CRAFTFest weekend!

Craft Fest is an exception to not doing more craft fairs - this is because it's a craft fair from your own home!

Check out all the stalls here 


My stall is here - but if you buy anything on the website, and use the code CRAFTFEST you'll get 10% off anyway - BUT it'll only work on 26th and 27th November!

Why I'm not doing any more fairs

This might sound like a melodramatic announcement, but part of why I'm making a concious decision on this, and writing about it on my blog, is because I might forget that I made this decision, and book another fair, and then get annoyed.

I started doing craft fairs about 2 and a half years ago. I did a small craft fair at a church selling paintings. I did this fair to get me out of the house and see what people not in my group of friends and family thought to my paintings. I sold 3, got my photo in the paper, and got myself a stockist. The more I did, the more I realised this was not a normal occurrence, and I also needed smaller stuff to sell on stalls.

Getting more stockists, I realised % of sales given to different stockists differs wildly, from 10% to 70% just in the Yorkshire area. This means if you start stocking in other people's shops, you have to have a wholesale price which allows you to still  make a profit at whichever % the shop charges.

As I got less and less naive about business, it seemed the difference between  hobbyists selling their stuff at craft fairs, and wanting to sell your crafts as a business, is also a massively wide gap. I've done too many fairs which turn out to be glorified car boot sales, and people don't want to spend more than a quid on something.

What I'm trying to say is that most people selling at craft fairs who don't do it as a business sell their items basically at wholesale price to customers. I know I was before I started being stocked elsewhere. Something I could sell at a craft fair for £5 and make a profit needed to be sold at £10 in a shop.

So then you open your own shop, and you stock your own stuff as well as other people's. It took me a couple of months to realise that you have to sell your item not at the wholesale price, but as if you were being stocked elsewhere. Having a shop has overheads you wouldn't believe (unless you've opened one yourself of course).

I haven't done a fair for a while, because of time constraints, in some cases because I'm a dope and have forgotten it's on or forgotten to buy petrol, or in a couple of cases had a migraine. The last event I did I shared a table at a Vintage Fair with two other people; the table cost £45 for the day, and people were being charged £3 to get in. Consequently it was ill attended, I lost money (and I got a speeding ticket on the way home). Despite this, I knew I had to get back into events for Christmas because it's good promotion for the shop.

Yesterday I went to Glasshoughton to do the 'Xmas Craft Fair'. It was superbly organised to the last detail, and I have no complaints about the organisation (particularly as it was the lady's first fair), or about the centre, which was clean, friendly and had ample parking. It was well publicised, free for the public, and busy constantly.

So, why am I grumbling?

Recently, due to the economy no doubt, people have been setting up their own businesses from home left, right and centre. This is awesome, and I applaud them for it. Top culprits are Avon, Usbourne Books, Phoenix Cards, Partylite Candles and women who somehow manage to get themselves a Country Baskets card. I have nothing against any of these obviously - my issue is that they are NOT crafts.

I've been to a few fairs where one or two of these have shown up. Sometimes it's been billed as a craft fair, and I'm annoyed with the organiser, but it seems more normal now to advertise things as 'markets' or just 'fairs' without any prefix. For example, last summer I did 4 out of 5 of the Pannier Markets at which an occasional Phoenix or CB woman turned up, but due to the large area of space, and the naming of the event as a 'market', it wasn't a big deal.


Yesterday's event was a bit of a last straw moment. There were three rooms of stalls. One room was small, dark, and had 4 or 5 stalls, all of which were handmade crafts - I know because I talked to them. The cafe also had some stalls in it - I didn't get to see all of them, but they looked pretty much crafty. My room, which had about 15 stalls, had the following in it
- Avon
- Partylite
- someone selling some sort of slimming meal (I don't know what it involved, because she offended me by suggesting when I walked past holding a mince pie that I could be eating something more healthy, no doubt meaning her sawdust gloop)
- someone selling children's books and toys they'd bought in
- someone selling sweets they'd bought in
- someone selling aftershave they'd bought in

I'd been very careful to select items which I'd made by hand due to the name of the fair. I also wanted to sell everything at the same price as I sell in the shop, because I've learnt about pricing my items properly, perceived value, and the fact that customers aren't stupid.

After a few minutes, it was easy to see I wasn't going to sell anything. The centre is a kind of local community meeting place, and everyone was looking for small, cheap items they could allow their children to buy after they'd been to the Santa's Grotto. I shuffled things around, and found a few things I could afford to make £1 (baskets full of stuff for £1 seem to work well when children are involved).

There were a couple of good things about the fair. As I said, the organisation was good, there was a very sweet bunch of old ladies who meet at the centre for a knitting group who were selling their hand knitted toys and stuff, and two amazing chefs with a big load of pickles.

But all in all, it was a bad event for me. Everyone wanted to buy sweets, and as the children were the main customer the lady next door with books and toys did a roaring trade. Good for her, and for the pickle chefs who ran out of their jars of lovely jams. At the end of the day, it wasn't a craft fair. No one else seemed to have made their own stuff, and anyone that had was selling them at a very low price (as I was 2 and a half years ago) because it was their hobby.

This makes me sound really arrogant - but I'm really not trying to be. It was disheartening not being able to sell a necklace for £3 to someone who was trying to barter me down to a quid, when I've had no problem selling the same necklace for £5 in the shop. If it wasn't for the stand of earrings at £1 a pair (only priced as such because I've had them for a while) I wouldn't have sold anything.

