1. I you throw a jewelry party at your house, you will likely be serving drinks or appetizers, you have to add in this as the cost of what your selling. Businesses even write off these types of expenses as customer relations entertaining because you are spending money to make money by entertaining potential customers.
2. You may have to spend money on advertising, invitations, a website, your time spent making sales calls. You should figure that some money may need to be spent other than just buying the product to sell. The more you have to spend, the less profit you make, so you have to be sure this all balances out. If you send out invitations through the mail to invite your friends to a jewelry party, you are spending money on stamps, paper, etc... This all comes out of your profit, so you have to be sure you are figuring this in.
3. Renting space at a booth or show will cost you money. How are you going to make the money back that you spent on a booth if you sell each piece at less than double what you paid for it? You should be aiming to make almost double even after the expenses. You can't sell pieces for $5 each if you paid $3 and still be able to pay for the booth space and still make a profit. You must sell each piece at $6 - $7 minimum to make a profit.
As a final thought, I really wonder if these other companies are just banking on the possibility of their customers being bad at math or business numbers to buy their product and tell them that they have to sell it at a certain price and not mark it up enough. I would be surprised if their sales reps success rate was over 5%... if that much is even possible on those margins. Don't be fooled by other companies with overpriced kits for $300 + that just want to make a quick buck off of you. You can make real money selling jewelry at the right mark up. Visit www.MyAccessoryBusiness.com to see the selection of sales kits available where you can set your own prices!
