Master Katryne MacIntosh the Strange, OP and Magister Jali Bukha, OL
Kingdom of Gleann Abhann
So, you want to be an SCA merchant. The allure of being able to sit behind a counter, take money from people, and have early access to sites is attractive to you. You envy the ease of which merchants tend to make friends and acquaintances and how people come directly to them to chat. And the idea of being able to quit your day job and SCA full time looks really nice.
If you’re ready to get past the daydreaming, we can help. But beware: the road you are on is bumpy. There are a lot of up front costs to being a merchant. There is physical toil involved. In the end, you might choose to set up an Etsy store instead.
How to begin:
What do you bring to the table that people want to sell? It has to be something that people want to take with them, sold at a price they consider reasonable, the sale of which covers your costs. It doesn’t have to be a large scale operation, but you have to start somewhere.
Focus. Choose a genre and focus on products in that range.
(Kat) When I started in the SCA, I saw how popular merchants were, and I found that many merchants were given free pass to attend events and early access onsite. I was a poor college graduate at the time, with little funds. I learned how to thrift items and primarily sold feast gear back in the 1990s. I also learned how to fingerweave belts from macrame cord. For about five years, I merchanted at about half of the events I attended. However, I was only ever able to make expenses - gas and event costs - and I could only weave so many belts. After a washout experience at Gulf Wars 8, I quit the whole operation.
Find something you are good at making or sourcing, and focus on that idea to begin your business. Jali makes woodcut blocks for block printing. He started out making blocks for friends, and was loudly encouraged to start selling them. For Jali, beginning his merchant journey started with reaching out to his merchant friends and asking to consign. Then we started attending some smaller events with a pop-up tent and a few tables. His reputation grew. When the pandemic struck in 2020, he shifted to focusing on his Etsy site, and sales took off. In 2022 we started renting a tent and selling at both Gulf Wars and Pennsic. Now he’s the world’s largest maker of woodcut stamp blocks for medieval enthusiasts - at least, that’s how we market ourselves!
Having a specific niche sets you up to succeed, if you are merchanting to the right audience. If you make clothing, be aware that many merchants make clothing. Consider specializing for a particular market. For instance - Silvertree Souq makes garb for Ottoman, Turkish, Persian, and other Eastern cultures, while Ancient Attaliers specializes in Roman and Greek attire. Lots of people make armor - but some make armor from leather, others steel, and still others lamelar and plastic. Unique merchants - like Auntie Arwen’s Spices - tend to draw a loyal following with very particular items.
Before your first merchanting event, build up stock. It’s usually OK to run out of merchandise the first small event, but for larger events you may not be asked back.
I have my merchanting idea ready to go. How do I get started?
First off, are you properly prepared to sell? While smaller local events may offer you a place to set a table up in a hall, larger events require you to bring your own stuff in - that’s tables and table covers, tents, lighting (if you’ll be open after dark), and everything else you need for your business.
A pop-up tent is usually fine to begin with - as long as you have decent weather. If you plan on merchanting for a long time, you’ll want something period-esque, either a proper re-enactment tent or a facsimile. We use a high-grade PVC covered tent at Gulf Wars that’s based on a frame similar to a carport tent. For the few smaller events we do outside, a 12x20 carport is our go-to. And for Pennsic, we rent a 20x40 and live in it throughout the war.
Tables don’t have to be fancy. I know several merchants who use portable, collapsable sawhorses and sheets of plywood covered with a tablecloth. We use standard folding tables and card tables. We ensure every bit of those plastic things are covered with cloth tablecloths before we start setting out stock.
Then there’s business registration. Not every event requires you to be licensed as a vendor; many merchants start out as what we used to call “blanket merchants,” operating like a crafter at a flea market. However, as time has passed, more events and more event sites now require a level of mundane registration and insurance.
Cat Man Do Designs is a licensed vendor in Little Rock, Arkansas, with a State of Arkansas tax license. This allows us to merchant online and to show up at Arkansas events with our set-up and sell blocks. However, Arkansas event vending (not including farmers markets and cottage industries) requires the event managers to take in taxes for each vendor and provide them with an envelope for sending in a check direct to the state. The tax is 7% of all sales.
Gulf Wars has a different system. Mississippi requires the event itself to be registered, and taxes are gathered on-site en masse to send to the state. Merchants here are required to pay their taxes when they close on Saturday of war. The tax is 6% of all sales - and must be paid in cash to the merchant office.
Other states, like Texas and Pennsylvania, require the merchant to register with those states and send taxes in on a schedule. For Pennsylvania, the tax rate is 6% - and you are required to have a license before you vend, always. However, certain items - like tools used for making clothing - are exempt. It is worth your time to go through and determine which taxes you will be obligated to pay.
You can, however, register as a wholesaler in some instances, or get a wholesale vending license so you can obtain materials without paying sales tax. This varies by state.
