All items by Oak Mill Leather Goods

Quality leather goods, hand made with pride.

Hi! I'm Jeremy, based in Llanelli, in sunny South Wales. This is the start of my Folksy journey, but I am not new to online selling, or producing hand made leather goods; I have been on eBay since March 2007 (eBay ID: jer19671...same as here), and on Etsy (BOOOO!) since 2021. It is the latter that is my reason for being here, actually.

I joined Etsy, to expand the exposure of my various items, rather than just confine myself to only eBay. However, along the way, I have been dismayed (as well as annoyed, confused and downright disgusted) at the way Etsy treats it's sellers. They have some utterly ridiculous policies, as well as conducting their business in a frankly illegal fashion...such as, not long back, withholding sellers' payments from sales (for several weeks!) without any justifiable reason! But today was the last straw; for unknown reasons, I have been blocked from sending messages to my customers for 48 hours, because (and this makes NO sense, whatsoever) some of my messages were marked as “Spam”! Even by Etsy's standards, that is bizarre in the extreme! Quite how any of my messages to my OWN CUSTOMERS could possibly be spam, is totally beyond me. Anyway, enough of those clowns...they don't deserve me!

But, hopefully, YOU do! I've called my shop “Oak Mill Leather Goods”. The last 2 words are self explanatory. The first 2 relate to my location, and have historic links to the area. “Oak” has two connections; firstly, my town is in the county of Carmarthenshire, which (as some of you may be aware) is associated with the ancient tale of The Old Oak of Carmarthen town. I remember seeing it regularly, before it was removed. But that's a story in itself. The second “Oak” link is also tied in with the “Mill” part; around half a mile from where I live (in the village of Felinfoel, famous for it's historic brewery and it's magnificent ales!), is the site of the old mill, dating back to the 14th century. Around this site can now be seen numerous, mature oak trees, bordering an ancient woodland. So, when I pondered what I could call my new Folksy shop, the name I came up with seemed appropriate!

I have always loved hand made leather goods, and finally got round to trying it myself, a few years ago. My current range is mainly comprised of small to medium sized items, such as key rings, belt danglers, coasters, as well as belt pouches and card wallets, though I have produced larger, more complex items. Many of my key rings feature laser engraved designs & images, and I also offer personalisation on some of them.

One of my key aims, for every item I list, is that they are all easily affordable by anyone, as I believe this benefits both myself AND my customers...that way, we all win. I always encourage potential buyers to compare my goods with offerings from other sellers, both for quality and value for money. Knowing the costs of materials/fittings etc. as I do, I find the prices (for similar products to mine) being asked by many other sellers to be, frankly, outrageous. There is just no need for it, other than greed. Numerous friends have told me I'm underpricing my goods, and that I could easily ask much more for them. I know I could. But I'm not going to. For many of us (myself included), things are pretty tight, these days...but we should still be able to give ourselves a treat, now and then. If we can't, then what's it all about?

On my eBay listings, I have many other items (around 750 or so, at present), but I want to keep the focus on the leather goods, for my Folksy business. Therefore, I will not (initially, at least) have a huge selection of items. But what I do have, I can promise you will be of the highest quality, for surprisingly low prices; as I say, compare what I have to others, and you'll see for yourself. I'm not a greedy man. I just want to make an acceptable living for myself (and my ever-hungry cat, Sid!), doing something I love, and enjoying the relative luxury of being free from the bonds of answering to a boss...which I did for almost 40 years, before going full-time with this!

So, thanks for reading all this, and I hope to hear from you soon!
P.S. for reassurance as to what you can expect from me (in terms of quality of goods, as well as customer service), please browse my Feedback comments from my thousands of very happy eBay customers. Go back as far as you like, and you'll see that you're in safe hands (eBay Seller ID: jer19671).