So I have an evening event in December at a burlesque night, which I'm going to attend because it's going to be a good show, and then a three day fair at an art gallery in Leeds - after that, I'm not doing any more. I'll keep my shop as my base, continue to meet the public in there, whilst using it as a kind of studio base as well. Fingers crossed I won't regret this.

Rebuttal

Just a quick blog post, as I'm getting slightly annoyed about commenting on the Bird's Yard blog and saying the same thing over and over.

As you all know, we've been slogging away at this shop. It's an uphill struggled some days, because we're in a position which is slightly out of the way - it's not a street which people walk down. We have feedback from customers saying that now they've found us, they'll be back - and they come back, again and again. Some people don't - maybe there just isn't anything for them,, maybe they don't like the staff, whatever.

Anyway, so we had a meeting the other week between all the shop owners. The shop's owner told us she'd had permission from the landlord to put banners up on the boardings at the end of the street. From our shop, we can look up the road and see the main town centre - we talked about how if people just knew where we were, they might come and see us, and some of those people might like us.


We got a few quotes, and found one which was affordable. We talked about the risks - we'd had a banner up there before which had been drawn on, but it had been up there for a while before this happened. We knew they'd probably get drawn on, or ripped down, but we thought the potential advertising before this happened would be worth the £25, and if they weren't damaged or lost, then we could use them again.

A friend helped us design the banners after we sent him advertising images, and they were all sent off to print. I went to Bradford in rush hour traffic on Friday evening to pick them up. On Saturday morning, Michelle and Craig hammered them all up on the boardings, and we admired them. On Sunday morning, when 3 were missing, I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. All that work, and they never even lasted a day.

So for anyone who thinks we were naive, or we should have expected it - we did expect it, we just didn't expect it that quickly.

Then when 4 more went missing, I became angry. We all know people do stupid things, but why does that mean we should put up with it! It's theft, pure and simple. I rang the police, and they didn't think we were petty. They agreed to look at the CCTV footage for us. We wrote the blog for us yesterday because we thought that someone, somewhere, knows something about this, and we were hoping we could get some help tracking them down. They're probably in a student kitchen, I agree, so maybe someone will see the post and get in touch.

This comment was the one I read this morning at 6am, and why I deleted my other comments. I'd like to reply to each point in turn here.


People have things stolen every day.

That doesn't make it right

You pointed out that your shop has been open a year and due to the loss of these posters your dont think you will last another year?

The loss of these banners will not be what kills the business. But unless we start getting new customers in, then yes, we might have to close. The same customers returning again and again is how we've managed to stay open for 15 months. To continue, we need more regulars.

Surely that means that you shouldnt be in business because after a year, and winning the awards you mentioned you should surely be making a profit and be in a good place


Show me a company in profit after a year of trading. Any business expert will tell you it takes at least 3 years to actually be turning a profit.

Also,if you have won so many awards then why arent lots of people in your shop all the time? Surely this would set off an alarm in your head and show that when people visit your shop they dont like it so they arent returning or bringing friends? Which is why your struggling?

Not everyone who comes in the shop will like it, but a lot of them do, and they bring their friends in. We're doing something right. Every retail business is struggling. We've tried all sorts of things to get new people, like holding events, giveaways, flyering in the town centre (which we have a flyer pass for), and this steadily increases our numbers.

Making a big song and dance about the loss of some posters is not productive. Maybe spend the time cleaning the shop and looking at ways of been positive and bringing people in instead of going for the sympathy vote

I disagree with this, but only because I know the truth. One person wrote a blogpost, and we've all shared it. It took no time at all out of our day. Life in the shop went on as usual, and that means making the shop appealling, comfortable and doing some promotional work.

I can tell you yesterday what everyone in the shop was doing - if you have any suggestions about what else we should have done, I'd like to hear it.
- On the ground floor, they were changing the window display, redressing the mannequins, and cleaning and tidying the shop.
- I was polishing and tidying my shop, and sending out online orders. I was also putting together goody bags for the Twitter winners, and making a gift voucher to be used as a giveaway at a school fete. I also painted my window frames.
- Mighty Baby owner Michaela was putting out new stock, as well as flyering in the town centre. She also cleaned the staff toilet
- Upstairs, Lisa was putting out her winter collection, whilst Aisha was cleaning the carpet and stock-taking.
- Inbetween day long appointments, Rohey the hairdresser was flyering over at the wig shop. She also cleaned the customer toilet
- Finally, Anna was putting up the Christmas decorations, as well as trying to organise a card machine so customers don't have to keep going to the cash machine, and picking up lunch for everyone.

No one in that building sits around doing nothing - even if we look like we are when you come in, you've probably caught us inbetween jobs. If you come in and the shop is untidy, it's probably because we're in the middle of getting ready for a photo shoot, fashion show or craft fair to raise awareness of the shop. There's no excuse if it's dirty, obviously, but we all do our best.

Anyway, I'm rambling, and it probably seems like I'm going for that sympathy vote again. I think the point I'm trying to make is that the post about the banners being stolen wasn't written as a sympathy vote - it was written for information.

If there are any more questions, I'll gladly answer - I'm not the official spokeperson, but I care about the shop, and I'm online a lot.