How Much Money Do Art Vendors Make at Festivals
Every bit American consumers increasingly long for a personal, local touch in the goods we buy, the craft manufacture seems to be booming. Have you ever dreamed of quitting your ix-to-5 job and starting a career selling handmade crafts? Or wondered whether selling goods at arts and crafts fairs would be a lucrative side hustle? Here's what yous should know near the economic science of arts and crafts fairs, from how much it costs to participate to how much yous stand to earn.
Cheque out our toll of living figurer.
What counts as a craft?
You may take heard that in the case of arts and crafts beer, what's marketed as "craft" is sometimes owned and produced by big corporate conglomerates. The same can exist said for some of the items sold at arts and crafts fairs. If you head to a holiday craft fair in your expanse, particularly one that casts a wide net for vendors, you may be seeing mass-produced items. But in theory, a craft fair should take vendors selling items they made themselves, by hand. 1 reason to get to a arts and crafts fair is to "shop pocket-sized" and support local businesses.
Pay to Play
As a craftsperson, you lot'll mostly have to pay for the privilege of selling your wares at a craft fair. The price you lot'll pay for a booth or table at a craft off-white volition depend on several factors: the size of the off-white, the prestige, the length of the fair and the perks involved.
For case, an established three-24-hour interval off-white that draws a huge crowd and engages in a lot of promotion and advertizing will charge vendors more than than a minor, local issue held in a parking lot or church basement. According to Entrepreneur.com, booth space at a arts and crafts fair typically costs between $200 and $300. Some fairs also charge a pct of your sales.
Craft fairs come in ii basic forms: juried and non-juried. Vendors who want to sell their crafts at a juried show take to apply for the privilege. Sometimes there is an application fee. Juried shows also accuse higher booth fees. However, because they're likely to attract customers with more to spend, the fiscal outlay involved in selling at a juried show is generally considered worthwhile.
The berth fee won't be the only fair-related expense you take to pay for. In some cases y'all'll have to provide your own table and chairs, though these are often included. To attract visitors to your booth you lot'll probably want to have more than only a table and the goods you lot're selling. You may desire to have a squeamish tablecloth, some cookies and lemonade or other enticements. It's a proficient idea to pay for a sign and concern cards to promote your business.
You tin can relieve money by bringing your own nutrient merely you still might end up succumbing to temptation and spending money at the arts and crafts fair yourself. Some other expense that may pay off is some sort of give-abroad, whether it'due south a free sample or mini product with purchase, or a larger item that's raffled off at the end of the fair.
Costs of Doing Business
Let's say you're a crafter who decides to take the plunge and spend $200 for a booth or tabular array at a arts and crafts fair. Your costs don't end there. You lot likely have to travel to the craft off-white by plane, train, motorcar or public transit. You may also have to pay for luggage or shipping.
Want to get a credit carte du jour reader so your customers tin can pay with a credit card? You'll have to pay for that, besides. Square, which lets yous use your smartphone every bit a carte du jour reader, charges a 2.75% swipe fee. Intuit charges the same percentage. Paypal and Shopify both charge swipe fees of 2.vii%. All of these services charge a college percentage for payments y'all enter manually.
Then there's the cost of the materials y'all use to brand your wares. If your personal talent is making wallets out of onetime tires or motion picture frames out of salvaged wood, your costs volition be fairly depression. Simply if you make artisan jewelry out of gold and diamonds, you're going to demand to crush out a lot more for materials. Whatever their materials costs, many makers double, triple or quadruple their costs to determine the price they'll accuse customers.
Those with the highest costs generally accuse the highest prices, which ways they need to sell fewer items to make a arts and crafts fair an economics success. If your goal is to brand $2,000 at a craft off-white and the average price of your appurtenances is $20, you'll have a dissimilar approach than someone whose boilerplate price is $200.
For some vendors, customer volume is key to success, while for others information technology's a question of finding a practiced match with a handful of customers who have more than to spend. That'southward why it's of import to practice your enquiry before you use to sell at a craft fair. You want to make sure the crowd that attends is a good fit for your trade.
In fact, one successful jewelry artist wrote in an essay almost why she stopped doing craft fairs that the fairs weren't a good fit for her business model. Considering her materials were more expensive, her prices were college and craft fair attendees weren't willing to spend that much. As a consequence, she was paying to nourish craft fairs and not making a profit.
