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Money From Crafts How to Earn Hundreds a week by supplying shops By regularly supplying gift and craft shops you can realistically expect to earn £300 a week minimum. You will receive orders and payments by post. The majority of orders will be for over £100. You needn’t have any face to face contact with your customers at all (unless you want it). Where many craftspeople go wrong is by trying to do the selling themselves. They may work at their craft all week only to spend every weekend selling it! Being self-employed, the last thing you want to do is work weekends and Bank Holidays. One way to avoid this is to sell to craft and gift shops. Prove It To Yourself -have a look in any Craft or Gift shop. Then have a look in another anywhere in the UK. You will see the same small businesses are supplying them.People like :
These craftspeople all earn hundreds a week. They know the Secrets Of The Craft Business and have no fear of being out of work ever! Even a small craft shop may have to spend £1000 a week on goods, often with just a handful of suppliers. Shops are desperate for reliable suppliers. You can be one such supplier. So, how would you get orders from all over the country, what’s the secret? There are several answers, a common one is to use an agent. Agents work on commission and are paid at the end of the month following delivery. It doesn’t matter where you live. If you think your goods are suitable for the Lake District, The South Coast, London, Cornwall, Scotland, Welsh coast then you employ an agent for that area. When you wish to expand you take on another agent in another area. If you only want to sell to a dozen shops then you tell your agent. If you can cope with large quantities of orders then tell your agent and recruit more agents in different areas. It’s obviously not worth anyone’s time just acting as an agent for one craftsperson so an agent usually carries the non competing work of up to six small businesses. Like many craftspeople I started by making things at home and selling them at weekends. This went on for years, then I was introduced to an agent who explained to me that while I was spending all my spare (?) time looking for customers, the best customers of all, in the gift trade were looking for reliable suppliers. When I changed from selling to the public to selling to the trade, my turnover shot up to well over £100,000, I had much more free time and I earned a lot more! My business was so successful (I ended up supplying over 400 shops) that I sold it and started another. The business? Believe it or not it was pressed flowers! What to sell –All sorts of things are in demand. It could be something as simple as a pencil with a name stamped on it, or as complex as an intricate sculpture. Here are a few top sellers -Animal Figures, Aprons, Candles, Rugs, Cards, Chess Sets, Coasters, Cottages, Fimo, Fretwork, Games, Jewellery, Keyrings, Laptrays, Patchwork, Penholders, Pictures, Pot Pourri, Pressed Flowers, Soft Toys, Tea Towels, Woodturning. The list is almost endless. However, it’s no good you coming up with an idea if you don’t know how the sales price is divided into retailer profit, agent’s commission, wages, raw materials and most importantly your profit. For instance-Your profit and wages must be treated as two separate items. You may be happy just paying yourself a wage, but what would happen if you got a big order and couldn’t cope? You’d take on staff and pay them your wage. You’d have a big order and no profit! So you see, just having a good idea is not enough. It is of equal importance to know how to sell your work efficiently and how to price it correctly. If you make a mistake with either you could lose out considerably. To enhance your profits you also need to be able to buy your raw materials at the lowest possible price. If you are currently buying items from craft shops you need to know where they buy them. In other words you need to locate the Prime Source of your materials, this is usually the importer or the manufacturer. It’s common knowledge that more than half of new businesses fail within the first year. They may all have good ideas, but the other necessary skills are much more important. Things like:
These are just four of the topics included in my new book "SECRETS OF THE CRAFT BUSINESS" an exclusive 15,000 word publication. Other sections include:
"SECRETS OF THE CRAFT BUSINESS" shows you how to earn at least £300 a week in your chosen craft. The price is just £25, a small price for what could be a Turning Point in your life. Why not see for yourself and send in the free trial offer now to Turning Point, Cornerways, Gorran, Cornwall, PL26 6LR.
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