All the fun of the Fair

 

I enjoy crafting, but there are only so many things you can give away to your friends and family as gifts. I tend to make things as sell them a few of times a year at craft fair.

The first conundrum you have when deciding to sell your craft items is the big “HOW MUCH” and it is the hardest as there are many factors to consider. To name a few:

1.       Your area/venue. I am sure that if I placed some of my items in an upmarket shop in the middle of London I could easily charge £20 for one of my soft cozy handcrafted sock monkeys, but at a stall at the local primary school even £5 can seem a bit expensive for some people.

2.       Your target market. If you are planning to sell things to children (or even as an impulse buy for adults) try to keep them at pocket money prices. The £1 stores often sell things at £1 which you can buy for less elsewhere, it’s the idea of the price that makes people more likely to impulse buy. 

3.       Many people (i.e. those who do not craft) seem to think that hand crafted gifts are easy and cheap to make and so they should cost less than things from normal retail outlets. Most customers don’t think about what goes into making something as simple as a candy cane reindeer. It involves buying brown pipe cleaners, red pompoms, googly eyes and the candy cane as well as having the glue gun and sticks. If I told them it costs me 19p for the material for each one I am sure some would still expect me to sell them for 25p each and forget about how long it takes and how many times I burn myself with the glue gun.

Another important thing to consider is what you are going to sell. Try to find something which is not easily available in your area. Last year I did a great trade in Minion toys and hats, however this year these are both available in our local stores so I have not made any. The market is flooded with Frozen items this year so I have stayed away from that theme too.

It seems nice to make lots of themed items using Santa, snowmen and reindeer at this time of year but think about what you will do if these don’t sell, you might not have enough friends and family to give them all to and storing them till next year may not be an option if you are short of space like me. Some items like candy canes do have a long shelf life so you may have the option of storing them till the following year, but make sure you bag them and not the use by date.

My most popular items this year have been candy cane reindeer and my mix and match Matchbox Bears.
Allowing people to pick the colour of bear, then choose from a number of pre made beds, followed by a choice of matchbox covers seems to have made them more popular than packaging them up myself. This does take up more space of my table but as I do duplicates of all the boxes I only put out a few at a time.

The only Christmas themed items I made were the Reindeer and the Reindeer poop, the other items were those which I sell year round Like my sock animals and apple cosys.