What Products To Sell At Your Guild Boutique

Your Guild probably has a Boutique of items made by members for sale at your Quilt Show. Here's a list of what sold for us this year and what didn't.

What Sold

Some items sold each one that we had donated to the Boutique. For example, some foot pedal bases made of wood and self-liner sold at $8.00 each. We had some vinyl window project bags that were at least 14”x 16” which sold for $15. Most had brightly colored fabric around the window and on the back.

Tote bags and purses sold well. I estimate that we had at least 30 of them of various sizes and quality. The less costly bags sold very well. The larger totes with supportive batting sold for only about $10. However, we did sell all but 4 of the totes.

We had about a dozen tool mugs and every one of those sold for $8.00. Pin cushions sold very well. We must have had 30 or more of various sizes and quality. Most sold for $2.00.

Baskets made of clothesline were the surprise hit of the show. The maker had placed fabric on the bottom of the basket that made them bright and appealing. They sold for $12 or more. Bowl cozies also sold well if the price was right.

Other items that sold well were hats ($10-15), tooth fairy bags ($3), and small art quilts ($15-20). Kid's busy bags with colored pencils and stencils ($10) sold out and we had a wonderful suggestion. A grandparent of a child in a wheelchair asked if we could put a hard surface on one side of the bag in the future. This would make them usable by a child in a wheelchair. We certainly will!

What Did Not Sell

Items that didn't sell as well were potholders, bibs, table runners, and placements. We did have folks looking for the silicone overlay oven mitts, but those would be very expensive to produce and donate.

Small bags didn't sell well. It didn't seem to matter if they were small zipper bags, Japanese rice bags, or another model. We had to reduce the prices on all of them.

We tried a small travel sewing kit and a small travel iron cleaning kit, but neither sold.

Advice

We found that we had to make sure that our members understood that these were donations. We were not going to return them at the end of the show. We also had to explain that this was NOT a secondhand shop, and we didn't want magazines, books, or used patterns.

We asked folks to please write their name on the item so we could call them if we didn't know what it was. They didn't. We had some awesome small corner-looking items that sold well for $2. It wasn't until late in the day that we found out they were bookmarks. Same with some unusual types of potholders.

One thing that sells year after year is Roosters! Totes, bowls, baskets or pincushions – Roosters sell!