Your rubber stamp collection is taking over your kitchen utensil drawer, you can make a sock monkey in your sleep, and you're a pro at using a pasta maker due to extensive practice with rolling out sheets of polymer clay. You're an expert crafter, but how do your sales skills rate? Host Carol Duvall talks with craft business expert James Dillehay, author of
The Basic Guide to Pricing Your Craftwork to get tips on how to market and sell craft work
. The most popular outlets for selling crafts are neighborhood craft shows, however, Dillehay suggests some other methods that can prove to be just as successful. For crafters just starting out, Dillehay suggests hosting some home parties or encouraging friends to host home parties for you. Similar to a Tupperware party, a home party entails setting the crafts up on display and preparing a story to tell about each one. "You sell some items and people have a good time," Dillehay says. "It's very relaxed and easy going."
The craft fair market includes shows with casual atmospheres as well as juried shows. For juried events, crafters send end slides or photographs of their work to be accepted to participate in the shows. Juried events are usually high-selling shows, with the shows in the months of September through December brining in the highest revenue due to Christmas shopping season. Dillehay suggests crafters visit several craft shows before selling at them so they may find the best type of craft fair at which to sell their crafts. "Shop them and say, 'Well, will my craft fit in here?'"
Another option for selling crafts is to take them to retail outlets, craft malls and art co-ops. An advantage to selling at a craft mall is that a crafter may rent a space at the mall in which to sell the crafts without having to be present to sell them. "You wouldn't have to physically be there to sell it," says Dillehay. "The craft mall hires someone to sell it, and then you pay a monthly fee to rent the space at a small percentage of the sales. It leaves you free to be home and create more crafts."
With the growth of the Internet, crafters may also find several ways to market their crafts online. For instance, online craft malls provide crafters with space to display photos of their work along with the work of other crafters. Another option is for a crafter to create a personal Web site. However, expenses include an initiation fee, a $20- to $30-a-month hosting fee, and several hours per week maintaining the site's upkeep. Dillehay says one of the most popular methods of selling crafts on the Internet is to list the crafts on auction sites. "The auction sites are getting millions of visitors every month," Dillehay says. Even if the item doesn't sell on the auction site, many auction sites allow links to personal Web pages for those possibly interested in other craft items.
Switching gears from where to sell craft work to how to sell craft work, Dillehay admits that most crafters tend to underprice their work. Dillehay suggests this formula to help crafters accurately price their work:
cost of materials + labor + overhead
First, Dillehay says make a detailed list along with prices of all of the items used for a particular craft. Second, and often most difficult, decide how much you time is worth and how much to allow for self-pay. Dillehay recommends paying one's self $10 an hour to start. "If you do good, you can give yourself a raise," he says. Third, Dillehay says to take into account background expenses. "These are the things that just always get ignored," he says. Among such background expenses are the cost of rent, utilities and telephone bills. "You have to account for that somehow when you charge your price," Dillehay says. Overhead can often be estimated as 25 percent of the cost of labor and materials. One other expense to take into account may be home office space. Those with business run out of their homes may consider writing off some expenses in a home office tax deduction.
As a last consideration when pricing, take into account for your experience, training and talent. "I'm figuring that in work like this, anything where real art is involved," host Carol Duvall says about Dillehay's craft work, "that it's almost like paying a doctor. You don't just pay for what's right there and that 20 minutes you're in the office, but the background, the history, the experience, the knowledge, and the training."
Resources The Basic Guide to Pricing Your Craftwork
by James Dillehay (ISBN: 0962992321)
Click
here to order this title.
Warm Snow Publishers
Torreon, NM
Phone: 505-384-1195
Toll-free Phone: 800-235-6570
Website:
www.craftmarketer.com
Guests James Dillehay
Author, craft artist and owner of Warm Snow Publishers
Torreon, NM 87061
Phone: 505-384-1195
Toll-free Phone: 800-235-6570
Website:
www.craftmarketer.com Also in this Episode
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