On Site Glass Engraving Services are basically mobile engraving services and in our case, for retailers. The service itself personalizes customer purchases.
Have you ever been to the fragrance or make up counter and been offered a pouch or tote filled with goodies as a complimentary gift? Well, in essence, and in the case of the on-site glass engraver, the engraved personalization is the gift with purchase. It's most commonly referred to as GWP.
To the engraver, the clients are retail stores and fragrance or design houses or even wine/liquor distributors and not the customers themselves. Retailers hire live-art specialists to provide custom painting, engraving, embroidery services, musicians, DJs and more, all for the sake of enhancing the customers' shopping experience. This offer to personalize goes beyond boosting sales, it's in par with making the experience one that the customer wouldn't mind repeating time and time again no matter how easily you can just get it online. For many, it's a nice place to get away, meet up with friends or just get things done and retailers know this.
From the artists' point of view, and more specifically ours, it's been the "Wow!" factor through and through. We all love to see our name inscribed on stuff and we'd probably personalize it all if we could, so why not have it done, for FREE?
From what we've seen, it goes a little deeper than that. After nearly ten years behind the drill, I can say the most poignant reason, is the joy the customer feels whey he/she envisions the reaction of the gift recipient (and we've been witness to some pretty amazing reactions and accounts). From the young man purchasing his first Mother's Day gift from his first job earnings, to the friend inscribing an inspirational or personal quote to the one who just beat cancer. Or from the man buying the 20th bottle of the same fragrance for his wife and getting it inscribed for the first time to the officer heading back overseas with an engraved bottle for each of his comrades in honor of the fallen. The stories are as inspiring as they are endless.
Building an on-site glass engraving business has been one of the most rewarding experiences and teaching it and becoming a resource to other engravers is in essence my take on the proverbial "bottle it up and sell it". There are currently, merely, less than 100 of us peppering the states with our beautifully handcrafted lettering on glass, spreading this unique kind of joy, and it's honestly way too low!
Laura