If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it.

Before I start, I feel I must issue a warning: this could get hard to read for some of you. In the last six years I have met many new makers & had the chance to work with them. To listen to their ideas, see their products & where appropriate, sell them to customers. I’ve also heard lots of people say that they make things & would love to give up their boring jobs to make craft to sell. Usually I try to gently suggest that its quite a big, hard job to make a living through craft. You need to be determined, focused and expect to spend only about 30% of your time making.

The first hurdle is not ‘what shall I make’ but ‘is there a market for it, at the price I can make it’. To know this you must do costings: material costs & your time. The statement ‘it cost hardly anything – I had the material in already & it was really quick to make’ is not the correct answer to ‘have you costed it out?’ Do you know how much it would be to replace the material you have used? Exactly how many minutes did it take you? And at minimum wage, that would be how much?

This gives you a basic price & you might like to make a (small) amount of profit…

Now to the cost of selling. You’ve worked out your basic price but that’s not what the customer pays because there is a cost of selling. The most expensive way to sell is through a shop because they have to pay 20% of the retail price straight to the VAT man in tax. Then they have to pay for the following:

• Wages for the staff who will listen to customers, select appropriate items from the stock to suit that particular customer’s needs & help them to come to a decision. Good sales staff will mean a customer returns again & again.
• Advertising. This involves writing copy, taking photographs, producing flyers, networking, donating to charities, taking stands at events just as a few examples. It is expensive.
• Ongoing costs of the building such as rent, rates, energy costs, insurance, cleaning, display equipment.
• Packaging. Done well this is a form of advertising & a service for the customer.
• Visiting trade shows/makers/making orders.
• Keeping accounts & managing the dreaded CASHFLOW.

A slightly cheaper method of selling would be for you sell your work directly to the public. I can feel the shuddering from here. So some obvious points:

• You are the salesperson. You must acquire the skills of a professional & this means some kind of training.
• You need a really good stand, well made & one that shouts – this is world of my product. It should be easy for you to use & for your customers to use.
• Visit any show first before you take a stand at it. Ask yourself: can I see my perfect customers here? (Your perfect customer always buys your product.)If not, don’t have a stand there. Good shows cost big bucks.
• Never take a stand because its cheap or close to home. These are bad reasons & you’ll waste your time 9 times out of 10.
• You will need packaging, insurance, accomodation & means of transport, to name but a few extras.

All these items go under the cost of selling face to face. I’ve not gone into websites but they should be viewed as an additional method never your main method. They are time consuming to set up and need constant attention to driving your customers to it. My experience is that people want to see your work in the real world and may buy additional pieces through your website.

So now you have a price to produce your product & a price of selling it. Add the two together & who would buy that item at this price? The answer is usually not you or your friends but your future customers. They probably don’t live where you live or shop where you shop & hopefully they have a larger disposable income than you (especially if you are a new maker/ recent graduate). Do your research: look for similar work to yours: how much is it selling at & where. Please don’t limit your research to Folksy & Estsy: they are really not the mainstream where sales are concerned. And mainstream is where most of your sales will be.

So, I warned you it would be tough love time. And really, truthfully, if it was easy then everyone would be doing it.

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