JewelleryDragon

To craft or not to craft? That is the question, and perhaps here are some answers.

2014-04-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

So you want to do your jewellery hobby for a living? Reasons to think again...or give you food for thought.

I ran a jewellery business for three years, and have only just given it up. I found it was not a good experience, and it cost me a lot of money. So before you give up your job and start spending, I would suggest you read this post, and give it some thought. Perhaps you can see where I went wrong and use this post as a list of what not to do! But I just hope you think about this all very carefully. I’ve added as much detail as I can.

My first mistake may have been starting all this in the worst recession for a generation (2010). But for the record this is why I stopped doing it:

· Money wise, it was a leaking tap. I never made enough to cover all my costs, leaving me no cash to spend.

· Time-wise, it took it all. I wanted to create different pieces that took a long time, so weren’t commercially viable.

· I hated craft fairs with a passion.

· I resented giving away 50% of the price of an item to have it in a shop.

· I hate paperwork.

· No-one visited the website.

· I got bored spending money on gemstones for standard jewellery, them making the pieces.

· I like some pieces a little too much, and resented selling them. So often I would take them for myself!

· I priced myself out of the market.

· I could not get over the things that needed to be in place for a sale. The person had to be looking for a similar piece/like it very much, they had to be there at that time I was selling it and see it, it had to fit/be the right colour/style, and they had to have the money needed to buy. So often I got ‘do you have that in red/silver/beaded/cheaper/’.

· However, what finally made me crack was the unprofessionalism and incompetence of the people running the craft fairs. More on that later.

Don't give up your day job

Don't give up your day job. Really, don't. You might think you'll make lots of money, and you might. But if you are in a job then you need to keep it until you reach a point where you are ready to commit full time.

This means a lot of work. One of the reasons why I gave up the business was that I had no time to do the jewellery making I actually wanted to do, I spent my spare time making pieces I hoped would sell instead of making experimental art pieces, and paperwork. When I managed to make experimental pieces, they would languish on the website, or take up space on the stall as they were too high-end for my market, yet that was what I wanted to do.

Now I wasn’t looking at this as a full-time job. I wanted to build something that when I retired, I could use to have an extra income. And I could have continued to lose money and try to build the business, except that I lost heart.

But if your serious about giving up your job, then your next question need to be, how much do I need to sustain myself? Ten grand a year? Twenty? You need to look carefully at your spending and consider:

· Mortgage/rent for your home

· Food

· Bills: electricity/gas/TV/council tax/repairs…

· Spending money for clothes/coffee/nights out etc

· National insurance

· Personal tax

But before you can draw a wage, you have to consider your business running costs. My costs, for a web and craft fair business included:

· Insurance

· Address

· Website hosting, Development, Checkout

· Email addresses

· Photography

· Advertising (web)

· Physical re-direct address

· Car/van

· Petrol

· Craft fair rent

· Costs of making the item

· Business taxes

So finally, how much of a margin do you have on each item? 50%? How many items at £5 do you need to sell to make enough to cover your costs, and have a wage?

If you create a spreadsheet that shows you the costs and profits you would expect, then you are half-way to a business plan. I would advise that you do create one, and dig deeply into the costs, as it may just save you money, time, and frustration.

There is a tipping point for a business when you go from servicing your costs, to making a profit. That tipping point can be tiny, and if you look at the accounts for most businesses, they are in the red most of the year until Christmas, then they suddenly make all their money, and that decides if they can trade for another year. That’s why so many go down in January/February, they didn’t make enough to survive another year.

I’ll go deeper into the costs in the accounting section.

Unrelated, but pertinent example

My boyfriend and I looked into opening a café, or a chocolate shop. We banded around figures for a long time, getting more and more confused about what things would make and what our margins would be until I turned to him and said, 'Just how much would you need to live off in a year to be comfortable and make this worth it?'

He thought for a moment, and in the end we agreed on £20,000. This was for our living costs, mind, nothing else. I said to him: 'Ok, so let’s say we made £1 for every chocolate bar we sold. How many do we have to sell to reach twenty grand?' Well, the answer of course, is 20,000. (The margins on even posh chocolate is nowhere near £1, by the way).

So, about 54 bars a day, assuming we opened every day of the year. 6 bars an hour, roughly. Realistically though, at least three times that amount.

Then add on to that: £20,000 a year rent, business rates, insurance, staff cots, electricity, gas, water...

So let’s say six times the estimate I gave. 36 bars an hour? A bar every 30 seconds? Or a coffee?

So that was the end of that. There are plenty of successful businesses out there, but I honestly have little idea how they make money on a rainy Monday!

Competition

You have to consider just how many outlets there are competing for your potential customer’s money. Of course this is not just at the craft fair, but the high street and Internet.

For example, there are charms companies out there that can charge tens of pounds for silver items that must cost them pounds to make…but they can do it because they have the brand that people want. The create that desire that makes people spend stupid amounts. I walked past a store in the January sales, and people were queuing out the door to buy these charms!

Then there are shopping channels. They sell pieces often a low prices. Perhaps they are not always of the best quality, but the standards have improved. Why should someone shop from you?

Every major jewellery brand will usually change the WHOLE collection every season as well, with some staples that are always there. I couldn’t do this as turn-over of the pieces wasn’t great enough. This is a competitive advantage for them as they can move with the fashions. I have often wondered what that charm company I mentioned earlier will do when that style is out. As of writing major trends include macramé and charm bracelets. As a child of the 1970’s I can just about remember macramé as a huge trend that covered everything from pot holders to jewellery, but disappeared from the mainstream. Same for charm bracelets, they were really huge up until the mid-eighties/nineties when suddenly no-one wore them. Agreed the current trends are far more sophisticated, but you do have to be careful of being trapped in a discipline that vanishes as trends move on.

So you have to really consider what you are bringing that will be new and different enough to encourage people to spend with you, and not at a competitor. As hard as it may be to look at websites of gorgeous jewellery and window shop (ha, ha), it’s worth doing.

And check out the competition at craft fairs too…

However, there is one other area you have major competition from. Why are you starting this business? Because you’ve got a hobby you want to expand on? Well, you’re not the only one. Jewellery making is very popular. I can’t count the amount of people that came to the stall and look…but were making jewellery themselves. We would have a conversation, but there would be no sale. Time and time again I would discuss jewellery making with people (and other jewellery stall holders—they tended to love my work!), but not make money. Part of the issue is that the type of jewellery making I do is relatively simple, even the wire-work is very accessible. So why should someone buy from you if they can make it themselves? That’s actually my criteria on buying jewellery now, can I make it myself? Yes? Well why buy it? People who created pieces that were soldered, cast, etc, were much rarer.

So you are not only up against big multinationals with a brand that is well known, you are up against the hobbyists too.

Accounting Costs

The boring part. But the essential part. If you are serious about making jewellery for a living, you will need to pay taxes. A lot of crafters I encountered clearly did not pay taxes. Now I can’t condone that sort of activity, but will leave you with the thought that if you get caught, it will mean a lot of trouble.

Paying taxes may mean you require an accountant, although you can do tax returns without one. The advantage of an accountant is that they can help you work out profit and loss, and see where you can add deductions. The disadvantage is that they cost. I had one as my affairs were a little more complex than just the jewellery business.

Paying taxes also means PAPERWORK! Hurrah! Now I will explain this in simple terms, however the actual tax rules are complex. But this will give you an idea of the importance of costs and receipts. Excuse the language I use, I’m pretty sure it’s not correct.

Takings - manufacturing costs - Business costs = profit

Profit is then taxable. If you are a sole trader what is left is your income.

Limited company vs. Sole trader

Ok, so I’ve raised the idea of a sole trader. That means that you are responsible for the costs and debts of the business. If you create a limited company, then the company is responsible for the debts. So if you end up £50,000 in debt and you are a sole trader, they can take your house. If you are a limited company, the company’s assets are up for grabs, and not yours. Take advice on this matter as it does depend on your circumstances. However, I will assume most people are sole traders.

