Rent a cube today!
Hey maker, are you ready to make magic happen?
- Want to branch out and start stocking your products in retail spaces where the customers come to BUY your products?
- Do you wish someone else could sell your stuff for you, so you can have more time to focus on making awesome shit?
- Want to branch out and start stocking your products in retail spaces where the customers come to BUY your products?
- Are you looking for guidance on how to market and sell your products? (like how to use social media without it taking over your life)
- Want to sell your work online, but quickly realise it's a whole lot more complicated than just listing your pieces on etsy and that building a website isn't as easy as the ads say it is?
159 other local artists!
"Rent a Cube" in one of our gorgeous gift shops in Melbourne where we'll expose you to hundreds of customers every day!
How renting a cube works
Become a member
As a member of the cube-fam you get more than just a place to sell your stuff… You get a community of like-minded people, working together and cheering each other on from the sidelines.
As a member, you can list your handmade products on our online store without paying any commission on sales, and we handle the customer service and shipping of items to our customers.
We do all the marketing of the store and shipping of orders received via our website, so you are able to sit back and focus on the part you really love… making!
Membership Costs
- Sell your products on our high traffic website
- An SEO optimised online store on our marketplace
- Inclusion in our curated handmade gift guides
- Be included in our in our social media content
- Your brand featured in our email marketing
- Opportunities to advertise in high profile publications
- Real time reporting of your sales
- Keep 100% of your sales
Choose your cube & location
Our spaces are divided into glass cube display cabinets, clothing racks, shelves, slatwalls, and visual art spaces which are all available for local makers to rent and fill with their handmade products.
At in.cube8r, we believe you should be able to exhibit what you like without paying any comission on sales, so our spaces are commission free.
As each location has different staffed hours, foot traffic, demographics and number of spaces, cubes and spaces are priced by the day.
cube rental Costs
All membership inclusions, PLUS:
- Sell your products in our stores
- Control over your branding, props and display
- You choose your pricing & promotions
- Have your products featured in our shop window
- Leverage the followings of your fellow cubers
- Get feedback your friends and family won't give you
- Real time reporting of your sales
- Keep 100% of your sales
our next cube intake ends in
choose your location
Fitzroy Flagship Store
Ask anyone where they can buy beautiful handmade gifts in Melbourne and they will tell you to visit that little pink shop on Smith Street where we’ve been cubin’ since 2007!
Our Smith Street store has been featured in many fantastic publications in the last few years including Peppermint Magazine, Visit Victoria and Time Out.
Find out more about joining us in Fitzroy, which is one of the longest operating handmade stores in Australia!
Melbourne Central (coming soon)
Our Melbourne Central Shopping Centre store has popped up at the Ella x Menzies Lane on the ground floor, just a stones throw from the trains, trams and offices bustling with city workers and tourists!
We’ve had write ups in What’s on Melbourne (and on their instagram stories), Australia’s Guide with more PR planned on the next round!
Our pop-up runs on 3 month cycles and spaces are limited! Find out more about selling your creations with us in the heart of Melbourne!
here's the nitty gritty details
The nitty gritty
Cubes are released seasonally and are subject to availability. For more information on each store’s location, pricing, and more click through to the individual store pages.
If you can’t find the answers here and you’re keen to get involved, but still unsure about the best space for you or how suitable your products are – check out the pages for each of the stores below and then apply to join the cube fam with your burning questions noted on the last page of the application… we can then get back to you with some sizzling answers! This way we can review your application in detail and come back to you with specific answers that suit you and your brand.
Contracts / Membership / Availability
The minimum term to rent a cube is 3 months, after which you’ll switch to a month by month agreement. We have this minimum, not to lock you in, but because we know that it takes 3 months to get a realistic idea of how your sales will go at in.cube8r (or in any retail setting really). Our customers don’t come in every week. Some come in every month, every second month or maybe twice a year.
3 months gives us time to promote you multiple times on our social media, introduce you to our mailing list, include you in our email marketing campaigns & gift guides, and make suggestions and improvements to help you get the most out of being a cuber.
To work out the costs involved, you’ll need to add the the membership fee ($68/month) to the daily rate of your desired cube (times number of days in a month).
Most cubes range from $5-$11 dollars per day. However special rates apply to your monthly cuber membership for out of the box ideas & products, (this is only paid once per month, per artist, regardless of how many stores you’re selling in).
