Ask Lemmy

I used to sell at swap meets and the best selling items were the $1 table. We had a $5 table and $10 table too, plus more expensive items.

Hopefully she can find a way to expand to what people are buying and at the right price to make money.

Sadly we gave up on swap meets because for our type of items, we barely paid the swap meets because for fees.

Example we went to a smaller swap meet $20 for a spot, and we would make $30 or so. Over 10 hours of work, $1 per hour for 2 people…

The bigger swap meet spot was $120, and we barely made that too. Maybe $130… so again $10 profit for over 10 hours work.

I’m sure our failure was lack of items people actually wanted.

Context matter, especially when you're asking for fairness.

For one, how is she losing money?

• Does it mean somebody is straight up stealing, i.e. taking stuff without consent?
• Did someone make a deal that is less than beneficial to her?

If it's the first one, than fuck it, you should beat the shit out of that thief.

If it's the second one, then you should ask yourself how so, and why your mom thinks otherwise.

Also, if you think that she's not paid enough and that she should monetize more, do note that monetizing something would take significant effort, and in some case could've taken the joy out of something she enjoy doing.

So she wants to do things in her own way.

So you are her kid. And you want to do things in your way.

Hm....

Why don't you both ask an experienced person how to do it in a professional way?

Does she really want to make profit or do her own thing? Can she afford it?

Crafts are very hard to make profit from. Many people just think of it as making their hobby slightly cheaper.

You could help sell her crafts online for her on a site like etsy.

Or promote her craft stall on social media

If she needs the money that is.

Is her goal to make money? Or is it just an outing and a chance to socialise with people who share an interest? If the latter, then she may be getting everything she wants out of the experience so doesn't see the need to change anything, in fact being more popular might be bad in that context. (Edit: just realised this is pretty much what one of the other replies asked, apologies.)

Otherwise, and I'm no expert at this stuff by any stretch, but purely from a casual attendee's perspective, location is really important. Don't be in a corner where there's hardly any foot traffic, and if you can, try to set up next to whatever booths are busiest at your events - for the ones near me that'd be things like coffee, ice cream, bakery etc depending on time of year. They are always packed, and food/drink booths usually have people with a few minutes to kill while they're waiting for their order.

If you have dozens of people milling about in front of your stall waiting for a coffee, the odds of someone spotting one of your products increases massively, and some of those may turn into sales.

Without more details there's really no way to make more than broad suggestions.

Why is she losing money right now? Is she not selling enough? Is she selling too cheaply? Are the costs for her craft too high? Are the costs for the craft fair too high?

Sell weed