Business expenses

As I have said previously, a business comes with a lot of expenses. I’ll give you an idea of what they were for me over the course of one financial year (the year I closed the business) so you have an idea of what to expect. All costs are for 2013/14

· Insurance: This was crafters insurance. I didn’t reach their minimum takings to insure, but they did so any way. This was about £55.

· Address: As we did jewellery, we decided to get a postal address that was not our own. This cost around £150 a year.

· Website hosting/registration: I was my own developer, so hosting was my main cost. The more visitors you have to a site, the more it will cost you. It cost me around £200.

· Email addresses: The majority were free, but had limited storage space. However, I needed at least one that was capable of accepting a lot of emails, so I upgraded. This was around £18 a year.

· Advertising (web): Think of a number and double it. We managed to only spend around £100 by saving deals, (see Selling: Advertising).

· Business cards: I spent around £120 for quality cards. I bought a large stack just before I gave up the business. Ah well.

· Car/van/petrol/tax/insurance/repairs: I have a car, but you may find you need one. Cars are not an allowable business expense, you claim mileage instead. I did well over a thousand miles in a year, and that was about two fairs a month.

· Craft fair rent: Around £600 for one year.

· Parking at fairs: Around £120 for 21 fairs.

· Raw materials: This was out of control for me. As I was doing badly I would leap on things that I thought would ‘make money’. I spent over two grand on the last year, although quite a large chunk of that was on silver and precious gemstones, much of which I have kept. However, I have lost a lot of money when reselling gemstones etc I couldn’t see me using in the future.

· Accountant: £500.

So far this is a cost of £1863 (not including raw materials). I can’t see many opportunities to cut costs either. Cheaper business cards? Not advertise on Google? Well, perhaps. But these are items that a web and craft fair business need, surely?

However, you then have to consider setup costs. The costs above are simply running costs. However, when you start, there is a lot to consider:

· Website development: £250 to…well, what do you want? Mine was free as I can code, but you need to consider that there may be additional changes needed. See Selling: Website.

· Craft fair set-up: I made a lot of mistakes in buying for the craft fairs. See Selling: Craft fairs for a breakdown. But I think I spent around £1000 in getting kitted out in what I thought I needed, and re-buying things that weren’t right. I think it’s called valuable experience…

· Envelopes/packaging: If you have a website, you have to send things out in professional packaging. Make sure you have a variety to cover all sizes. This was another £50 as I bought in bulk to make it ‘cheaper’. Hardly used them, so now we have enough packaging to last years!

· Computer/printer: You may have one. Costs obviously vary, I should image £1000 would get you enough equipment to get started.

· Photographic equipment: I have a lovely camera that cost me £200, and does the job. You need a macro lens

· Hallmark: This cost me around £100 to start. Then you pay for each hallmark.

So for the set-up costs (assuming a cheap website cost) you could spend around £2600.

I have also assumed that you have everything you need to make jewellery, and some stock. If not, well I would spend as little as possible to build up a small amount to begin with. I had a lot of stock because I had been making for years, but still bought like there was no tomorrow. Bad mistake.

The best piece of advice I can give you? Don’t go into debt to fund this. The second best piece of advice is: if you must, don’t do it on your credit card.

Also, don’t' spend money on expensive tat just because people think you should have it. I bought a trademark for the business as I hoped it would take off and become an asset. But it's now useless, and unsellable.

Record keeping

I created a spreadsheet to contain my invoices. An example is below, and is the format recommended by my accountant. I added a description column to help me find things, but I wish I had been much more explicit in the descriptions as it would have save a lot of time. I also kept every email and receipt associated with any cost. These need to be kept for at least six years, although the gemstone and findings receipts technically never expire until you have used and sold very item on the invoice. So I would keep those for as long as you can.

Every time has a reference number, that you need to write on the top of each invoice/receipt. Which means you do need to print out every receipt email you receive. Mine followed the following format: JD (JewelleryDragon) 13 (year) – 01 (the first invoice of the year).

Each invoice is broken down into the categories. Mine may not be right, I didn’t get any feedback on them, but it gives you an idea.

Just remember, Capital Expenditure are things like equipment, and Raw Materials, finds, beads etc. If you buy a chasing hammer and some earring findings on the same invoice, in the spreadsheet you need to put the cost of the hammer in the Capital Expenditure column, and the findings cost in the Raw Materials column. The total should add up at the end.

Reference
(write on receipt)

Date

Description

Amount

Capital Allowances

Hallmarking

Raw Materials

Packaging

Postage

PayPal /
Ebay Fees

Marketing

Mileage

Website

Insurance

Address

Craft fairs

Misc

Total

JD13-48

01/04/2013

Mileage to fair (Bolton Abbey) 54 miles @.40p

£21.16

£21.16

JD13-49

03/04/2013

Necklace cords

£10.52

£10.52

JD13-50

05/04/2013

Elastic

£3.92

£3.92

JD13-51

07/04/2013

Postage for JDS13-08

£3.00

£3.00

JD13-52

05/04/2013

Ebay fees for JDS13-08

£2.10

£2.10

JD13-53

06/04/2013

Paypal fees for JDS13-08

£1.25

£1.25

JD13-54

07/04/2013

Business cards

£27.00

£27.00

JD13-55

09/04/2013

Moonstone

£6.98

£6.98

JD13-56

09/04/2013

Quartz

£4.70

£4.70

JD13-57

09/04/2013

Google ads

£2.86

£2.86

Making

Making is the fun part, right? That’s when you get to show your creativity and enjoy your hobby. Except it’s no longer a hobby, it’s a business. Cool. So now you get to do what you love and make money!

One of the first things you have to consider before taking this plunge is if you items are commercial enough to sell. Now it's fine if 'all your friends love your jewellery', but when faced with selling to the general public, you have to consider so much more. For a start:

1. You friends may not be telling the truth. They might hate your stuff! Do they actually wear your jewellery?

2. They are your friends, so they could have the same tastes as you. Not everyone likes the same things.

3. What market are you going for? Or, to put it another way, does your jewellery fit your price point?

4. How robust are your pieces?

5. How unique are you?

Market

Who are you making for? There are all kinds of market out there, and you have to consider who you are targeting with your jewellery as the branding and how you display and package your pieces could change. It will also affect your prices, as a teenager may not be able to pay £30 for a necklace in silver, but will pay £3 for a plated piece.

Some markets you might fit into:

· Men

· Children

· Teenagers

· ‘Older’ ladies who may want something larger and louder

· Professional women (I’m thinking office workers who might want subtle, classy jewellery. This was my market)

· Stay at home mums

· Twenty-somethings looking for cheap go out in jewellery

And so on. You can sub-divide each market into ages, professions etc, and some will overlap. There will always be exceptions to the rule, but mostly I would consider how to package things.

I would always suggest that whatever your market you create a range for all pockets. Just bias it towards the end of the market you are aiming for. So professional women you might consider mostly having expensive pieces, with a small range of lower priced items as entry level for your collection. Teenagers? Mostly inexpensive, with a few costly pieces thrown in, just in case.

Sizing

I’m a standard sized human with small wrists (I wasn’t always, but that’s another story!). However, you have to consider that most humans are not exactly the same size as you. Ok, that’s a really obvious point, but you need to take that into account when designing your jewellery.

How long are your necklaces? Do they extend? Can you transfer the pendant to another chain? What about bracelets? Earrings seem ok, but can they be added to clip-ons? Do you want to go that route (clip-on findings are very expensive)?

I didn’t do this at first, but once it was pointed out to me that most humans couldn’t wear the pieces I was wearing, I took steps to add extender chains into most of my pieces, and redesign some so they could be put on longer chains if required. It’s worth considering, even if you just sell extender chains on your website, which to be honest would put me off buying a piece as they don’t look good, and make you feel fat.

