At My Wits' End...
Hi guys! I posted this on tumblr and I might as well say it here too.
Well, another craft fair another $100 lost. The table price for this 2-day one was $175 and I only managed to make $70. Meanwhile, we spent most of our earnings on food and holiday gifts.
Everyone at this fair did horrible. Sunday was slightly better than Saturday but there were still hardly any customers. It’s not like this show wasn’t advertised well- I’ve done one at a high school close to me hosted by the same company and I’ve done pretty well every time. It’s just that a) many people in the area are still recovering from Hurricane Sandy and b) other vendors have said that they’ve done fairs at other places in this town and all of them weren’t all that great.
I tried everything I could, and must have re-arranged my shop displays at least three times each day. It didn’t matter- practically everyone still breezed past me! I suppose the fact that there were also a lot of other jewelry vendors there had something to do with it but I have other items like hair accessories and everything’s at a reasonable price. I also guess I have to be a better salesperson but that’s really hard since I’m on the autistic spectrum.
The whole thing just left me depressed. I originally signed up for this fair because the Holiday one at the high school had the table price increase dramatically since last year. My entire family is having financial issues and I thought that since I do so well at that one, I could easily make the table cost and then some at this one. But of course that didn’t end up happening.
The price for the Holiday fair I usually go to is now $275. I would love to go (in fact, I need to go) but I don’t think I can get the money in time. I believe it’s on December 22th and 23rd, which would be a perfect time to get last minute shoppers. The only way I can raise money is if I sell items in my Etsy shop. I was happy that I got a sale there last night but that was only $10 and cannot make up for my serious debt.
In order to get some of my money back I’m going to have a huge sale starting on black Friday, which is next week. I’ll continue adding more items in the shop until then, so there will be A LOT of things to choose from. I’ll keep you guys posted about that.
After five years of experience I can safely say that being a craft fair vendor is a gamble. It seems like each and every show is different and you can’t really predict how people are going to act. The first two years of selling went pretty well but with these past ones I’ve been to hell and back.
Something good needs to come out of it soon or I’m going to be in serious trouble. And as I said in this post, I’m not doing that great as it is.