William's Arts / Crafts Business Blog July 2006 Archive

Are Craft Shows Dead?
I receive lots of comments from crafters week after week discussing the demise of the traditional craft show. While I know there are still plenty of great events out there, ... Read More

Sunday July 30, 2006 | permalink | comments (17)

Trade Shows: The Next Level
When you are ready to take selling crafts to the next level, trade shows are the way to go! Our company has attended some of the largest events in the ... Read More

Sunday July 30, 2006 | permalink | comments (2)

Taking "Plastic"
These days, you can really miss a large number of sales if you do not accept credit card payments. When we started out you had to use one of those ... Read More

Sunday July 30, 2006 | permalink | comments (3)

Selling At Shows With High "Customer Overhead"
Once, in Birmingham, I overheard a customers who was browsing our booth state that they would love to buy something, but it cost them $24 in fees to get into ... Read More

Sunday July 23, 2006 | permalink | comments (3)

Borrowing To Survive
There was a day when in order to fund our larger shows, we had to borrow from credit cards. Well, long story short, it worked for a while, but eventually ... Read More

Sunday July 23, 2006 | permalink | comments (0)

Alternative Web Site Marketing
I overheard a crafter talking to another crafter the other day complaining that their Web site had not generated one sale for them. They said when they put the site ... Read More

Sunday July 23, 2006 | permalink | comments (1)

Crafters Helping Crafters
Of course we all tend to dwell on negative experiences with other crafters at shows. However, there have been too many times to count that I have had help from ... Read More

Sunday July 16, 2006 | permalink | comments (6)

Cheap Substitutes For Canopies?
Should you purchase a high dollar canopy or use something like an umbrella for outdoor events? I think that it all depends on how many shows you attend outdoors each ... Read More

Sunday July 16, 2006 | permalink | comments (0)

Retail Tax
This month, retail tax is due for those of us in several states. I don't know if I'm just paranoid and afraid of tax agencies, but I have always paid ... Read More

Sunday July 16, 2006 | permalink | comments (0)

Save Some Money!
Though the 4th of July has passed, there are still a few opportunities for people to take advantage of the holiday. I just passed around 20 carts at Wal-Mart with ... Read More

Sunday July 9, 2006 | permalink | comments (0)

Accepting Credit Cards At Shows
Things sure have changed since we started selling crafts. We used to used one of those old machines to carbon copy credit card information. We had a huge book with ... Read More

Sunday July 9, 2006 | permalink | comments (0)

Backing Up Your Computer Data
A good friend of mine just had a nasty spyware infection that pretty much wiped out her entire computer... Luckily she had most of her important data backed up. However ... Read More

Sunday July 9, 2006 | permalink | comments (0)

Closing Down Early?
Several years ago we were attending a street/craft festival in Mississippi. The customers were there for one thing and one thing only: food! We literally made one sale during the ... Read More

Sunday July 2, 2006 | permalink | comments (17)

Selling Offshore
We once took a several thousand dollar order from someone selling at a resort in the Cayman Islands. I required a 50% prepayment on the order. However, I gave them ... Read More

Sunday July 2, 2006 | permalink | comments (0)

Thieves At Shows!
I'll never forget the time in Memphis when we were staying at the Hyatt-Regency and our van was stolen. The police eventually recovered it months later, but it was badly ... Read More

Sunday July 2, 2006 | permalink | comments (0)