Seasonal

You also need to consider how seasonal you want to be. Now I will make, buy and wear ‘out of season’ jewellery if I like it. But some people won’t.

So do you want a seasonal collection? As I said, most jewellery houses will change the whole collection each season. You can perhaps just change your display to suit the time of year.

Sourcing

Sourcing is dependent on your market. Going for hipster teenage chic? Perhaps that emerald strand at £70 isn’t for you. Professional woman? Shrink plastic might be out. Of course there are exceptions. But there is no point in creating a piece that you can’t sell because it’s too expensive for your target audience.

So this is where you need to shop smart. You need to find beads that are cheap enough to make money, but good enough quality for your market. I’m useless at this as I always go high-quality and my market just wasn’t buying. But if you have a piece of mine, chances are it’s worth far more than you paid for it!

When you buy, you need to consider the breakdown of each strand you buy. How many gems do you get? How many do you need for that project/earrings/whatever? And consider the strand as a whole. So fine, there is one pair of gems you love and can make a great pair of earrings. Means nothing if the rest are poor quality. Try to count the gems you would use, and divide the cost of the strand. SO if 20 are excellent and its £10, then they are 50p each. But if only 10 are any use, they rise to £1 each. That could be the difference between success and failure.

Buying online is fine, but you need to trust your buyer. I have ordered pieces from India before, don’t’ forget you pay import taxes on most items over £12, and that can be a huge amount. You can go to the source as well and buy direct in India and Sri-Lanka, but you need deep pockets to do that!

Wholesalers can be a good option, they tend to need a first order that is over a certain threshold, or some other qualifying factor. The local one for us asks for a minimum £300 order for your first time. I haven’t yet been… the advantage of that is you are seeing and choosing what you buy. The disadvantage is you are paying for that privilege. But no reason why you can’t price-compare.

There are also shows that specialise in gemstones. These are great, but can be very expensive. I would again recommend price-comparing before buying. I’ve attended them before, but found what I bought was more impulsive than needed, and therefore ended up being wasted.

I have never bought from craft stores. Too expensive.

Finally we come to the new source, television. There are a few craft channels on Freeview, satellite, cable etc. One is actually quite watchable, with fun presenters, demos, competitions… but you have to be so careful with them. They are sales channels, and they want you to spend as much money with them as they possibly can. Now I’m not saying they don’t do good beads, or that their findings are inferior, I’ve had some strands that were amazingly good value. However, I’ve sent more back than I have kept, but I am fussy.

No, what worries me about these shows is the pressure they put you under. The auctions are live. The presenter is counting down the available strands, while telling you just how precious/rare etc they are. Or how they are no longer been mined. The prices are possibly about to rise. Silver will double in price. Pearls are not being farmed at the rate they once were. You get the idea. A designer stands there and agrees with what the presenter tells you, and tell you just how they would use this precious item. Now there is nothing wrong with this. But it does stop you from thinking. You go straight to buy mode because your brain doesn’t want to miss out on this great deal. They want you to panic because they know once you get the strand, you're more likely to keep it.

They also force you to watch as the prices only go down when live, and for specific times. You have moments to decide if you want something, so you're more likely to impulse buy, and less likely to price compare. They also are constantly reinforcing their connection to you by making it feel like a family, encouraging you to text in and reading names of people who buy, making you feel as though you 'belong' to a community. You have to remember that these are actors brought in to sell although they can be charming people, and the shows fun to watch, just be aware they are doing everything possible to persuade you to buy.
So if you watch, do it with your head, and not your heart. Do you have a use for it? Is it exactly what you wanted? And please don’t fund this on your credit card. Been there! And it’s not much fun…

Oh, and most have a 30 day money back guarantee. MAKE USE OF IT. If you don’t love the strand, don’t keep it. Yes, a ‘stash’ is a good idea, but think about how much you are encouraged to ‘buy for later’. This is not to help you. This helps them move stock. If you can’t see a future use for something now, are you really ever going to use it? Keep in mind just how much value you are getting from the strand. Don’t forget you will pay postage to return it.

And one last thing. Price compare EVERYTHING. But keep in mind that they can offer you a meter of silver wire for £X, and that may be a competitive price, but most wholesalers will give you a discount when you buy more. So is it worth it?

Also, you do need to tell customers if any of the gems used have been treated. So if they are natural, dyed, heat treated, irradiated, and so on. This will cover you legally if they later find out the gems have been treated. Be aware that a lot are treated, and it can be difficult to find out how they have been treated.

Costing

The most important factor to consider is pricing. It is no good creating a piece that cost you £100 if people will only pay £20 for it. Perceived value is so very important. Part of my issue was that although I was working with precious metals, people did not want to pay for it. I was in the wrong locations at craft fairs, so people did not want to pay for what they thought was ‘junk’ jewellery as that was what they were expecting.

I would recommend costing a piece up before you make it. See if it would come out at a price that makes you money.

You will also have to consider packaging for every piece. If you create an elaborate necklace, do you have a box to fit it in without squashing? You may be ok with reshaping it each time, but I bet your customers won’t be! So you need to make sure that the boxes not only fit the items, but reflect your prices and branding.

So when you cost up an item, you need to cost everything, down to the smallest bead and scrap of wire. This can be impossible when you have a strand of beads, a twelve bead strand is easy, a 15” strand of seed beads is impossible! This is where the good old ‘guestimate’ comes in.

I created a spreadsheet that broke down the cost so that I could enter the amount of beads and get a costing back. Each strand was referenced back to the accounting spreadsheet by the invoice number. Each item I made had their own number (E for earrings, N for necklace etc) so I could identify where findings had been used.

The spreadsheet used formulas to calculate the price of each bead, the amount left, etc.

Each time you use something, you need to record it. I found it was easier to have the computer open and record as I made, or for larger pieces I would write down on a piece of paper the invoice, number, and even item type.

Item	Used	Cost	I#	JD Item	Total Used	Type	Total Quantity Left	Unit	Quantity	Total Cost	Cost per quantity	Postage	VAT Rate
Ruby zoisite	6	£1.25	JD13-86a	N111, e195	20	Gem	33	Each	53	£10.34	£0.21	£0.74	100%
925 Sterling Silver 25 Head Pins 50 mm	2	£0.48	JD13-81	E195, e224, e226,	6	Silver	44	Each	50	£11.48	£0.24	£0.48	100%
Sterling Silver Hook Wire	2	£0.86	JD13-02	e216, e221,	20	Silver	20	Each	40	£14.28	£0.43		120%

In this example, there are the following columns:

· Item: A description of the beads. Be precise, if you have lots of ‘purple agate beads’ differentiate between them so you don’t get mixed up as I did!

· Used: The amount you used for the piece.

· Cost: The total cost of the number of beads specified in the Used column. This is a calculation based on Used/Cost per quantity.

· I#: The invoice number.

· JD Item: The item I created. So E22195 in this example. As there are multiple findings and beads, so I recorded each item I made. One problem with Excel is it tends to suggest text for the cell, which can pollute your record if you’re not careful! I cut down the amount of items shown as it was a little much.

· Total Used: This is the total amount used so far. This had to be manually calculated (so what I used added to the previous use).

· Type: The type of finding, gemstone, silver, etc. I included this to help me filter the spreadsheet.

· Total Quantity Left: The Quantity minus the Total Used. You can use this to help stock check.

· Quantity: The amount of findings you started with.

· Unit: The amount ‘1’ represents, so each, a pair, a centimetre, etc. This was just for reference as some earrings were sold singly, or as a pair, for example, and some items were inches rather than centimetres.

· Total Cost: The amount the beads cot to buy, not including postage.

· Cost per quantity: A complex little equation that basically is the Total Cost / Quantity X VAT Rate + Postage / Quantity. This gives you the cost of each bead including the VAT and postage.

