The holiday season is overwhelming for small crafting businesses. There’s at least a sense (accurate or not?) that these two months are your best chance to make sales that will carry your business through leaner months to come, so October / November / December can become a frenzy of production, inventorying, marketing, and actual selling.
If you have friends with small businesses, be kind to them in January. Speak softly. Bring soup.
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But I wanted to do a quick recap of the first month in a physical store at the Berwyn Sprout incubator space. Some random bullet points first, then broader thoughts:
- The biggest plus, for me, is being able to set things up and have them STAY set up. Previously, I’d done various local fairs (just the ones in Oak Park; I hadn’t graduated to applying to the bigger fairs in Chicago and suburbs), and it was very hard to feel that they were worthwhile. It usually took at least two hours to pack up and set up at the event, then there was the time working the event – 4-6 hours usually – then there was another 1-2 hrs for breakdown and unpacking at home.
- So you’re looking at a hard-working 8-10 hr day, for 4-6 hours of selling time, plus a booth fee, and if the venue doesn’t do a good job with publicity, or the weather is bad, or the weather is really good (leading people to go do fun stuff at the beach, etc.), foot traffic can be low, and then you don’t actually make any money. You might even lose money, and you’re probably exhausted to boot. The physical store changes all that. (Although I’m still doing some pop-ups for Nov / Dec. Fewer, though!)
- The biggest negative, so far, is that I don’t think Berwyn is doing enough to publicize the store. I’m not sure Sprout was the best name for the incubator project — it’s very cute and makes sense, but I think people’s first association with it is either plants or food — they think it’s a health-food store sometimes. I’ve been trying to use “Sprout: a small-business incubator,” when I reference it, but I’d like us all to be doing that more consistently.
- I also think they need more signage — physical flyers at the front desk (rather than just an scannable code), a large sandwich board out front, some dedicated signs explaining the project once you get inside. It’s harried right now, but I’m tentatively planning to reach out to the Berwyn business folks that organized this in January, and see if they’ll talk to me about investing more in the publicity.
- The publicity thing is particularly frustrating because when people DO come into the store, they seem to really like it, and they buy things. It’s fun browsing through 30+ micro-businesses; it’s the perfect place for holiday shopping, birthday gift shopping, etc. And you get to feel good about shopping local, supporting mostly women & minority-owned businesses; it’s a win-win-win. But even though they’ve been open almost three months, foot traffic in the store is very light. It should be PACKED this time of year. I want to see wall-to-wall people in there.
- I think they need to organize more events in the store too. We’re doing some — I suggested crafting workshops, and I’m hosting what I think is the first one today, a card-making workshop with pressed flowers and stamps. I think Karla is going to do one where she teaches people to crochet. I’m hoping there will be a lot more workshops, but also other kinds of events to get people in the door. I’d like to see at least one event scheduled every week. More would be better.
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I know it’s been a little surprising to some friends of mine that I’ve taken on what seems like a completely new project, but it’s not really. It’s more an extension of two things I love:
- the physical making of beautiful things, that leads me to cook and sew and garden and craft, that helps keep me calm and happy — busy hands make for happy brains
- and also teaching and encouraging other people to make and enjoy the products of that making.
Making builds community. It helps keep us sane and healthy. It’s just good, and part of why I really want this project to succeed is because I’d love to use what I learn here and bring it back to Oak Park to start up a similar space, possibly with an actual makerspace or workshop space of some kind attached. That may just be a pipe dream, but I haven’t given up on it yet.
A place where we can bring together people to teach writing and art and crafting and gardening and cooking and more, and where we can have a set of tiny shops that sell those things, and maybe more — some of the Berwyn incubators are more about curation than making, bringing in items from small crafters in Mexico, for example, or just items that fulfill a particular vendor’s vision. It’s all good. I’ve seen places like that in Chicago, in Seattle, in Boston. I think we could do it in Oak Park.
We’ll see what happens. As you can see, I didn’t make a lot of money in the first month — enough to cover my $225 rent for the space, and a bit for the set-up paint and furniture supplies. Kevin and I calculated and going forward, if I make $1000 in sales / month, that would basically cover my supplies cost & rent, so I’d be breaking even on a hobby (not counting the 15 hrs / month I’d be putting in staffing the store, or the time I spent crafting).
At $1500 / month, I’d come closer to covering my time. At $2000 / month, it starts to actually make sense as a small side business. Even if it gets to $5000 / month in profit (which is hard to imagine right now), I’m not planning to quit my day job as an English professor, which would still be paying better AND which comes with health insurance and retirement benefits.
We’re planning to give it a year, get a real sense of what the rhythms of the year look like. I’m already realizing that it’s probably just as well I didn’t try to do this when the kids were smaller, because the winter holidays were so much labor back then, I don’t know how I could possibly have had the time and energy for crafting and running a business too.
The kids are also big enough now to help some now; in the last few days, Kavi has ironed tea towels for me, Anand has hauled bins out to the car for the shop, Kavi has cut marshmallows (and told me I should get a big marshmallow cutter that she saw on TikTok)…and of course, Kevin has done all kinds of things, including helping me figure out how to level the table for a big resin pour, and helping me clean up after a big resin spill. Sigh.
Anyway, give it a year, try to ramp up publicity, see where we are by next September. More updates to come.
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I am, of course, also starting to think about what a book about all this would look like. I’m sort of picturing a series of photo essays? Talking about women’s work, work that can be done around the raising of small children and eldercare, work that brings in some money, but generally never as much as you hope.
Something that ties it all to capitalism, at least obliquely. My department (which leans quite Marxist) should like that. 
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Berwyn Sprout Small Business Incubator
7129 Cermak Rd, Berwyn
Tuesday – Saturday from 10am-8pm
Sunday from 10am-5pm
www.serendibshop.com
