Dear subscribers!
This year I have come to know you well.
There are several things that surprised me this year, and I simply have to share what I noticed.
I will set them against the attitudes, prejudices and habits of people in North America.
Attention to detail. People in Russia will always report back on every detail and nuance of delivery, packing, timing, the quality of the piece and so on. A vivid example is the cards: that small compliment cost me time and money, but it is nothing beside your words of thanks. Every recipient in Russia mentioned them. The same goes for reviews. Practically everyone in Russia leaves a review one way or another. In North America and elsewhere they go unnoticed: I get, on average, one review mentioning the gift per thousand orders.
Money. Russians will economise on themselves in order to buy something beautiful. In North America that is not the custom. My largest sales, for instance, came at the time when the so-called "covid money" was being handed out in the USA — all that "spare" money Americans spent without a backward glance. In Russia it is the other way round: if people see the value in a thing, they will tighten their belts and take it.
Mistrust. In Russia a seller of porcelain is met with mistrust and suspicion. Trust has to be won, and it is hard, nervous work. Americans, by default, trust. Not because they are so wonderful, but because they consider it pointless to worry in advance: when something happens, then the American will deal with it. That "I'll sort it out later" sometimes leads to amusing situations. "Did I order this?" "Is this a chamber pot? And why did I buy it?" — I get questions like that often. In Russia, every decision is weighed before the "Order" button is ever pressed.
There were three unsuccessful attempts at blackmail aimed at getting goods for free, from people in Denmark, Singapore and Canada. On top of that I had exactly one (!) negative review — on Avito, from a competitor, with invented accusations — and one negative review in North America, where the buyer complained that "I didn't expect the piece to be so small", although all the dimensions were given in the listing. Every other review was five stars. That is the highest and most important assessment of the work there is, and I thank you for it.
Agatha Christie on a hotel balcony in Baghdad. On the table, by the look of it, Wedgwood.
Since ours is, after all, a community with a theme, let me close this festive piece with Agatha Christie. In her autobiography she recalls a household of collectors: a father devoted to old furniture, bought cheaply, which rose so far in value that her mother later held off poverty by selling the best of it; and a father, mother and grandmother who all collected porcelain with real passion — the grandmother arriving with her Dresden and her Capodimonte, and the cupboards already so full that a new one had to be commissioned. Christie inherited the collecting streak, and observed the difficulty in it: inheriting a collection robs you of the pleasure of starting one. She satisfied the urge instead with papier-mâché furniture and trinkets her parents had never gathered.
I am extremely glad that at least a few people have found the joy of beginning a collection with my help.
Happy New Year!
A 1920s card: may the New Year bring much happiness and good fortune.