· Postage: The percentage of postage for that item. So if I bought three things, I divided the postage into three.

· VAT Rate: The VAT Rate for the item. I only used this for trade items that came with VAT calculated against the total, and not the individual items. In Excel this had to be a percentage, so 100% is actually no VAT, 120% is 20% VAT etc.

I then used this to create a costing for each piece. These had their own tab in an Excel spreadsheet.

Ruby Zoisite Graduated Drop Earrings	E22195
Type	Quantity	Cost	Invoice
Ruby zoisite	6	£1.25	JD13-86a
925 Sterling Silver 25 Head Pins 50 mm	2	£0.48	JD13-81
Sterling Silver Hook Wire	2	£0.86	JD13-02
Luxury Organza Bags [Mixed , 10x15cm , 50 ]	1	£0.10	JD12-48
Total		£2.69	Total cost of the piece to make.
Price		£10.00	The price I expected to get.
Cost price		£5.00	The price I wanted from the shop I sold pieces through.
Postage			I added this in for pieces that went above my 'free postage' limit.
Shop profit		£2.31	The profit I would make at that price in the shop.
Profit		£7.31	The profit I would make selling this piece through the website / craft fair.

As you can see I had a ‘trade’ price, and a website/craft fair price. As I could see just how much it cost me to make, I could quickly work out if it was too highly priced, or if I wanted to give a discount, how much I could give.

I also added in an organza bag. I had three levels of packaging, organza bags for items under £20, leatherette for under £150, and wooden boxes for over £150. The wood boxes were up to £15 each, quite a cost compared to £2.50 for leatherette!

Costing Beyond Costs

However, costing is not just about how much it costs to make. There is also the amount of time it takes to make. The above example perhaps took five minutes, a simple pair of earrings.

But what of a piece that took months of evenings, as some of my more elaborate pieces do? That includes not only silver, but emeralds, diamonds, rubies, sapphires? What then?

Well, that’s where the art of this comes in. This Is where I could never get it right. Basically you have to objectively look at the piece and decide just how much you think it’s worth, how much you are willing to let it go for, and what you think people will pay for it.

I let a lot of things go too cheap. I know that. I should have stuck to my guns and left the prices at the level I started with, at least for the more unusual bits.

For the more standard bits though, I started too high. In the end I was reducing prices just to try to get people to buy things, and even offered massive discounts just to clear stock towards the end.

However, what you have to remember are all those costs you have. The £1863 just to keep running? Your wages? Advertising? Don’t forget, until you have covered all your costs, you don’t get paid. So you have to make sure you build that into your costings. You should always have an idea of what an item costs you to sell it.

One other curious thing about costing: round up numbers for luxury items. £50 sounds classier than £49.99. And you need less change!

Wearability

You have to consider that the people who are going to wear this jewellery may not be as careful as you. I've created 'rosary chain' bracelets for myself for years, and never had an issue. However I had one returned to me for replacement after a year's wear. Now I have no idea how she managed to break it, but she did.

I also created a chain link bracelet and necklace set and sold the bracelet. The lady managed to break it the first time she wore it, although I had worn the exact same one several times before (I decided I didn't wear it, so decided to see if it would sell...). Turns out that the bracelet was actually quite easy to pull apart, and caused me to not only abandon several pieces, but stop doing that style all together. I remade the piece for the lady using oval rather than round links as they were much more solid, but it cost me a lot of money. I had also abandoned several other pieces that I realised were too fragile, and may not stand up to wear.

As I sculpt pieces using wire, I made sure they were all well-finished. But a certain craft TV channel often shows pieces that look distinctly unfinished with bits of wire/beading thread sticking out. These have the potential to be uncomfortable to wear, but also may damage clothing. You must be cautious as although you may put up with these things your customers may not understand. This could both lose you custom, and gain you a bad reputation.

You also need to consider just how wearable a piece is. Again, certain craft channels create these elaborate pieces with sticking out wire, and look as though a little bit of hard wear would twist them out of shape, and they would snag on clothing . Now this makes me uncomfortable, as I wouldn’t want to give a customer a piece that I feel would be difficult to wear, or that could break, or again snag clothing, just because of the design. Most of your customers will want simple, easy to wear pieces. For example, I found many customers did not understand or like the ‘lock’ type of clasp, and were confused by a tube clasp. They understood bolt ring and lobster clasps, and were reluctant to accept anything else.

Hallmarking

If you are creating sterling silver or gold pieces, you need to have them hallmarked if you intend to sell, and they are over the prescribed weight.

This is an easy, but expensive process. You need to register with your chosen assay office (mine was Sheffield, I wanted a Yorkshire stamp), which involves a fee, then pay for a stamp. I would ask for advice, but mine was a tiny size so it could be stamped anywhere. I actually used small silver tags to hold my hallmarks that could be branded.

You also need to display the hallmark notice to inform your customers of what they are buying. Last time I printed it out it needed to be A4 size. You also need one for your work area, even if you do not intend to have customers call at your house/business.

Commissions

Take into account:

· How much it costs you to buy the findings and gemstones now, the price may have gone up.

· If they saw a similar item and want you to make another for them, take into account the cost of that item.

· Hallmarking. Singles items would cost at least £30.

· Postage.

· Adjustments: if you are paying or they are. Chances are you will.

Selling

You’ve made the jewellery, now you need to sell it. There are multiple outlets to sell items, the most obvious being the Internet.

And don’t rely on relatives. At craft fairs my mother would always buy something. Which was lovely, but I discounted it when I was looking at sales figures. Why? Because your relatives will support you. Again, they might have the same taste as you. They are not ‘true’ feedback, or sales, or…

But don’t expect to open your doors and people to flood in to buy. They won’t even know you exist unless you already have a massive following. Even then 1000 Facebook ‘likes’ is supposed to only generate one sale…

Website

You don't need a website to start with if you are doing craft fairs. Perhaps a page with contact details, but websites can be expensive if you don't know how to do your own. I handed out thousands of business cards to people 'who would buy off the site later'. I'm still waiting. And the hit rate to cards given out? Tiny.

I would suggest that if you don't have the ability to do your own website, try Etsy to start off with. EBay tends to be useless as people are expecting to pay nothing, and the standing fees are expensive, especially if you are a business seller. Etsy is at least cheap to use.

Make sure your prices on the craft fair stall/other outlets match your website. This is important if you have people who return to your site after seeing you at a craft fair, you can’t just double the price online.

If you must have a website, make sure whomever is developing it gives you the code. This is not always possible, but if they go under it could cost you to redevelop. You need access to the server, although I would suggest you have your own hosting solution. You must be able to easily add products.

It you are writing your own site, then can I recommend PayPal buttons, which allows you to have a basket, checkout and take payments, but were a pain to maintain, and they are not integrated into the site. But they are free. And add Google analytics.

You should also think about a mobile website. Even just a page linking to your Etsy account. But this is the future, apparently.

Every item on your website needs:

· Photos. As many as possible.

· Measurements. Length of chain and of the pendant/dangle etc.

· Materials. Be honest. But say if it’s sterling silver, tell them what the gems are.

· Price. MAKE THIS VERY VISIBLE!

· Postage cost for that item.

You must expect returns with a website. I did get a few, which is difficult. Ah well.

Also, be aware that you are under distance trading regulations when you sell on the web.

In summary:

· Earrings must be returnable.

· You have to pay all postage and item costs if the customer contacts you or returns the item within 7 days.

· You need an address, landline phone number, and terms and conditions on the website.

· You must state if the customer is to pay return postage.

· Goods do not have to be returned in a saleable condition. So, out of packaging. Broken. Changed. Bits missing.

· You must send a refund before the goods are returned.

See https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses and http://dshub.tradingstandards.gov.uk/dsrexplained for more info.

Photography

Photographs are vital for your website/Etsy account. Good photographs are required. If you can’t take good photographs, you almost may as well not bother, because bad photos will put all but the most determined (ie a relative) off.

