How Not to Lose Your Craft Sales Profits

If you're trying to make money with craft sales, you still need to treat it like a business, not a hobby.

Keep an eye on these three areas to keep from losing your profits:

1. Cost of Supplies
When you're making your craft items to actually sell and not simply give away, you have to be a little more careful with the cost of the supplies that are used to make them.

Not shopping for bargains will actually make your crafts cost more to make, and this is a mistake that a large number of crafters make in the beginning. Buy in bulk, make deals at the craft store, price check - do whatever you can to lower the cost of making your crafts. That is the first step.

2. Pricing Your Items
How much time do you spend in calculating a price for your crafts?

This is another area where money is just left on the table at a craft show.

In addition to the cost of your supplies, you also need to figure out what you're going to spend on booth fees, registration fees, car and travel expenses, food, etc.

So with all of these costs added in to the cost of making your items, you'll probably need at least a 75% to 90% markup on the costs to make a profit.

3. Getting Traffic to Your Booth
If you build it, they will come, is not the philosophy you want to have at any craft fair. You have to draw them in or they won't even see your items, let alone buy them.

Without customers, you have no craft sales. Without sales, you make no profits; in fact, you make no money at all.

Dress up up your booth and make it captivating. Add color, lights, some added decorations to complement your items. People will not only want to come to your table, but they'll tell others about it too.

To sum it all up - pay attention to all of your costs and make sure your booth drives people to see what you're selling. Set the price right and you'll make the most craft sales and keep the most profits!



About the Author: Karen Musselman works out of her home doing computer crafts with her bookmark wedding favors business. You can read her new book, "How to Turn Your Crafts into Your Gold Mine of Cash!" to get more help with crafts sales for profit.