the biz!

I'm not great at the business part of my crafting. I've been organising craft fairs a couple of times a year for about 3 years now, and have managed to make a small profit from the table fees each time, mostly because I managed to hire the venue for free. But this time I'm paying for the venue, and although it's a small charge I've also spent a lot on posters and flyers, and have had to buy some more tables because of a muddle-up, and I've kept table fees low, so I'm going to be paying from my own pocket to put on a craft fair. Eeek. That makes no business sense at all. I hope I sell some wares!

It's also the start of a new business year. I did a tax return last year (for the year before last) for the first time, and made very little profit after all the costs of materials and paying for tables at fairs. I've already done all my paperwork for last year's tax return and am happy to see that I've made considerably more (despite making a loss over the last few months because of this coming craft fair!). If the dream of crafting as a part-time job is to come true then I'll have to get a lot more savvy about profits, and more specifically about pricing. If I'm brutally honest with myself I know that my pricing is all off. I price items according to what I think they're worth/what I'd pay for them. But really I should cost up materials and the time it takes me. And when I do that it becomes obvious that I'm paying myself about £2-3 per hour for labor. I'm not planning on upping my prices at the moment as I don't want my stuff to be over-priced, but it's on the cards in the future. Maybe I could change prices according to where I'm selling items...for example at somes types of fairs I know that low pricing works, but other fairs would suit a slightly higher pricing, and maybe I could experiment with adding £1 to my etsy shop items to see how it effects things. With baby on the way etsy is going to be my sole selling avenue for a while (apart from a couple of brick and mortar shop who sell my items), so I want to get it right.

Money money money!