Saturday, June 13, 2009

Fair Selling 2

By Ian Kleine

Keep with the low profile when you are starting. It isn't really a good idea to always make a big impression to people around you during craft fairs. Keep your expenses low also, it isn't a good idea to waste all of your capital in something that you can admit to, is a wildcard when it comes to profits.

Try and think of as trying to start from scratch. Keep your expenses low, and try to save as much. That includes renting or borrowing instead of buying, making just enough crafts to try and cover your expenses, or share with a fellow craftsman so you can effectively cut your expenses in half.

Be assertive and effective about the prices of your products. Of course, I myself would give second thoughts to something that would be dirt-cheap. Is the material sub-standard? Could it be an easy thing to do, hence the inexpensive price? Be proud of your product, but not in the sense that people will have a hard time buying it.

Remember, if you have not established a name yet, there would be little who will surely buy from you for the whole part of the fair. Charge your products by how much you spent for the raw materials and for the labor that you have serviced it with. Think first, which one do you prefer, profit, or market?

A minor detail most craft artisans fail to notice is that most visitors and buyers don't bring much of cash. They bring plastic money, aka credit cards. Bring your machine along so your buyer wouldn't be inconvenienced with having to go and convert currency just so they can buy from you (and in retrospect, you might lose customers if you don't offer this convenience). Checks aren't all that safe nowadays, as strangers plus checks is not really a very good formula to begin with.

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