You must make sure that whatever camera you use has a macro function at the very least (or macro lens). You must invest in a digital camera, but avoid using your phone camera unless you have no choice as the images will not be as good. My camera cost around £200, but you can probably pick up a reasonable camera for less, especially second hand.

My camera was a Fujifilm FinePix S9600 Digital Camera (9.0MP, 10.7x Optical Zoom), but I also got ok results from my little camera, a Panasonic Lumix TZ10 Digital Camera (12.1MP, 12x Optical Zoom).

I can only recommend that you get a photo cube to take your photos with. You do need strong lights to go with it, but it just helps to give your pieces even lighting. I originally bought a smaller, cheaper version of my current cube, and smaller lights. However the results were not great, and I only got really amazing photos using this set up:

Lights: PhotoSEL LS-12E42T 5400K Studio Tabletop Lighting Kit with 2x55w CRI>90 Bulbs

Tent: 80cm x 80cm / 32" x 32" Photo Studio Box (Softbox) Plus + 4 Backdrops Black Red Blue White

Now I mostly stick to the white backdrop, but occasionally the coloured ones come in handy. All products were bought from Amazon.

I also had a lot of glassware and other items to photograph the jewellery on. So vases, glasses, plates, an earring stand, a fake hand and torso! I found the torso helped to show the items in context (although not earrings) and a wig gave an extra touch. I used both the hand and torso because I didn’t want to try to photograph myself all the time (necklaces are a nightmare) as I couldn’t be sure I would look good enough (scars on hands, redness, veins, wrinkles…etc!). Photoshop is great if you want to touch up little bits, but not so cool if you have to edit an entire person.

Speaking of which, I used Paint Shop Pro, an excellent tool for removing little blemishes, hairs, etc that appeared in the final photo.

I also used it to reduce the size of the images. If you are hosting the website, make sure you do not publish the full-size images as it will affect your costs. Take the photos in the highest resolution possible, but reduce the size on a copy for the website. And keep the original! You never know when you might need an image for a poster, leaflet, etc.

Postage

Just an additional note on posting items. A lot of parcel companies will not insure jewellery, so check the small print before you send.

If you are using Royal Mail, then only Next Day Delivery is insurable for jewellery. You are wasting your time and money with any other service.

So you have to make a calculation. With Next Day Delivery you can find out what happened to a parcel, but not with most of the others. So is the cost of the item worth the huge price? I tended to only post items over £20 Next Day as it was too costly.

Oh, and you’re not supposed to pass the cost of insuring the item on to the customer (distance selling again!), so technically you should only make them pay for posting the item. I didn’t, they paid less to post small items, nearly the cost of Next Day delivery for mid-priced items, and free for items over £75. When I costed all my items I made sure they included the highest rate of postage yet still made money—that way I could be sure. However that didn’t work for the cheapest items, so I had to abandon that idea for them.

Shops

My pieces were pitched at the wrong point, not impulse buy, but a considered purchase. Fine on a website, but as I couldn't drive people to the web, that left either a shop, or craft fairs. As I clearly wasn’t about to open my own shop, I approached a local art shop that I knew carried jewellery.

Now the shop took a 50% cut of the final price. This meant that I could either double my prices form the website, or cut my profit right down.

The shop also required endless new things. I would go in with a selection of items, and they would reject about half. But if something didn't sell, they didn't want to try it again later, not even a year later, it was out for them. If something of a type didn't sell, they didn't want to know. Not that I blame them, but the endless desire for new things meant I was making jewellery for them to keep up, and when they rejected the pieces it meant I was out the cost of those items, things I would have never made otherwise. This increased my stock greatly.

You also have to consider the type of shop you sell through. This was a general gift/framing shop who sold jewellery, but the ladies were pretty clueless. For example, I used to give them notes about what each piece was. A lady enquired about a red garnet necklace I had for sale, and if I could do it in black. The lady at the shop told her that 'it may be a different price as that necklace is made with rubies'. When she told me that later when she was asking if I could do the necklace in black, I almost died on the spot. Red=rubies? They also failed to understand what a lot of the jewellery was, so the effort and gems I put into them were wasted really.

When I priced the items to sell that meant I actually made some money, they didn’t sell. So l I kept reducing my prices down to the bone, so in the end I was being paid nothing for my work. This is not the way to run a business, I did it to clear stock.

I can’t see any way around this, unless you find someone with a smaller margin, but they have to run a store, heating, electricity, credit card machines... Each time I sold through them I felt as though I was being ripped off, I was never happy. As my partner reminded me, the commission they took was the equivalent to the cost of advertising. That was true, but it was a bitter pill all the same.

Craft fairs

The craft fairs were difficult as I could not find one with enough footfall where people had money. A credit card machine did not help at all, although this was during the economic downturn, so people had little to spare. But people would agonise over a £5 pendant. Or complain I was too expensive for the same pendant.

I could not get over the things that needed to be in place for a sale. The person had to be looking for a similar piece/like it very much, they had to be there at that time I was selling it and see it, it had to fit/be the right colour/style, and they had to have the money needed to buy. So often I got ‘do you have that in red/silver/beaded/cheaper/’. Which I didn’t, of course. I occasionally made pieces when people asked about certain styles, not to order, just because I thought they might sell. They didn’t.

I also found the people running the fairs to be exasperatingly unprofessional in the main. One in particular was horrific. I would have to nag for receipts (required for the tax man!), and in one occasion she cancelled a craft fair I had booked for. I only found out when I tried to pay her, it turns out she had cancelled the fair so she could run another in York. Problem was, this was close to Christmas, and a fair I had thought would be profitable. The fair she did replace it with was one I had been trying to get on, but as she never told us stallholders what was going on, I didn’t manage to get on one. I asked if she had space on the York fair, but she didn’t, she’d booked it up. When I realised I had lost a possibly profitable fair and was not able to book the other one, I lost it. I decided that I could no longer work with these people any more, and did not want to keep doing the craft fairs. What she should have done, of course, was inform everyone booked on the fair she was changing the venue, and offer a space to us at the new venue. Some people would have done this. Ah well.

If you want to do craft fairs, this is what you should consider:

Insurance

Don’t forget you will need insurance for public liability. This is very important as it not only covers your stock, but means if someone hurts themselves while using your product, you are covered. The fair should have liability for the customers anyway, but I think you get covered for that. However it’s always making sure you are as safe as possible (no trailing wires or table covers).

Go to the fairs

Before you even buy a thing, go to the fairs you are intending to sell at. Ideally, do this for as many of them as you can go to, talk to stall holders, talk to the organisers, see what the footfall is…ok, no-one will ever do that. I didn’t.

But at least try to visit once, or at least ask the organisers:

· How many of my type of stalls are there going to be?

· Is there a limit to the amount of (jewellery) stalls you will have, and what is it?

· Are there established (jewellery) businesses that go on a regular basis, and what do they sell?

· Is it all handmade? What percentage of the stalls make their own pieces?

· Is there power available?

· What’s your average footfall?

· Any good dates you can recommend?

· How big is the venue?

· How many stalls are there?

· Do you charge for entry?

· Parking?

· How far are we from the main town centre?

· Where will I be in the venue?

Check out the location on Google maps if you can’t visit in person, and try to work out where the parking etc is. This can help with footfall!

Also, book one fair only. We had a successful fair at Ilkley where we made over £200, so I booked lots. The next fair, didn’t cover costs. I don’t think I covered costs for any of the bookings after that, even at Christmas. I might have abandoned the fair except I had booked them and felt I should honour my commitments, even though I had just paid a deposit and could have skipped out. I didn’t want to upset the organisers just in case I wanted to book more fairs with them. At my last fair at this venue a lady told me I should come regularly to ‘build a customer base’. I refrained from pointing out I had been there every month that year.

