Vendering and Selling Merch

One of the events that I went to was my best friend’s sister's birthday party. I’ve learned that most of her friends are artists who sell and do vending. I’ve always wanted to learn what it is like to sell merch and how to make money off of it. During the party, I met a person named Sandy. She showed me her art that she makes, and I thought it was pretty cool and unique. I started to talk to her about what it is like selling her art and how profitable it is. She told me that it's not an easy job and sometimes she does not profit that much. I asked her what is most important to help get her merch out there, and she explained that signage and display are very important because they capture the audience's eyes, making them want to walk up and look at the art, which makes them want to buy or remember. Another tip that she gave me is that having deals will help increase the profit margin because the more stuff people buy, the cheaper it is. This tip helps because the more things people buy, the more money you get in. Another tip is to have multiple options for people to pay like venmo, zelle, applepay, cashapp, paypal and etc. She also mentions how much renting a booth cost for the anime convention. She said that it cost roughly about $600 dollars to sell your merch at a convention. This is insane to because, that is a lot of money just to rent out a booth to sell merch. After this conversation, I've learn so much about vendering and how expensive it is. I believe that it is very crucial that you really need to advertise and put it very much hard work to sell out merch. It is an investment and the reality of it is that you may not make a lot of profit but when you have enough exposure and experiences of how to capture the audience you could make a lot of money. I will take this into consideration and hope to one day also sell my art and merch at a convention.