Selling and reserving flash

There are exactly two routes from a client seeing a design to that design being theirs, and you choose which ones are open on every single piece. They are the Allow Enquiries and Instant Booking switches at the bottom of the flash form.

An enquiry is a conversation. The client asks for the design, it arrives in your Requests inbox, and nothing is settled until you approve it and set a deposit. Instant booking is a sale. The client picks a size from the pricing you set, takes a slot and pays the deposit on the spot, and you find it already booked.

You can leave both on. Some clients want to check a placement with you first, and some want it done today, and there is no reason to force everyone down one path.

A flash enquiry behaves like any other booking request, with one difference: the design comes with it. The request carries the piece the client wants, so you never have to ask which drawing they meant, and you can see it while you reply.

From there it is your normal flow. Reply in the thread, propose dates if you are not ready to confirm, or approve it and take a deposit. Nothing about the design changes while you talk, so the piece is still on your page and still claimable by somebody else until you say otherwise.

More on that side of it in Managing requests.

Turn Instant Booking on and the flash form gains a second screen, Pricing Tables. That table is the offer. Until it has at least one valid row, Maelo will not let you save the design, because a client cannot book something with no price on it.

Each row is one size of the same piece. You write the size label yourself, then set the price, the deposit, the estimated time the client reads, and the appointment length that gets blocked out in your day. The table names its own currency, and you can attach different tables to different studios or events if the same design is priced differently where you are working.

A deposit is what turns interest into a booking, and where it comes from depends on the route the client took.

• •Instant booking: the deposit is the one you typed into that size row. The client pays it as part of booking, so it is done before you have looked at it.
• •Enquiry: there is no deposit until you approve. You set the amount when you approve the request, and the client is walked through paying it.
• •Neither: a design with no deposit set anywhere is claimed the moment somebody books it, with nothing held against the appointment.

That is the Repeatable switch, and it is off by default. Off means the design is a one off: you drew it for one person and once it is taken it is taken. On means you are happy to tattoo it again, and the tile carries a Repeatable label so clients know they are not looking at something exclusive.

Be honest with it. A client who books a one off expects nobody else to walk around with the same piece, and a repeatable design is a much easier sell precisely because it is not promising that. It is a switch you can flip later on either kind if you change your mind.

When a one off is taken, turn Available off on that design. The tile in Flash Manager swaps its green tick for a crossed circle, and on your public page the design stays exactly where it is, marked as sold or claimed depending on the gallery style you picked.

Leaving it up is deliberate. A retired design is still some of your best work, and a gallery that empties itself every time you tattoo something looks like an artist who is not busy. Deleting the design is the other option, and that one is permanent, so only reach for it when a piece should never have been posted.