I did however go to a fair in Ripley, Harrogate, that was dead. We had booked two, I made an excuse and lost my deposit it was so bad.

We did also find that fairs could be great, but can go downhill quickly if something changes, like at one, the coaches were diverted to another car park. It killed the fair dead. Your location in the fair can make a huge impact as well. At one they had taken over a shop, and we were on the second floor. The footfall was drastically cut, and although we made a lot of money, I will always wonder if we could have made a lot more.

You need to find out what the fair is selling as well. You might find yourself stuck with a load of jewellery sellers who are all selling imported cheap jewellery. Or in a fair that is more like a Saturday market than a ‘craft’ fair, as believe me, it no longer has the cache it used to. When I was a child it seemed that everyone made the things they sold, or they were selling vintage items. Now you are as likely to be next to something made in China. That may affect the footfall and potential customer base, as a fair with a reputation for selling cheap tat may not be good for you. Some fairs have strict requirements for the stall holders to get in, so you might want to look for those. Usually the best include handmade in the description.

Some fairs also charge for entry. Make no mistake this will limit your footfall, although those that enter are probably more receptive to buying. Honestly? I think the entry fee is there just to enrich the fair organisers. One I attended a few times got as many as 800 people through the door paying £1 each. They got a free cuppa, but tea is pretty cheap (especially as it was dispensed out of a huge teapot that was refreshed with water, not tea bags!).

Oh, and one last thing, don’t go by footfall alone. We did the National Mining Museum. The footfall was huge, but we didn’t sell a single thing. People would walk round the fair while they waited for their tour to start, they didn’t want to spend.

Invest as little as possible to start with

For a start, you might hate them. I did, but felt I was stuck doing them as I had invested money. Even though on my last fair I didn’t make any money, I was skipping out the door with joy because it was over!

So spend as little as you can. This is not easy as the things are expensive. I would say at least 1 earring stand, five busts (or cover a cone with fabric, can look cool!), and a lot of fabric to cover things. Some empty boxes will help to create levels on the stall, and hopefully encourage people to browse.

You should also avoid making a lot of things to sell. I would suggest no more than 20 pairs of earrings, 10 necklaces, 10 bracelets. Try to stick to tried and trusted gemstones to start with, and make sure that the majority of your pieces are fairly standard, arty pieces should be kept to a minimum. I know I’ve said that you should set yourself apart, but if people don’t’ like your pieces, you’ve made a lot for no good reason. Don’t duplicate designs, not at first. Then at least if they don’t’ sell, you don’t have a lot of things the same!

So try a couple of fairs, and ask people for feedback. But not the stall holders. They all loved me, and my work. Pity the customers didn’t feel the same.

Oh, and a lot of craft fairs accept deposits only for the fairs. This can be helpful for lowering costs at the start, but you have to think that you will get the rest of the bill before the next fair, and if you let the fair organisers down, they may blacklist you. I only did this for one fair… it was dreadful and we didn’t want to go back. I made the excuse that I had a wedding!

Payments

You need to decide what sort of payments you can take. Cash being the obvious. However, in this age of a cashless society, and the prices you may be charging, you have to look at alternatives.

Credit card machines can be ‘cheap’ with PayPal and iZettle, but you do need an iPhone or compatible smartphone to use the service (and an account that you can use the Internet through). However, if you have this, the cut the companies take is about 2.7% per transaction, although this varies.

There is the old spectre of the cheque as well. However, you have to consider that cheques are no longer guaranteed, there is no such thing as a cheque guarantee card. Most places will no longer accept them.

I have accepted one cheque, and it worked out fine. But you are taking a risk, and will have to check it carefully to make sure that it is correctly written out. You also have to take it to the bank (although if you need to bank cash, this isn’t an issue).

Appearance

A lot of stall holders wore ‘dirty work’ clothes to craft fairs such as jeans. Now I can understand this, it is a hot, sweaty job setting up and breaking down the stalls, but I always wore a dress, or something attractive, as I was selling myself as much as the jewellery (you know what I mean…although who knows, I might have made more money!).

So I always wore my pieces, my nails were clean and freshly painted (clear polish as it doesn’t show chips), hair neat, and so on. It seems obvious, but how many jewellery stores do you go into where the proprietor is wearing jeans? And would it put you off buying a costly piece if they were? Naturally I always wore seasonally appropriate clothing, so layers in winter (fingerless gloves are a must for freezing venues), I didn’t stand and shiver just because I looked better!

And don’t forget your jewellery either. Make sure it is always clean, and not twisted on the stand.

Don’t keep making

The worst thing I did was when things don’t sell, and I invested in stock and made new things to try to make money. You end up with a lot of stock that you can’t sell, and have to try to get rid of.

And don’t believe that idea that you can take apart and re-use. If people don’t like the gems, you’re on a hiding to nothing. Silver has a tendency to work harden, so when you try to pry things apart, it breaks, and cutting down head pins, for example, can make them unworkable.

Layout

When I started, I had too many things piled onto the stall. So whatever you do, don’t start with my mistake, and have less on.

We also realised that everything was at the same level. So I added some trays for cheap things at the front, displayed pieces in gift boxes in the middle, with some on rises, and added two boxes either side. One box had on a pair of busts, the other had some of the earring stands, with other earring stands in front.

I also colour matched pieces, so there was a purple area with all amethysts or fluorite etc, a blue area, and so on. I also did this with the earrings on their stands.

In the photo I think you can see it all, but I think the layout was getting too crowded at this point, really because I was near the end of my business and desperate to sell as much as possible. Perhaps I’d have sold more if I’d displayed less.

Oh, and a quick note about the earring stands. They all have lots of holes on them to show as many pairs as possible. I discovered that this cramped the earrings together, so skipped a hole between each pair. To cover the hole I used black electrical tape on the back of the stand so it didn’t show, but the holes weren’t visible.

You should also practise setting up the stall, and taking it down again. If you can, get family and friends to come in and ‘do a fair’ so you can see just how it would work. Listen to their advice!

Bear in mind that in most cases we had no more space than a six foot table with a gap for chairs to fit all the boxes into. It’s no good taking them back to your car if you then have to go fetch to pack up. I had one box with the essentials in that was easily accessible.

Labelling

You must price every item on the stall. If you want, go for a banded system with colours etc, although I never find them easy to use.

I went for swing tags as I could buy really tiny ones on eBay for earrings, and they looked classy. However, where I made my error was in adding my code to it.

As I said earlier, each piece had a unique number to help me know what I had sold, and how much it had cost etc. The only trouble is that people are stupid (sorry, but it’s true) and they missed the price, and read my code as the price.

Sigh.

What I should have done is written the code on in pencil/black pen. It would still have been visible, but would not have stood out to the customers. I only realised this near the end so used an eraser to dull down all the codes on the earrings to give me a chance at selling!

Customer support

I was actually pretty good with customers, but on the whole they were a depressing lot. You also have to have a very thick skin. I gained plenty of compliments, but the amount of patronising comments you get is horrific. I hated the craft fairs because it always felt so humiliating to me to stand there and try to peddle goods. When people would walk past, wrinkling their noses before passing on...hideous. And the folks who would come up to the stall and look, but ignore you when you try to talk to them... but I endured it all with a smile.

You have to keep your temper with them. I had a little patter that hopefully told the customer what I was about, and when I finished it to one lady, she snapped, ‘You told me that last time.’

I had a guy come up and sneeringly ask if I had any emeralds. I pointed to a piece, then the rubies, sapphires, and finally the single diamond in my necklace at each ‘enquiry’. I did it with a smile as it was obvious he wanted to belittle me. He ‘won’ when he asked about engagement rings. I didn’t sell rings, so I wasn’t going to win that one!

