has anyone done the EVANSTON, IL winter arts and craft expo?

I have done it twice, mailing my work in both times. If you are willing to be without that inventory for a month AND are willing to spend the time prepping your work for sale (more on that below), then it can be a good choice. I get my unsold jewelry mailed back to me by early January, followed quickly by a check. In some ways it feels like "free money", because other than the time to make the work, I did not have to do anything to sell it: no booth fees, no travel, no hotel, no set-up or tear-down, etc. Plus, the check arrives in the middle of winter when every dollar coming in is appreciated! My checks in 2015 and 2016 were $690 and $650. I did not do it last year because I was in the process of moving and couldn't prep my work.

The way they handle the sales is very streamlined for them guarantees that your sales are tracked. You send them a detailed list of items being sold and they send you sheets of bar-codes. Each item is individually coded, so you need to be specific about what you send. You then have to attach the barcode stickers, which are kind of large, to your items in a way that makes sense. I ended up trimming the stickers down to fit onto my earring cards. This takes time. I would not send anything with a value over $100; all of my work that sold was in the $30 to $60 range.

Replies

Jan Raven July 16, 2018 at 8:37am

I have done it twice, mailing my work in both times. If you are willing to be without that inventory for a month AND are willing to spend the time prepping your work for sale (more on that below), then it can be a good choice. I get my unsold jewelry mailed back to me by early January, followed quickly by a check. In some ways it feels like "free money", because other than the time to make the work, I did not have to do anything to sell it: no booth fees, no travel, no hotel, no set-up or tear-down, etc. Plus, the check arrives in the middle of winter when every dollar coming in is appreciated! My checks in 2015 and 2016 were $690 and $650. I did not do it last year because I was in the process of moving and couldn't prep my work.

The way they handle the sales is very streamlined for them guarantees that your sales are tracked. You send them a detailed list of items being sold and they send you sheets of bar-codes. Each item is individually coded, so you need to be specific about what you send. You then have to attach the barcode stickers, which are kind of large, to your items in a way that makes sense. I ended up trimming the stickers down to fit onto my earring cards. This takes time. I would not send anything with a value over $100; all of my work that sold was in the $30 to $60 range.
- Jessica Curning-Kuenzi > Jan Raven July 16, 2018 at 2:07pm
  
  Thanks so much for the info. I'm a nature photographer so it would probably be pretty expensive to ship my framed prints so I was thinking of delivering them myself but I live 3 hours away, do you think it is worth the drive? I also have a box of about 40 11x14 matted prints do you know if they would allow those or just framed prints?
- Kathleen J. Clausen > Jan Raven July 16, 2018 at 12:19pm
  
  How much inventory do they want?

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