I promised a little update on the first week of the new studio store, with numbers. So here it is:
a) Opening weekend generated a little over $1K in sales. Woot! That was AMAZING. Thanks to everyone who came out and supported, I am madly in love with every single one of you right now. A few hundred of that were consignment sales, so I keep 30% and the artists get 70% at the end of the month, but the rest is all me. Yay!
b) All of that immediately went to paying slightly overdue bills. Alas. Money in, money out. But good to have them paid.
c) My overall monthly space cost is $1200 rent (minus $300 for the space I’m renting out to Dive Bar) + about $250 for insurance, electric, and WiFi, plus incidentals like toilet paper, etc. So I need to make around $1500 / month to break even on the space itself (not counting cost of art supplies / any staffing / my time). So $375 / week.
d) Brace yourself now. Here are the first week sales:
Monday: closed
Tuesday: closed
Wednesday: one sale, $35.20
Thursday: one sale, $8.80
Friday: three sales, total $28.60
Saturday: two sales, total $13.50
Sunday: two sales, total $37.50
Total first week: $123.60
Oof.
*****
This is not to say I’m panicking. (I’m panicking a little bit, but very quietly). It is totally reasonable to have the business run at a loss when it’s first starting out, right? And we can afford to carry the losses for some months before it becomes an actual issue.
It’s going to take time to get the word out, and to build up foot traffic, and it’s been cold, and everyone in the neighborhood tells me that foot traffic will improve a lot once it warms up. Fingers crossed.
Plus, I haven’t started teaching workshops yet, which is a second funding stream I’d planned on, and I may not really get those up and running ’til May (once my semester is over, and I have more time and energy for teaching extra), so I should just plan for that.
AND, the main thing that I’m planning to start doing now that the store is set up is getting more of the stock photographed and listed in the online shop, so people can buy bookends and tables and jewelry and such even if they’re not local. I’ll be working on that in March and April, as I have time.
So there’s no actual reason for panic yet, I think.
***
This isn’t meant to be a request for people to rush over and buy things! I’m okay, really. Just trying to be transparent, in the hopes that people who are thinking they want to start their own little arts business have a clear understanding of some of the realities.
If you can’t handle some financial stress and uncertainty, small business ownership may not be for you! That part is not great for me either!
Hopefully the rest will make it worthwhile. We’ll see!
(Picture of the nice dinner I made myself on my day off, INSTEAD of working in a panic to try to squeeze out a few more dollars. Good boundaries! Sensible approach! Taking care of my mental and physical health, because this is a long game.)
(Although I was also weirdly out of it today (tired!), and had trouble focusing on anything, and even completely forgot a meeting I had with Stephanie Bailey (so sorry!), so it’s probably just as well that I did laundry and raking leaves and dishes and cooking instead of any studio work.)