I had people tell me my stuff was ‘basic’. Well, yes, some was. But I have seen some real rubbish done that was ‘basic’, there is nothing wrong with basic if it is done well (which mine was). I was also accused of just ‘assembling’ the jewellery. Well, yes, I do. In the same way a knitter ‘assembles’ a jumper, and a card maker ‘assembles’ cards. Not sure what would have been good enough, perhaps mining the gems? A lot of people asked if I cut the gems as well, and I told them no. It was too difficult to get out of if you said yes!

Then there was the woman who called me out on the pricing of my pieces. I had simple pendants, a simple stone on a headpin with a cord ‘chain’. They were £5 each, and I had been selling them at £10 each. She accused me of selling them too ‘high’ as they contained little silver. I squeaked back that silver was expensive, but I wish I had told her that not only was silver expensive, but I had to pay for the gems, fair rent, insurance, petrol, my time… and talking of the cords, one lady told me I was letting my pieces down with them as they looked cheap. True, but to put silver chains on them would have tripled the cost.

I also had the lady who was looking at some earrings. I walked up and told her the earrings were blue topaz and silver. All of a sudden she started to choose multiple pairs, which had happened before…but something was wrong. I thought I heard her mutter ‘I can’t believe these are a pound!’… so I asked her if she realised that earrings she had chosen were £20 each…she looked at me in shock. ‘You said they were a pound each!’ she said. I replied no (sterling silver! Gemstones!!! £1!!!!!!). She asked me to put back the earrings (grumble) but still bought a necklace (as it was better value than a pair of earrings..).

Finally, I also had one who asked for a discount each and every time, then pushed the discount to the limit. I hated this woman, but still smiled, as the fair I was attending was not getting sales I had to give her the discounts to sell something. But the worst came on my last fair at that venue.

The month before I had sold her a pendant and matching but not made to match pair of earrings.

She found a flaw in the earrings (a natural flaw in the stone, but a flaw all the same), and over email, asked if I could make her another pair. I agreed, telling her if she didn’t like the new pair I would refund the earrings, and made the new earrings.

When she turned up, I showed her the new pair, she said, ‘Yes,’ then started to look over the stall with her daughter, speaking the language of her birth.

They chose a lovely get of earrings and necklace, and she handed it to me.

Then she handed me the pendant and earrings. Confused, I swapped the earrings.

She looked confused. Turned out she wanted to return both the pendant and earrings, and credit them towards the new set. I did, but I think my smile was a little fixed by the end of the transaction. She didn’t want the box for the set, but I didn’t offer her a discount as I felt she had got enough from me.

And I never did sell those earrings.

Start a conversation

It’s important to engage your customers. I’ve made sales from drawing a person in, and telling them about the pieces they are looking at. I’ve probably also put people off…but you can’t win them all. One memorable time was at the start when a lady admired a tree pendant I had, but seemed ready to pass by. I screwed up my courage and told her it was silver, and she bought it!

As I said before, however, it doesn’t always work. But it’s worth a try. Each time a customer approaches, a friendly smile, a brief description of what you do…and the questions I could never ask: Are you looking for anything specific? And if they reply they are looking for a gift/for themselves, you could ask who it is for (if a gift), what sort of things they like, colours, gems, do they wear earrings? Budget?

Things I needed

I spent a lot of money on things I did not need for the stall. Here’s a list of those things I used.

· Cloth to cover the table. Make sure it is generous enough to have spare, nothing looks tackier than a short cloth showing your boxes underneath. I chose red as everyone had white and black. A spare cloth is recommended as a few times I was given an additional table, or could extend my table with a couple of boxes stacked on top of each other.

· Clamps. Vital to secure your cloth, tie on your banner, and makes a handy hook to hold your bin bags at the rear!

· Stationary: Scissors/pens/tape/thread/ribbon.

· Banner. See later.

· Hallmark notice. This can be downloaded for free from the assay offices. Must be a4 size to be legal. Without it, you’re not complying with the law.

· Business cards. See later.

· Receipt book. Only used them a couple of times, but at least I could write a professional receipt if asked for.

· Money checking pen. Check for counterfeit notes.

· Plastic bags for your rubbish. You so need this.

· Lighting (more later).

· Paper to write down sales (unless you use the receipt book, I found this easier, and I could write down ideas).

· Spare price labels and pens.

· Stock list. I found this vital when my partner was helping me as he could look up items. I took this directly from the website so it was nearly always up to date. I included the cost price as well so I knew the lowest amount I could go down to for every piece.

· £100 in change. Actually, £50 might have been ok.

· A Starbucks tea tin box to keep the money in. Forget about a cash box.

· Spare boxes for the jewellery.

· Spare jewellery to fill in gaps. These were in a box with each piece in a plastic bag to keep them from tarnishing. As you are putting out the minimum, it helps to have spare to fill gaps, never have a gap on your stall.

· Cling film. Vital. Wrap your busts, stands and trays in it, and the silver doesn’t tarnish.

· Earring stands. The amount you have depends on the size of your stall, layout, and the type of stand (I had three stand-alone and one folding).

· Busts. Again, tailor to your stand. You can carry more than you need and not put it out. There is also an issue between bulk and class, the velvet/leatherette stands look classier than the plastic ones, but the plastic ones stack, whereas the others do not.

· Mini Christmas tree. For Christmas! Plus also tinsel and lights.

· Boxes to change the height of some areas of the stand. If I had thought it through better I could have found plastic boxes that stacked, but as it was it all fitted ok.

· Large boxes that would take the busts. I had it down to four boxes, two massive boxes for the stands, a box for the spare jewellery boxes, and another for the rest of the items such as scissors etc.

· Jewellery display trays. Ideal for cheap things, easy to pack.

· Trolley. Ideal for when I was on my own, nightmare with stairs, buy a good one.

· iZettle credit card machine. Which needs a compatible phone. I was lucky that my work supplied me one, so that didn’t cost me. I got £20 worth of transaction fees free. I think that’s around £700 in transactions, and I only just got charged on the last transaction I ever made. I know that many of these transactions would not have been possible without it.

· Book/kindle/tablet. Required. If you’re busy, who cares? If not…

· Lunch/snacks/drinks. So you can cut down your spend. Always check if there is a functioning café on site if you are alone.

· Willpower. You will see a lot of things you like. Try to resist, and especially avoid boredom spending. Nothing worse than spending more than you earn… (and expect the stallholders to come up and want to buy things if ‘they have a good day’. Always offer a discount!).

· Wear your own jewellery. If you don’t want to wear it, who will?

My goodness but that’s a lot of stuff! I think that all cost around £400, although I spent a lot more on things I didn’t use.

Things I did not need/replaced

· Glass sloping cabinet. People would not ask to look at things inside. They wanted to touch. Never lost a thing the whole time I was trading.

· Lockable display cabinet. People simply did not look in it!

· Cash box. Waste of money.

· Non-matching earring stands. Buy to match.

· Light to check for counterfeit notes. I never used it.

· Novelty stands. I had two that looked like trees. Loved them, so pretty! But the earrings were lost on them totally. Everyone saw the stands, but not the product…

The worst thing about craft fairs was the boredom. For six hours you are stuck behind a table with little to do. The worst fairs were those that were busy, but no-one was buying from me as I couldn't read, if they were dead at least I could get into a book!

Lighting

Lighting can be very important for jewellery as it makes it sparkle. Some places have such good lighting you don’t need it, most don’t.

I used battery powered lights designed for the Kindle ebook as they were cheap! However, they were a pain to set up, and didn’t give enough light.

You must keep in mind:

· Will you have power at every fair? And will you be close enough to be able to use it?

· The lights will need to have an electrical safety test done every year if they have a plug.

· A light with a ‘foot’ will take up retail space. Clamps must be secure enough to hold the lamp, but be big enough to go over all tables. Any rigs to take the lights will have to be set up and taken down.

· I would suggest buying LED lights as they do not heat up too much, so your customers do not get burns if they touch them by accident.

· Professional lights can be very expensive. Check out Ikea for some great examples of cheap LED lighting.

