Selling at craft fairs / NCT sales

thegirlwithYYY

Hi ladies,

I'm hoping to do a local NCT nearly new sale in December. And also a christmas fayre in the run up to Christmas.

Me and my mum are selling handmade knits which my mum makes herself. For the NCT sale, I will have baby things to sell. What prices sound reasonable for clothing? Most of the clothes will be new with tags.

I've also bought a load of earrings off ebay to sell on, aswell as christmas cards, buttons and a load of handmade brooches, which I intend to sell on at reasonable prices but obviously to make a nice little profit. Do you think this sounds ok? Also, how do I tackle the question of "have you made these yourself"? I won't lie, but also think people might be put off if I tell them that I've bulk buyed off ebay.

I've never been to a NCT sale before but I've been in touch with the organiser and she has said I can sell our items no probs on the same table as nearly new stuff.

Any ideas/tips/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Becky

qwiksave

My tuppence worth:

I've never been to an NCT sale where there are items that you are intending to sell, apart from baby clothes, obviously.

Every NCT sale I've been to as both a helper and a buyer has everything placed on the table already with a price on it, it's not like a craft fair where the maker stands behind the stall selling stuff. Buyers come in (like a mad scrum usually ) and fill baskets with as much as they can carry and then queue up to pay at a checkout at the end. The NCT get quite a fair whack of the selling price too (something like 40% I think? It was a while back that I did it) so you need to allow for that in your pricing. If the situation is like this for you, you won't see the person who buys your stuff so they won't be able to ask you if you 'made it yourself'. HTH

Jo_F

If you are buying in to sell (even buying the wool to do the knitting), you need to register with the tax office as self employed.

Also, it is very unfair to the designers/makers of the jewellery items if you are planning on selling their creations on, some would take a dim view even if you did credit them with the work. Plus can you be sure of the materials used in the jewellery ie the metal used, does it conform to the EU nickel rules?