Well, just when I think things are winding down after the summer festival rush, we start gearing up for fall craft shows, Halloween, and the winter holiday parties. No complaints here though. I’ve always said you shouldn’t have all of your eggs in one basket, particularly with a business like ours that can fluctuate seasonally.
One trend that I’m seeing with our customers is that many of you have started selling products yourself. Honestly, I can’t see why anyone would not want to sell merchandise in addition to their service business. Even if you earn $2 per minute while working at festivals and parties, there are just so many minutes in an hour and so many hours in an event. You know going into the event the maximum amount of money that you can possibly make, which to me, is very limiting and even depressing when you come home with less than you had hoped.
Product sales can easily double your income…or more. I’ve done henna at one of our local monthly events where we typically made less than $200 doing henna and over $400 selling henna kits and other merchandise. Amerikan Body Art has a very flexible wholesale site that can provide products for many different scenarios. The minimum opening order requirement is $200, and only $150 for re-orders. There are no minimums as far as product quantities go. You can order 1 or 100 of an item at the same low price. You can buy in bulk along with empty packaging to make your own kits, or you can buy pre-packaged items to take advantage of the Amerikan Body Art brand recognition.
www.AmerikanBodyArt.com/wholesale
If you’re teaching classes, 99% of the time, your students are going to want to take supplies home immediately so they can play. They’re not going to want to wait a week to have something shipped. Any products that you demonstrate in your class will sell particularly well. If you are on a tight budget and are concerned about ordering more supplies than your students will buy, you can assemble a small class kit that includes samples of each product and include the cost of the sample kit in the workshop fee.
When I started my supply business, I simply started ordering more of the products that I was already using. That way, there was no financial risk since I would eventually use the supplies myself if I didn’t manage to sell them. Plus, by purchasing in larger quantities, I was able to obtain lower pricing, which increased my profit.
Here’s an example of an easy money-maker. An empty sKweEZie applicator bottle with metal tip costs $1.49 at wholesale. An 8-ounce carrot bag of henna paste is $14.99 and will fill approximately 14 applicator bottles. Your total cost would be about $2.56 (plus shipping) for each bottle of henna paste and you can them for $6-$10 depending on your venue. At festivals where we were charging upwards of $10 for a single henna tattoo, we would easily sell a dozen or more of those little bottles, along with other henna kits, henna balm, and glitter tattoo kits.
If you want to make glitter tattoo kits, you can buy handful of different stencil designs, 5 or 6 glitter colors in ½ lb or 1lb bags, empty poof bottles, a pack of sweeper brushes, empty body glue applicator vials, and 19oz bottle of body glue. The 19oz bottle of glue will probably fill around 50+ glue vials. A pound of glitter should fill about 36 poof bottles. We have a glitter tattoo instruction sheet (with step-by-step photos) that is in a Word document which you can edit to have your contact information on there instead of ours. Just email me and I’d be happy to send you the file. We buy our labels from Online Labels, but you can also find them at Wal-Mart or any office supply store.
As far as pricing your products, the basic math equation is to double the cost of goods (including packaging). But you may also want to take into consideration your shipping costs and the time that it takes you to assemble any products. Let’s say that your cost for product (glitter, glue, & stencils) is $5 per kit. Your packaging materials, including labels and printer ink, comes to $2. And you determine that it takes you 10 minutes to assemble each kit. If you feel that $10 per hour is typical for your area for non-skilled labor, then your labor cost is $1.67 per kit. You might feel that your labor cost is $0 since so many of us start our businesses working for free, but keep in mind that eventually you will be too busy to do this yourself and will need to pay someone else to do it. So at this point your total cost is $8.67 per kit. You might even want to add in a small percentage to cover overhead costs and shipping costs, so let’s say your final real cost is $10 per kit. You’re probably looking at needing to price it at $20. Most of us are pretty frugal and crafty, especially as entrepreneurs, and we have a hard time imagining someone paying $20 for a small kit. But when you think about the fact that these same potential customers are willing to pay $10 or more for a single tattoo, a $20 kit that allows them to do a dozen tattoos is a real bargain.
Even though our pre-packaged kits are quite reasonably priced, you may prefer to make your own kits to fit the budget of your customer demographic. You may even find that our kits are too inexpensive for your area. There’s no need for expensive fancy packaging to sell merchandise, as long as it’s tidy and preferably uniform. My first henna kits were packaged in a paper bag with a label that I printed at home. Then I would buy lots of 12 or 24 cosmetic bags on eBay. Through my homeschool support group, I even found a local organization called the “Reusable Resource Center” where they received leftover office and craft supplies from local businesses. For $10 per year, I could take as much as I wanted and often found little boxes, bottles, and labeling materials that could be used for kit packaging. You most likely have a similar organization in your area. Eventually as your business grows, these sources won’t be consistent enough for your needs, but it’s a great way to get started inexpensively.
Even if you only work at private parties where you are paid hourly and not at festivals or workshops, you can still offer to create small kits as party favors. As a mother of three, I know that I’ve happily paid $3-$5 each for goodie bags and party favors. As busy as I am, I really value the convenience of being able to get all of my party needs taken care of with a single phone call. Post pictures on your website and create a postcard to send out to your current clients.
We are always more than happy to offer suggestions for your particular event or business scenario so feel free to send us an email if you’re unsure of what you should order. And although my husband jokingly tells me that my life philosophy is, “go big or go home,” and we love our customers who shop with abandon, I am also a firm believer in starting within your means and allowing your profits to snowball into a bigger business. This was our philosophy when starting our wholesale business because we wanted a retail business to be completely accessible and attainable for our customers. If you need something that we currently don’t have on the website, don’t hesitate to ask. We’ll do our best to either get it or find it for you.
Have a wonderful month!
~Erika
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