a good fit for you, your career, and your artwork moving forward.”

What to Know Before You Sign the Contract

Tsang said she’s fortunate because her husband is a lawyer and he looks over the contracts for her. But she admits, “You have very little power. If you want the deal, there’s not much you can change.”

Attorney Emily Danchuk agrees. “The take-it-or-leave-it contracts from many retailers are most offensive, but also the most practical for the retailer.” Danchuk adds that the purpose of having an attorney look over the contract isn’t to change things, since the boilerplate from say Target or Anthropologie (two companies she’s seen plenty of contracts from) can’t be changed, but to note any red flags so the maker can make an informed signing decision.

Danchuk also recommends two best practices. First, make sure the company acknowledges via e-mail that sending designs to them is “to explore a commercial agreement” so they can’t infringe on your designs.

And second, file copyrights on the designs to protect them.

Hatch says that as her company has grown, she’s gotten an intellectual property attorney to create a boilerplate contract for her company that includes, “…everything I would like to see in a licensing agreement and does a good job of protecting my rights—it usually works well for me and the company interested in licensing my artwork.”

Challenges After Signing the Contract

Even after navigating the contract issues, you will most likely face other challenges when working with large companies. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Be prepared to scale up for production of large orders. If you aren’t licensing designs but are involved in the production of the products, scale of manufacturing can be daunting. As Tsang expanded into a number of small independent toy stores, plus Tea Collection, Hanna Anderson and a booming South Korean business, she needed more help and had to hire additional employees.
• Sometimes the contract doesn’t equal the big money you’d expected. Danchuk calls the 4-, 5-, or even 8-percent license fees paid by some big retailers “depressing.” And Hatch says that when you have product that doesn’t do well, “it can be a real financial bummer.” Hatch has started to ask for “advances and guarantees” so she can have more consistent earnings.
• Be sure to innovate and always think ahead in terms of your designs. If you are licensing your designs, Hatch says there’s a “constant pressure to come up with new designs and set trends—this can be a real challenge for some people.” Remember that you’ll have to stay in tune with the market for your product category and be constantly creating new designs to meet the market demands.
• Be flexible with your designs but know when the agreement no longer works for Sometimes your designs won’t be created as you had envisioned. Hatch says that the restrictions in sourcing and finances for production of goods will limit what’s possible. Other times, companies have a very strong vision or art direction and will change the project into something that doesn’t even feel like it’s your work anymore.”

The Benefits of Big Retailer Licensing and Selling

According to Hatch, one of the greatest benefits of working with a large company is the exposure. For her designing products is “a dream come true” and admits she isn’t much into the selling part. “The cross-marketing that comes from collaborating with companies is amazing—there are always great photos of my product out there from customers and the companies I collaborate with. My social media is full of re-posted imagery from fans. You and your brand will benefit from the marketing and brand-name recognition.”

Tsang agrees that working with big retailers can be an amazing experience. “I wouldn’t tell anyone to turn it down,” Tsang said. “Just go into the agreements understanding what it is like.”

Last Bits of Advice

Breaking into the licensing world or selling to the big guys can be a challenge. The makers we profiled stress the importance of getting your work out there and being visible both physically and on social media if you do want to make it happen.

“Don’t be afraid to send samples to companies you want to work with to show them how your work is different from their other artists. You want to round out their lines with your own voice. Which leads me to say that figuring out what sets you apart as an artist will definitely lead to great things,” Hatch said.

“I think that following your interests, capitalizing on what sets you apart and loving what you make will attract the right partners. People want joy in their lives, and people will see the joy you bring to your work.”