You can say winners must live within a certain radius to win, or residents of xyz county. Or you can give back to the community by giving the service to a local school or charity and get better publicity/word of mouth that way.

They might have wanted to spread the investment around and chose a project that had not received funding before.

A friend of mine had the exact same experience but about 10 years ago. Many of their customers were coming from another location that required actually shipping items by boat to the other island. So they opened a second location in that area and suddenly their customes from both locations strangely stopped or drastically cut back. They had no idea why. They thought it might have been that their resources were strained a bit, personal attention, variety of stock, but never figured it out.

Can you do online sales or ramp up your marketing in both locations? I do notice that things are a lot more expensive due to shipping and fuel costs.

It will of course depend on where you are, what you are selling/servicing, who your customer are, and your own business acumen to a great extent. My business has been really good this year, except for some uncertainty about the wars.

Since you’re an online only very niche dealer I would think of selling to dealers with BM shops or larger client bases. Or expand to other kinds of fossils. Are you exhibiting at any of the rock hound/fossil shows?

what kind of business? Are you a tailor making garments? Or a graphic designer just wanting to screen print onto T-shirts? or something else? Either way, start small and try to get a job that is at least peripheral to what you want to do… So work in a retail clothing store so you understand what people buy, what sells, retail margins, the ups and downs etc. Have you made any actual pieces that you can possibly photograph and put online in a way that can’t be copied? I know of people who started just making pieces and selling at local markets and some that sell directly online. But all have had to learn a lot of aspects of workmanship, quality control, required labeling, supply chain, sizing and so much more.

Putting myself in a potential customers shoes, I would not go to an antists home gallery unless I was already a big customer and well acquainted with them…eg know for several months/years and I would not go alone. Also, there is a lot of social pressure if I go to your gallery and you are watching me and only me…to feel like I have to buy something. In a gallery it’s a more professional setting and I would feel much more comfortable. The only time I’ve bought a painting in someone’s home gallery was in Myanmar and even then it took me almost an hour to decide what to buy.

Another reason not to trust rando youtube videos.

Experience. stamina, honesty, hard work, just for starters. And don’t rely on or try to be an “influencer.”

You can talk to the local government to see if there are licensing/insurance/liability/permit and other issues. You don’t say where you are and there is a huge difference between countries, provinces/cities/municipalities.

Can you try to take on a new partner to help manage the debt if your future prospects look good? Or sell but contingent on them hiring you as the partner who still does the operations. You’ve built a team and business reputation, try to salvage it. Having you still in the mix will help with future sale if it eventuates as well.

International Relations, Business degree, Public Health are possibilities, esp as a foreigner/American. If you only focus on trades there will always be Africans there who will have a better hold on that than you.

I would connect with some of your best clients and have frank discussions with them. Find out what contact your enployees have been making and explain your situation and work out solutions or alternatives. You don’t know what the employees have been actually plotting until you root it out. I’ve had similar situations where employees were poaching customers and found out when the customers (and vendors) actually came to me to tell me what had been happening. They wanted to me loyal to me and opening up the channels of communication really helped all around.

Do you want feedback? Not to be too negative, but your photos are not appealing to buyers. The busy backgrounds make looking difficult and the photos need to have more detail and cropped closer. As someone who sells jewelry also I realize that not everyone has the same taste as myself, that is one of the first things you need to understand about this kind of business. Jewelry with black and white skulls is a rather limited market. How are you marketing yourself? And what are the price points?

Secondly, check out the competition or just any vendors that you admire and learn from what they are doing right.

Good luck.

Do you want feedback? Not to be too negative, but your photos are not appealing to buyers. The busy backgrounds make looking difficult and the photos need to have more detail and cropped closer. As someone who sells jewelry also I realize that not everyone has the same taste as myself, that is one of the first things you need to understand about this kind of business. Jewelry with black and white skulls is a rather limited market. How are you marketing yourself? And what are the price points?

Secondly, check out the competition or just any vendors that you admire and learn from what they are doing right.

Good luck.

hardly anyone looks at or trusts fakebook these days though.

Instagram is completely losing it’s effectiveness. they have fiddled with their algos so much that it’s practically unusable, pushing what they choose to everyone’s feed. Just opening a new account probably won’t help and could confuse your customers. Try posting every day and see if your views go up. I do more stories than posts and have seen engagement go up slighly.

Sounds very nice, and you are already doing a lot. If you feel you need to do more, perhaps have some of your artists do a demonstration or small talk? Or have light local musical entertainment on hand? It could also be a fundraiser for a local charity or arts project.

See if you can rent out space in your venue for co-working with phone answering, package receiving etc. Advertising is hard to sell and maintain, your clients if you get any will be constantly complaining that they get no results and it will be another headache for you.

Sorry this is the kind of thing that will sound harsh, but for only 380 units there seems some kind of disconnect between your manufacturing overseas rather than in a local factory where you can do quality control. As others have said, fix the issue and move on from it, even if it costs you some money. Consider it a part of a business education.