Craft Fair Profit: How to Know What a Holiday Market Really Leaves You

It's 4 pm, the market is packing up, and the card reader says $1,272. It feels like a great day. Then the table fee comes to mind, and the fuel, and the wax and jars for everything that sold, and the lunch you bought because you couldn't leave the table. By the time you've thought it through, you're not sure if it was a great day or an average one.

Most makers find out in January, if they ever do. You can know before you book.

Take every fixed cost of the day, work out what one item really leaves you, divide one by the other to get your break-even, and after the market do the same sum with what really sold.

Here's that sum step by step, with one example the whole way through: a candle and soap maker at a one-day indoor holiday market, bringing 172 items across seven products.

1. Write down every fixed cost before you book

These are the costs you pay whether you sell one candle or a hundred. Put a number on each one, even the small ones.

$0.70 a mile is close to the US business mileage rate and covers fuel and wear on the car. Use your own figure, in miles or kilometres. If the market also takes a percentage of sales, note it separately: it grows with your sales, so it isn't a fixed cost.

2. Work out what one item really leaves you

Price minus materials isn't the answer. Most shoppers pay by card, and the reader takes a cut of each payment. In the example the rate is 2.6% plus $0.15 per payment. Check yours.

The card fee per item assumes about 1.5 items per sale, so the $0.15 is shared. Your time isn't in this table yet. It comes back in step 8.

3. Find the break-even

Across everything this maker expects to sell, each item leaves about $8.67 on average after materials and card fees. Divide the fixed costs by that:

$150.20 ÷ $8.67 ≈ 17.3, so about 18 items, or roughly $222 in sales. Until the 18th sale, the day hasn't paid the maker anything.

This is the number to check before you book. A $40 farmers market pop-up and a $250 two-night market can both be good, but they need very different crowds.

4. Decide what to bring and how much you'll sell

Bring more than you expect to sell. A table with three candles left looks picked over, and shoppers walk past it. The example maker brings 172 items and expects to sell 60% of them: 103 items.

Your first market of the season is a guess. After that, use what really sold at the last one.

5. Make to a list, not to a feeling

Compare what you're bringing with what's on the shelf. The maker has 24 candles and plans to bring 30, so 6 need making before this market. If there's a second market two weeks later, count what you'll probably sell at the first one too: that's where the night-before panic comes from. In the example, the second market needs 24 more candles on top of those 6.

6. Pack for the table, not just the stock

The things that go missing are rarely the products. Pack a table cover, risers, your sign, price tags and a price list, lights and an extension lead, a charged card reader and power bank, a cash float in small notes (this maker takes $120), bags, a chair, tape and scissors. Outdoors, add a tent and weights.

7. Count what sells on the day

A tally sheet on the table, one box per item sold, takes a second per sale and saves guessing at pack-up. Note the number of card payments from your reader, and any discounts you gave.

8. Do the real profit sum afterwards

If the day goes to plan, the sum looks like this:

That's $74.30 an hour for 10 hours at the market. But those 103 items took about 16 hours to make. Over 26 hours, it's about $28 an hour. That's the number to price for, and the one to compare between markets.

Mistakes to avoid

• Counting materials for everything you made instead of what sold.
• Forgetting card fees because they come out before the money lands.
• Leaving travel and parking out of the price.
• Booking a big-fee market without checking the break-even first.
• Making stock the night before because nobody counted what the first market would use up.
• Judging a market on sales, not on profit per hour.

Want this done for every market?

I built the Holiday Market Planner to do steps 1 to 8 for each market you book. It shows the real profit after every fee and the break-even before you go, makes a list of what to make before each market, and prints price tags, a price list sign, a packing list and a sales tally sheet. $12, one time, any currency, miles or km, no spreadsheet.

See the Holiday Market Planner

Questions people ask