Slow Season For Crafters in Florida

If there is ever a slow season for us handcraft artists in business in Florida it is during the summer months. Mostly, we use this time to create new items to sell, learn new crafts, sign-up for Fall and Winter festivals and shows to sell our crafts. For Southern Women Crafts this year, we decided to open up our very own little handcraft artist shop in one of the local Flea Markets. It gives us the space to display what we have made, create new items for sale and try to update our inventory on our online shop. Yes, the business is slow right now but we are working on improving that and to get everyone in the area use to us being there and possibly recommending us to others in the Fall and Winter.

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While most flea markets are basically a place for antiques, collectibles, fresh produce, plants, animals and yard sale items to be sold every weekend it can be a place for artists to start their very own business as well. There is no reason why a couple of local artists cannot ban together to create semi-permanent spots in a local flea market. If you are lucky enough to find a place that allows closed in booths (Lockable) or allows renovations to include the ability to close in your booth with a roof, walls, doors, windows, etc. and keep your items on-site for a small fee each month then you have the makings of small business enterprise. It would help to get more than one or two handcraft artists in your area to either rent spaces together and share them or rent them next to each other.

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Sharing a large booth area with other handmade artists might be the way to start out as you are sharing the costs of the booths as well sharing the time to man the booth. Of course, you would have to work out with each other the costs and time it will take to make the booth(s) space into a viable shop, decorating the shop, displaying your items, manning the booth, accountability for the sales and profit splits as well as the normal everyday business stuff like marketing your new business on a consistent basis. Even if the flea market you choose markets itself and it’s vendors online and in print you are still responsible for your own business, accounting, marketing, etc.

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Another advantage, besides the costs of renting space at a flea market, is that the owners have a business license to operate in that county already and most counties allow small businesses that rent space there to not have to pay for another license. You will still have to collect and pay sales tax in Florida every quarter. The summer months are giving us the time to work on our social media posting, getting to know the other vendors (hopefully, they will recommend your booth to someone looking for what you are selling), trying out different displays each week to see what draws more people to come in an browse, and to get to know the regular customers.

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Another consideration for us was the location of the flea market itself. We are currently in Lake City, Florida on a workamping assignment but their local flea market is not permanent. It sits inside the county fair grounds so the semi-permanent spaces on located inside a large steel building and must be dismantled during major events like the annual fair in October. We thought about Gainesville but like Jacksonville the city is just too big and the amounts they charge are a little expensive for those of us just starting out. Finally, we settled on Chiefland because the market is permanent, been in business for over 20 years, has very nice owners, is located on a major artery and gets lots of visitors during the high season from October to March. The town also boasts two new RV Parks that are in the process of expanding. That means that 1000s of new people will be coming into the area to stay from anywhere from a week to a couple of months!

Till next time