# How are the craft sales doing in your area?



## Ross (May 9, 2002)

We're very lucky, Ottawa basically missed the recession. Ann (my wife) has done as well as or better than normal except for her run at the Kingston woman's art festival which was very much quieter. 
Just finished our Farmers'Market Christmas Craft sale and it was a roaring success. Waiting for the sales numbers to get crunched (the market tracks sales through annon earnings slips) but we personally topped last year by $400+ Now our local RA hall might be pretty big but it lacks parking. There were cars parked up and down the street into the neighboring subdivision, back 500 feet in the softball parking. We gave out free shopping bags, 500 in the first 2 hours! I did money changes for the vendors (while Ann sold lamb and felted things with her mum) Three rounds for 40 vendors and I must have changed over $1500 in $5's for $20's I don't know why some people show up at a craft sale with little to no change. I know 4 of us came with $200-$500 in $5 bills. Everything is bought with a $20 bill. I gotta say having Visa and MC makes a big difference in sales. We chalked up almost $400 in credit cards alone that we would have missed.

So how are the craft sales near you doing?


----------



## 3ravens (Mar 16, 2006)

Food and practical stuff (soaps, herbals, clothing, etc.) are doing good. Knick-nacks and fluff, not so well.


----------



## bergere (May 11, 2002)

Dead as a door nail around here. All the sales I get, are online and all over the World. Nothing local at all. 
But then... most all the jobs are gone and what few are left in this area are low wage. Pretty depressing.

Sounds like it is going pretty well up your way Ross.


----------



## Mike in Ohio (Oct 29, 2002)

We did alright at the Kent State Folk Festival (only place we have sold offsite until this year. 

We have been scoping out places to sell at and will be doing the Tremont Farmers Market Holiday Market this Tuesday evening (Cleveland, OH). We will be selling there next season as well May-October

We went to Bazaar Bizarre today http://www.bazaarbizarre.org/ and are planning on getting a table there next year. A lot of people selling soaps,jewelry, paper goods, knit stuff,etc. One person selling jams and sauces. Real good foot traffic which is why we are interested. 

We primarily sell honey and at these types of markets our big seller would be honey in blown glass bottles with corks. We are also preparing a gift package with our honey and our dired peppermint (this is for next year). 

Mike


----------



## sisterpine (May 9, 2004)

We have been doing the fall crafters market at our small mall in Butte. Basically sales have been quite poor. Do little to nothing for three weeks and then today about 250.00 last week 12.00 ? Generally this whole year has been down about 25 percent for us. We sell mostly stone jewelry, geodes, coat trees, knobs/pulls


----------



## mosepijo (Oct 21, 2008)

Our local Christmas Bazarr was a week ago. My daughter sold about $400. Said it was really poor. She sells some awesome baby (minky fabric) blankets, baby washcloths, bibs, wallets, etc.

Our neighbor does pottery. Took a bunch of crocks, large bowls, cups, etc. She only sold $100. Several of the vendors were very disappointed. 

This area is starting to see several closed business' lately, so money is getting tight. I told my daughter that she was competing with all the other vendors for the same $1 bill.
She has business cards on her table with her items and sells a lot of this stuff year round because of the cards.


----------