Average Monthly Cost (30 day month)
- Fitzroy: $200-$230/month (including membership).
- Cubers in multiple stores only pay membership once so it works out a little cheaper!
We used to offer this option, but we find that Cubers tend to get the best results when they rent a cube as well. And we’re not really about e-commerce (though we do spend an extraordinary amount of time on it!).
We’re not like Etsy or other handmade websites, we have phsyical stores engaging with the public 7 days a week, and showcasing your products in their glory, for people to hold in their little hands and hopefully walk away with on the spot! We create content with your products, we curate window displays and marketing campaigns, and we engage with your clients on your behalf. And we do a real good job of it too!
Essentially we’re your market away from the market, and you don’t need to pay us an hourly rate to turn up on the day and run the stall – it’s all included in your membership fees!
Yes you can!
Sometimes, we have artists wanting to collaborate & share a space, we are happy to accomodate.
The way we do this, is that you’ll both apply & become a member (and pay a membership fee each) which means we will be able to create you seperate dashboards, your products and sales will be linked to you, and we can invoice you seperately. This means you both get equal representation & things are kept neat and tidy administration wise
We will then split the cost of the cube between each of you, so if you’re renting a $11 per day cube, we will invoice you $5.50 each.
If you would like to do this, please do two seperate application forms, and mention in the application what you would like to do, so we can know how to set things up in the back end.
Nope!
We don’t require artists to do shifts in the shop! Meet our team here
If you go to the individual store pages for Melbourne Central / Fitzroy Flagship stores you’ll find info on all the available spaces and what products are best suited to them. If you don’t find the info you need, just get in touch, we’re happy to help!
We try to keep our rates as low as possible but we know that not everyone enjoyes the same level of privilage as others. That’s why we invented the cuber fund, a sponsorship fund to allow us to fund discounted Cubes for artists who need an extra hand. Check it out here
Of course! Come on in! We’re open 7 days!
We do a cube drive every few months to promote newly available spots to our audience. That said, we usually have a cube or two available, so you can apply any time! If your desired spot isn’t available, we’ll add you to the wait list!
You don’t need any of these things, though insurance is often a good idea. When you sign up, you can declare yourself a hobby artist, or you can provide your ABN. If you’re registered for GST we will ask you to note that when listing your items, and this way it will be noted on any receipts provided to customers for your sales. We will pay the GST amount to you to declare to the ATO, since we don’t take commission on sales we don’t add GST on top.
Hidden fees? Nope! Just the membership fee, enrolment fee and your daily cube rent per store. That’s it from us!
We pay our artists in the first 3 days of the month, we also invoice you for your rent at the same time. We don’t take your rent from your sales, unless your rent is a month late.
The minimum term to rent a cube is 3 months, after which you’ll switch to a month by month agreement. We have this minimum not to lock you in, but because we know that it takes 3 months to get a realistic idea of how your sales will go at in.cube8r (or in any retail setting really). Our customers don’t come in every week. Some come in every month, every second month or maybe twice a year.
3 months gives us time to promote you multiple times on our social media, introduce you to our mailing list, include you in our email marketing campaigns & gift guides, and make suggestions and improvements to help you get the most out of being a cuber.
Yep! We have quite a few interstate Cubers and are happy to provide this service. We will ask you to either print your labels at home, or get us to post them to you ahead of time so they come labelled up and ready to put out on the sales floor. We also have guides as to how we would like you to package your items to send to us, but overall it’s much the same as being a local cuber!
Some spaces can have power, many have lighting. We ask you to provide your own props and signage, though we do have some you may be able to use which has been left behind from other Cubers. It’s best to try and find items that suit your branding though, and also that are functional to help display your items. We have hooks for slatwalls available, and are happy to provide guidance as to ways to display your items on request.
Our Services / Marketing
We see ourselves as being a part of your brands marketing team, so while we can provide the platform to sell on, exposure to our audiences, creation of content including your products, inclusion in our gift guides and other marketing campaigns we’re never going to be able to play the part you do as the brain behind the brand.
It’s important when running a handmade brand to be creating regular content and marketing online (and ideally going out to market as well) – people support small businesses as they want to know where their money is going and how it’s promoting social good!
