What sells?

[Sweet Willy]

Money is getting short (thanks to "donut holes" medical stuff and old guy stuff) and I'm thinking of making stuff to be sold at craft shows. Is anyone selling at craft shows and if so what sells?

[durango dude]

what sells?

Try a couple of 5 board benches --- they're not hard to make, and they're cute.

Some things I've tried:
- signs (yeah - people buy them - but not worth it unless you're really fast)
- furniture made from pallet wood (people love that stuff, here)
- pens (NOT worth it in my experience).

I think you buy up a bunch of pine and make some basic old school tables, benches, etc. Think I'd likely also make band saw boxes (if you have a band saw).

I don't see people around me paying for quality. So things like dovetail drawers and french polish ----- just aren't worth it from a business perspective (I think they're worth doing for personal satisfaction - but they don't bring in extra money).

[Pappy]

Never sold at shows but what I have seen sell is the simple stuff that can be made easily and sold for under $20.

One that comes to mind is a plant hanger. Nothing more than a board with staggered nothes on both sides to hold the lip of small clay pots and a hole at the top with a simple rope loop.

[kirkroy]

A friend of mine has gone to craft shows selling wood furniture. He has stacks and stacks of old barn and fence wood that he uses. Rather than running the pieces through a planer and making them look new he uses a hand held belt sander, leaving the wood looking distressed. Finish is with watco. He makes various kinds of tables using this wood and has turned out 5 smaller ones (say 24" tall x 30" wide x 12" deep, dimensions are my guess) in a day with each selling for $200-300 (in Northern VA). He also takes benches and chairs. The prices he can get for the amount of work in each piece is amazing.

[JR]

My local ww club has participated in a street fair for the last two years. The club pays for the booth and any member can sell his stuff. Also a nearby Woodcraft has an annual show at which I have displayed my jewelry boxes.

The guy who really cleans up is a scroll saw expert. He has a little display of <$10 ornaments and key fobs that really does well. He also has a number of desk clocks, wall art, and other things that sell. He's really good and really fast and his stuiff sells. My jewelry boxes, not so much.

I usually sell one or two boxes at each event. My stuff is pretty nice (cough, cough), but the prices I need to command are just too high. The guy from my club who is the acknowledged "box expert" charges even more and sells even less. I need some high-volume, llow-cost items to generate cash flow.

HTH,
JR

[atgcpaul]

My wife and I really like going to craft shows more to look, though. I spend more on the food/refreshments than I do on the items. I guess we just don't live the lifestyle that warrants high art. Right now it's about Elmo, Wall-E, and Nemo.

These guys are right. It's always the little kitschy things that sell at craft shows--less than $20. Usually it's some kind of decorative item like a snowman on a stick, flower on a stick, scarecrow on a stick, Easter Bunny on a stick. See where I'm going with this? People love things on sticks! I can't stand them but apparently there's a market for it.

Even at the higher end (juried) craft shows, larger ($$$) pieces just don't seem to sell well. These are supposed to attract higher end buyers but with the cost of admission being so cheap, I think you still get the garage sale crowd wanting a good deal.

My wife likes to buy pottery pieces at the shows. At the last show, she was trying to haggle with the guy and he just said he couldn't do it because the booth fee for the weekend was $800. She still bought a decent amount of stuff, though, but those fees can really eat into your profit. You may just spend the weekend trying to break even.

Be sure to accept credit cards. I volunteer at a local non-profit and I convinced them to get the Square card reader for accepting CC at our last fundraising event. I used my smartphone to accept CCs and we were able to accept an extra $500 because of it. That was almost 20% of our total take. I think Square takes 3% or so (it's on their website). The service and device are "free" and it really is very easy to use. Some vendors offer discounts to buyers who pay with cash.

Be sure to have business cards or some way to have buyers contact you even if you don't have a website. You can setup a little website on Google Sites for free. You want repeat business. If your buyers let you, collect their email address so you can send them notices of when you'll be showing again. If you're not opposed to custom work, maybe this would be an extra income stream.

Good luck!

[dbhost]

I have made for the past couple of years, these simple Cross jewelry hangers out of scrap wood that I donate to my church for a fund raising craft show for missionary work. I usually make a half dozen, they are quick and easy. And they usually sell before noon on sale day. Probably more because the folks want to support the church than buy my work...

[Shep]

It really comes down to batch work. The more you can make at a single time, the lower your labor costs. +1 on items under $20, they sell well.

If you want to offer larger items, take a brag book. You can leave it out to show customers what else you're capable of. Then you can take a custom order without having to make it first.

[Sweet Willy]

I was thinking about jewelery boxes and I'm also starting on bandsaw boxes, mostly for Christmas gifts but if they're manageable I might just go with those and some other small items. Thanks to you all for your advice and observations.

[JoeyGee]

Second the scroll saw stuff. I bought one for fun, but see a lot of potential in small craft type sales. Check out this forum for ideas:

http://www.scrollsawer.com/forum/scr...business-side/

[Sweet Willy]

Thanks Joe. Cool site.

[dbhost]

If you are fast at bandsaw boxes, you can make some money selling them... I see them up for sale at the Renaissance Faire every year (okay yeah I am a bit of a geek, what do you want from a Sysadmin?). The first weekend they usually have a couple dozen of them, but the third weekend they are sold out.. Multi drawer units sell best. I do think the sale point for most items is a little higher than other folks are claiming though. It seems like under $30.00 is the magic number. Lower is better for sales, but don't shoot yourself in the foot either...