For folks with high materials costs, selling online may make more sense than attending a lot of craft fairs. On the other mitt, there are high-end craft fairs where a maker with high prices could exercise well. And selling at a craft fair could provide valuable marketing that would interpret into greater online sales.
Making a Living
According to the Agency of Labor Statistics, median weekly earnings in the U.S. were $803 in the third quarter of 2015. Permit'southward say you desire to do a lilliputian better than that and earn $900 per week. At 50 weeks of work, you'll earn $45,000 per yr. Yous won't be flying first class but you'll have a solid income.
In arts and crafts circles, there'due south a lot of talk most the "7x dominion." Co-ordinate to this rule, makers should aim to sell 7 times what they pay for the booth fee at a arts and crafts fair. So, if you lot become to a craft fair that has a $200 berth fee, you'll want to sell at least $1,400 worth of merchandise. 45,000/1,400 = 32.14. Does that mean you'll have to nourish 32 craft fairs per twelvemonth to come across your income goal? Not exactly, considering you'll still have to encompass your costs. You either demand to make more money or attend more craft fairs.
When yous run the numbers, yous can see why information technology's pretty rare to make an income from craft fairs alone. If y'all already have a part- or full-fourth dimension job and do, say, five arts and crafts fairs each year as a side hustle, you lot could rake in $7,000 ($one,400 x five) in revenue. That'south a respectable side hustle for five weekends of work, plus the hours you spend making your merchandise. Or, you could supplement your arts and crafts off-white income by selling your wares in a brick-and-mortar or online store.
Here'southward a 2012 quote from an Etsy forum titled "Craft Fairs… it'southward a living! Average income from craft fairs." It shows how difficult information technology can be to brand a living solely from the income made at craft fairs:
"Usually about 10x my booth fee is a pretty profitable show for us. We take what we make and subtract about a third of it for materials, then subtract our expenses for the show (booth fee, gas, meals, possible cabin?) and if we have a couple hundred dollars after that we're expert. Of class if you bankrupt it down to hourly pay for two of u.s., including time to create, prepare, fix, sell, take down, drive to and from, our hourly wage is not likewise good."
Paying Your Taxes
The income you brand at a arts and crafts fair is income y'all'll have to declare to Uncle Sam when it comes fourth dimension to pay your income taxes. For starters, y'all'll demand to obtain a taxation ID number for your small-scale business, which may involve registering with the state where you'll be selling your wares. If y'all don't accept a business y'all'll declare your craft fair income on your personal income tax returns.
Depending on where the craft off-white is located, you may demand special paperwork or permits to sell, as well. Each time you apply to sell at a craft off-white it's a good idea to enquire the team running the fair if in that location are special licenses or permits you'll demand as a vendor. You lot should also ask if there volition be someone on hand to collect local sales taxes at the close of the issue.
In some states, there is a flooring for collecting sales revenue enhancement, which means you lot might not demand to collect the tax if your sales are pocket-size. The rules concerning local and country sales tax can be complicated, but it's important to comply with all relevant tax law. For more details on tax compliance for craft fair vendors, cheque out this folio from the U.S. Minor Business organisation Administration. With mobile services like Square and Paypal, you can enter your tax settings before you get-go swiping payments.
Bottom Line
Anyone interested in selling at a craft fair can head to festivalnet.com or thecraftsfaironline.com. Both are sites that aggregate listings for arts and crafts fairs effectually the country. Unless you have an impeccable record of picking the perfect craft fairs for your work and racking up sales, you may decide to think of arts and crafts fairs every bit a complement to other income sources. Ane other income source could exist your day job. Or, if yous want to devote yourself to your arts and crafts total-fourth dimension, yous can complement craft fair acquirement with sales in galleries and online.
If you lot decide to get a a small concern owner, yous may demand an advisor who specializes in taxes or 1 who specializes in some other expanse. A matching tool similar SmartAsset's tin aid you detect an advisor to work with to meet your needs. First y'all'll respond a serial of questions about your situation and your goals. So the program narrows down thousands of advisors to up to three who meet your needs and are in your area. You lot can then read their profiles to larn more nigh them, interview them on the phone or in person and choose who to work with in the future. This allows you to find a good fit while doing much of the hard work for y'all.
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Source: https://smartasset.com/career/the-economics-of-craft-fairs
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