However what we do offer is ongoing mentorship and feedback. We’re here to bounce ideas off & give tips and tricks that we’ve learned from talking to our other Cubers day-to-day! All included in your membership at in.cube8r!
Inventory / Displays / Products
Our point of sale system is linked to our online store, so as soon as something is sold in store the inventory is removed from online. Similarly, as soon as an order comes in, we aim to remove the item from the sales floor to ensure no double-ups occur.
If you have your items listed on your own online store or another marketplace and need the item removed from the sales floor, you can contact us via your dashboard with the product link and we will remove it as soon as we see the message. You can remove the item from online yourself immediately.
At in.cube8r, we’ve spent a lot of time ensuring our system works in real time, so you always know what’s available for purchase and what has sold – any time.
We always recommend starting with less than you think! We find that often when cubes are first set up, there is far too much stock added… it’s best to give your creations some room to breathe and some space between items for best visual merchandising results. So, if you don’t have heaps of stock don’t stress, chat to us and we will recommend what we think will work best for your unique brand and business.
You are welcome to this, however we don’t really recommend it… with markets happening on weekends, often the busiest days of the week at in.cube8r, taking stock out means that it’s not there when customers pop in to buy it! Of course though, the occasional weekend is fine – and at the end of the day it’s your stock to do as you wish with! We don’t own it, you are your own boss!
While we do allow illustrators to have their products printed onto various products overseas, we don’t allow manufacturing of garments, jewellery or other items our customers expect to be handmade by the artist in our collection. We allow exceptions where the items cannot be produced in the country (enamel pins for example) and in the case where the artists IP is being printed onto another item.
While we don’t see anything inherently “wrong” with manufacturing in other countries, it’s simply not what our customers are looking for at in.cube8r – and we’re here to help them access products made by local artists.
Yes and no. Each cuber is welcome to leave a small amount of excess stock with us in our storage cupboards, no more than a shoebox (or small box for those who make larger items).
In regards to packaging, we require your packaging to be kept in your cube if you want your items to be packaged up with it when we make a sale.
With more than a hundred Cubers it would be impossible to remember who’s boxes are who’s and keep it organised if not within your space. That said, it’s not neccessary to provide packaging – we do free gift wrapping for our customers in store with our own packaging.
We do however recommend jewellers provide packaging for their items, as a way of making the items look more lovely when opened by the recipient!
Absolutely! In regards to custom orders, we will ask you after joinig to let us know your personal policies around custom orders – and we will follow these when customers enquire. Especially in the case of rings and items that may come in different sizes, we will often try to recommend this if someone loves your items but it doesn’t fit them.
Laybuys are available to customers and we are happy to provide this service. In the case of a laybuy we will pay you the entire amount once the laybuy is completed, usually within a few weeks of the initial deposit taken.
We also offer pay-in-4 through PayPal for our online shoppers (or in store shoppers who choose to buy online with Pay-in-4 while in store) who wish to buy now – pay later.
We recommend you provide business cards for customers to take, as well as some kind of branding / signage to make your space your own. Our cuber tutorials have recommendations around this and we are happy to provide you some guidance if you get stuck.
Packaging is not necessary , however we are happy to use your packaging if you desire.
Customers are informed that should they wish to return an item we only allow exchanges within the same Cubers range for change of mind / gift purchases.
In the case of faulty items, we are required by law to refund the customer – and in these cases we will retrieve the payment back from you. This however happens very rarely.
Sales / Policies / in.cube8r Systems
We’re tried our hardest to make our systems as easy to use as possible, and we’ve created video and written tutorials for you to help you along the way. We also run regular AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions via Video Meeting, so you can come along and ask for help there if you need it!
Besides adding the products to the portal, there’s not much else you need to do besides logging in occasionally to read memos and check your sales / inventory. You will recieve emails whenever you make a sale.
No not at all, we’ve build a system that creates labels which you can print at home, but you can also request them via the portal to be printed ready for you when you come into the store, or can have posted to you ahead of time for affixing to your product before you bring / send them in!
We’re in store 7 days a week so you can always pop in for a chat if you get stuck, you can also ask a question via the portal or email us anytime with questions, we try to respond to them within 24 hours where ever possible!
We’ve tried to do as much documentation as possible to make it easy for you to get everything sorted ahead of time, but we understand that we have Cubers from all walks of life and are happy to provide extra assistance and guidance where needed.