DAY 24
November 15th is the day I am selling my amigurumi crochets for the first time ever! A co-worker let me know that there was an event for agency people to come and sell their side hustle projects at a market and since everyone in the office knows I am an avid crocheter, it became evident that I should give it a go. I am so excited! I only had 2 weeks to prepare for the event and not that many amigurumi stuffies to sell, so I have been going NUTS crocheting like every single day for 5+ hours, and all day long on the weekends. My genre of choice… Food. I mean.. Everyone is a fan of food.
I made donuts, a pizza slice, a pickle, an eggplant, a taco, a pie, a popsicle, a hot dog, a bowl of cereal, a bowl of ramen… so many things. The table I’m going to be at is apparently 9 x 6 feet so I have to style it up to make it look like it’s pretty full somehow... I’m excited to see if I make a single sale… A lot of coworkers said they would buy my stuff so let’s see if anyone actually would! C bought a poptart off of me already.
To be honest, I don’t know what people will do with them… I mean they are just stuffies. I use them to decorate my desk at work cause I want it to show off my dorky personality, but they could be ornaments, pin cushions, something to hang from your rearview mirror… Pfft, I don’t know! What else do you do with a stuffed toy but look at it. It’s just cute. It’s art.
My branding is surrounded by being crooked because my crochets have some awkwardness to them for sure. I know a lot of people don’t see the imperfections but there is a stark difference between my work and the stuff I follow on instagram in the quality of the stitches. But anyway, I’ve attached a bunch of dorky sayings/quotes to most of my pieces, plus a tag and they’re all cut at wonky angles to emulate crookedness. I also cut out a bunch of business cards at wonky angle too. I stupidly cut my finger today with a box cutter so it’s hard to type write now with the bandaid on my finger. The blood was spilling through a little :/ Sorry, ew.
I had a lot of fun making all of these though. I’m so curious to see if people will actually buy. If so, this will be motivation to make a ton more and do more markets. I think that would be a really fun way to use my talent, get better at it and make money on the side. I have SO much yarn, it’s kind of insane. I also told my work Secret Santa all I want is yarn. Everyone needs to know, only buy me yarn! I can never have too much.
I will update this blog post to let you know how the market went!
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So, the market went super well! It didn't end up having a lot of traffic, which made things very slow, but I was able to sell about 75% of my product and made $130.50 (that excludes what I made which I donated to charity) so not bad at all for not having bought any new yarn. I definitely want to do it again! I need to make a bucket load more products this time and make multiples of items that people really liked, for example, the f-bomb and the tacos. I also think my items were pretty underpriced, so I could sell things for a little more. My customers were surprised by some of the prices and said they would totally pay more, but at least I know now!
I also sold some to friends outside of the market too, so that's a bonus.
The best deal I made was 3 items for $25. I could probably go up and do 3 items for $30, and price each item individually at $12 instead of $10. I want to stay somewhat competitive as well.
Some ideas for the future are maybe to build your own sandwich, or build your own bowl of ramen, or box of donuts. That way, its customizable. I think people would really enjoy that. I think I would do like one thing at a time (ramen) until they sold out, then the next thing, like sandwich or burger. I'd have to make a lot of bowls, fack. People really adored the egg in the bowl of ramen, like they just melted when they saw it.
What was most fun about the market was just people's faces when they saw my products. People were so delighted. It felt amazing! I loved bringing a smile to people's faces. That's the best part, even if they don't buy.
It's nice to feel like I have a hobby that actually makes me money. It makes me feel like I'm being productive rather than wasting time. I am thinking of doing the biggest event in the city, happening in April. I would get probably 20,000-40,000 people walking by, so I'll need to get my fingers working to make enough product to last 4 days! I might even find a smaller market instead but I'd rather do the big one and make sure I have enough stuff to sell. I'll probably be able to make around 200 items, hopefully more. April is a long time away but I can't get lazy and take too make breaks. My fingers are already well calloused from all the stuff I made in the last two weeks. And thankfully my nasty finger cut is all healed over.
EEP! I'm so excited.