Banner

I would suggest that you have a banner for the stall. They are really cheap, mine was about £15, and I could have had a photo on it, but to be honest I was designed out at that point, and went for simplicity. I actually wish I had put on the banner 'Sterling silver gemstone jewellery' in large text as I had wanted, but my partner talked me out of it, thinking it would be too crowded, but it might have got more sales. I was actually into the middle of redesigning the sign when I gave up.

Business cards

I guess you need these, but promises of 'I'll get it off your website' rarely happen. I gave away a thousand business cards over my time- and had one order form a gentleman who wanted to buy a bracelet that had sold (I made another).

I used Moo.com as they create colourful, high quality cards. But they do cost. Was it worth it?

Money

As an example, here is a breakdown of a craft fair I attended. This was a double-day fair in York, which is a good 184 miles commute for the weekend.

¾ I made £171.50 . Minus the cost of making, that leaves £ 112.93.

¾ Parking was £18.50 for the two days.

¾ Fuel was a good tankful, £30.

¾ The fair rent was £75.

That meant I made a loss of £10.57. So no wages for me.

I also needed my partner with me to help, so there was two of us…but at least we didn’t have a hotel room like some other crafters I spoke to.

Now, if you're thinking, well, you still had the making costs…well, they have to be invested back into the business to make more pieces. And that money wasn't free, it was out of my pocket, so took away from other things I could have bought/saved/paid off mortgage. So yes, if you don't count the money I used to make the pieces, then it's a profit of £58.57.

It’s worth noting that when I called to get insurance and gave a quote of a few thousand turnover, they nearly didn’t want to insure me as they were used to people taking much more—so obviously it can be possible to make much more at it.

Can it work?

As I was giving up the business, on the way to yet another craft fair, I decided to do a calculation in my mind as to if I could make this work on, as my partner suggested, just Christmas craft fairs.

So I decided that I would go to fairs for the last five weeks before Christmas. I work full time, so it would be weekends only. So ten fairs.

So at each fair I make £500. That’s a whopping £5,000. Sorted! (I never made that much at a single fair—this was a best case scenario).

¾ Immediately at least a third is deducted in materials to make the items. (I’m being generous). So that’s £3,333 left.

¾ Fair rent, 10 times say at £35. Not down to £2,983.

¾ Petrol to get there (assuming an average of £10 a journey): £100. Now at £2,883 profit.

¾ Costs to run the business: £1,863. Now down to £1,120 profit. Sounds OK?

¾ Ten craft fairs and a profit of £1,120. That’s £112 a day.

Which is £14 per hour (8 hours a day). Except I haven’t deducted the car costs. Or, darn! The costs to make the jewellery. How many hours is that? Hundreds?

Now OK, perhaps that doesn’t matter. Perhaps you’re going to run fairs all through the year. Well, let’s break down the money I made at craft fairs over the last year (not including the costs to attend). I would like to remind you that I was dropping prices at all times to try to push up sales, but it was a bad year for traders.

	Take	Profit (Take minus cost of making only)
Ilkley fair	£ 202.00	£ 152.50
Ripley	£ 35.00	£ 20.50
Ilkley fair	£ 60.00	£ 44.59
York	£ 107.00	£ 79.62
Tingley	£ 110.00	£ 79.54
Ilkley fair	£ 40.00	£ 32.14
Saltaire	£ 200.00	£ 130.66
Internet	£ 18.00	£ 15.05
Ilkley	£ 25.00	£ 20.31
York	£ 125.00	£ 98.22
Brighouse	£ 20.00	£ 15.40
Ilkley fair	£ 28.00	£ 16.71
Harrogate	£ 30.00	£ 25.06
Tingley	£ 23.00	£ 12.16
York	£ 171.50	£ 112.93
	Take total	Profit total
	£1,194.50	£ 855.39

These craft fairs cost me a good £600 to rent stalls, not including petrol, parking, my time… and then the good old spectre of your basic costs needs to be deducted.

So deduct the cost of attending form the £855.39 ‘profit’, and there isn’t a lot left.

Social Networking

I was on Facebook, Twitter, Google wotsit, Pintrest, wrote this blog, etc. And still couldn’t drum up interest in the business. I even had a ‘win £100 worth of jewellery’ draw when we got 1000 ‘likes’. Nope. I think I ended with six…

Why? Well, I don’t have a thousand friends. I’m not the gushy, floaty type who can talk about ‘Downton’ and ‘Simply’. So I’m dull. I hate social networking. And it showed. So perhaps that was my biggest failing. I’m shy, boring, and don’t want to inflict myself on others unless I have something to say. Oh well. I don’t have to do anything beyond this last post!

If you want to do the social networking thing well then you have to be on there every day, commenting on people’s posts, liking, adding new things…hell on earth for me.

Marketing

I would advise you try to create a brand for yourself. Or commission one. Use it on everything and everywhere, and use it consistently.

Advertising

We tried:

Dropping business cards everywhere (useless).

Leaflet dropping (no hits).

Google ads: Spent lots of money the first year: very little return. We could easily get to the daily total for the amounts, but we just didn't get people buying. Oh, and be really careful as it's all too easy to leave the bloody thing running, and cost you a fortune.

Tip, if you want to try Google ads, have two accounts, use one, then leave it alone while you use the other. We kept getting offers for free advertising if we spent a small amount, so it was worth doing. By my last Christmas I had £200 worth of free ads. Good job, I made one sale.

Have an exit strategy

Try to think about what you will do if the company fails. I realise that is pessimistic, but consider the amount of stock you have left, the gemstones etc.

For me it was easy, I sold the pieces I didn’t want on eBay (the shop I was in wasn’t interested even at a massive discount), kept the rest, and did the same with the gemstones. All this income has to be declared even if you sell at a loss.

So now I’m out of it, I have a lot less stress, and a lot more money, even to indulge in the gems I want to use. Would I try again? The simple answer is no.

If you have any comments on this post, or would like clarification on any of the points I raise, please leave a comment below. If you want to see my pieces, go to http://www.jewellerydragon.com to have a look.

Useful links

These are some of the companies I used over the lifetime of the company.

· Craft fair insurance: http://www.gmisl.co.uk/

· Google Merchant : http://www.google.com/merchants/merchantdashboard

· Google webmaster tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en

· Google Analytics: https://www.google.com/analytics/settings/?et=reset&hl=en

· Google AdWords (Do ads): https://adwords.google.co.uk/

· Google ad planner(other site stats): https://www.google.com/adplanner

· Etsy : http://www.etsy.com

· Sheffield Assay Office : http://www.assayoffice.co.uk/

· Stress free print (did my leaflets, magic!) : http://www.stressfreeprint.co.uk

· Moo Business Cards: http://uk.moo.com/en/products

· Royal Mail: http://www.royalmail.com

· Parceltogo: http://www.parcel2go.com

· Izettle (credit card machine): https://www.izettle.com/gb

· Jewellery tags that can be branded: http://www.perfect-presents.co.uk/shop/ (go to jewellery tags)

· My favourite findings supplier: http://www.cooksongold.com/

· Quality gemstones: http://thecuriousgem.co.uk/

· Direct from India: http://www.ratnasagarjewels.com/

GOOD LUCK!

Nicola

Inspiration for pieces explained: Multi Coloured Sapphire Earrings

2013-10-14T03:07:00.004-07:00

I bought a strand of multi-coloured sapphires with actually very few blue ones on it. I decided to match up a few of the colours to make a multi-coloured pair. It's unusual, and a great talking point as they are all sapphires and illustrate the range of colours beautifully. It looks lovely, and I know I can't make them again, not unless I come across such a wonderful strand of gems again!

For more details, see: http://www.jewellerydragon.com/E22219.htm.

p.s. And don't forget, I can customise any piece just for you, make it longer, shorter, or change the fitting! Just ask!