You’ll also want to determine how you’ll take payments. Almost all merchants take cash - which means you need to acquire a money box or similar item to hold funds in, and obtain cash for change before you start vending. There’s also Point of Sale systems that you can operate through your phone, like Square, that can be set up to keep track of inventory, automatically deposit funds, and allow you to send customers electronic receipts. Options like Apple Pay, CashApp, and Venmo can also be considered - more folks seem to be trending towards these phone-based apps as the way they pay. Being able to take payments in multiple fashions is helpful and might score you a sale when other vendors can’t come through.
And then there is event insurance. Many events require you to carry it. It’s usually a $1,000,000 policy that will run you around $100 - or if you merchant a lot, you can get a year-round policy.
I’m ready! Now what?
Contact the autocrat or merchant coordinator at any event you plan to vend at. Ensure that merchants are welcome. Find out whether it’s OK for you to set up inside or outside. See what the tax plan is for your operation. Register for the event.
Our first event as full-scale block merchants was Gulf Wars 2022. We borrowed a large tent, hobbled together enough tables and tablecloths, and brought every block Jali could make. When it rained, our entire floor became a sandpit. When it stormed, tables flipped. The merchantcrat made Jali cry. One of our stoves combusted while we were trying to get dinner done in the back. It was stressful! But a couple of months later, we went to Steppes Warlord packed tight in a Honda CRV, put out four tables, and came back with less than half our stock - and convinced we should try Pennsic on our own.
Make sure you plan well in advance how you will get to site, where you will stay, and - this is very important - who will be able to help you set up. Jali and I usually plan to do all of our own set-up at smaller events - including setting up tent and tables and pulling out the blocks. For something smaller like Kris Kinder (a one day shopping event), we plan to arrive around 6:30 in the morning. We bring a dolly for moving tables and boxes of blocks into the space and usually have the blocks arranged by culture so we can pull them out quickly. Doors open at 9am. We have to close at 3pm and take down the shop and remove it by 6pm. It’s a busy event, so we make sure we don’t give ourselves more work than we can accomplish in that time.
At Pennsic, we rent our tent, drive our trailer under it, and begin set-up. It takes us two to three days to get our personal quarters and the front of the shop set up. There is no waiting to set up either - once we begin merchanting, that’s our full-time job.
At Gulf Wars, you may have noticed merchants asking for help getting set up online. Gulf Wars merchants, for the most part, are allowed on-site about 24 hours before the site opens to everyone else. Merchanting opens at 3 pm on Saturday. It’s a very quick turnaround. Securing your help in advance is key - merchants are allowed a limited amount of early-on help, and every one of those individuals has to be registered well in advance of the event.
Be prepared, and do not expect help from other folks. Merchants are often expected to pack down while court is going on, or to clear a hall before the feast is set out. Making sure you can pack down and out and not cause an inconvenience to the event or its staff ensures you get an invite back.
The costs:
Your stock and inventory - whatever it costs to produce your items
Your event registration (and merchant fee, if applicable)
Your infrastructure (tent and tables)
Your transportation costs (gas and hotel)
Your taxes
The price of Pennsic, for a merchant (2024 numbers):
Our booth at Pennsic is a necessity. It is our biggest show of the year for Cat Man Do Designs. It's a minimum of eight hours a day, for 12 days, with one employee. We tried doing it just the two of us the first year and that about killed us. It's not just sitting back and waiting for people to purchase stuff. There's also the set-up, which can take a full work day, and take-down, which thanks to not having to actually pack down our tent means we can be off-site eight hours after we close, once everything is properly balanced inside the trailer and our site is gone over to make sure we have left it cleaner than when we arrived.
To be considered to be a merchant at Pennsic, the largest Society for Creative Anachronism in the world, you have to send photos of what you sell and a diagram of your set-up. Once you are vetted in (which, if you're a first timer may take a couple of years to get a spot), you have to apply each year. That application fee, space fee, electric fee (if you want electrical - there are some folks still using gas or battery-operated lanterns for light), and site book advertising (yes, you do want that), can rack up. Our merchant fee came to $579 this year.
Registration for Pennsic is completely separate. For our team, that was $540 - because the help we brought was under 18. We had to be registered for Pennsic before we could secure merchant space.
We have a couple of choices on tents - because you have to have a tent. We decided a while back to rent a tent for Pennsic because the extra weight of carrying one meant we wouldn't be able to have as much merchandise to sell. Our tent, a 20x40 tent that houses us all, is $1050 for the 16 day span. Considering we're not having to put it up, it's a bargain. And it's insured in case something terrible happens with the weather.
Oh, and then there's insurance, which every Pennsic merchant is required to have. We're fortunate to have found an event insurance company that covers Pennsic and only charges $150 a year.
To get there, we take two days, with an overnight a little more than halfway between here and there. That's a night or two at a hotel for about $100. And gas? Ho boy. That all depends on what the gas is running in each of the six states we're traveling through. The variations can be up to a dollar a gallon. Towing a trailer that contains all our gear to live outdoors, all the tables for stock, the stock itself, and everything including the kitchen sink (yes, we have one of those) means gas mileage is terrible - think, less than 15 mpg for the towing vehicle. We take a route that's flatter than the most direct route, and Google says it's 978 miles. It comes out to right at 1000 once you count in diversions, road construction, and the distance off road for gas stops. Gas runs about $200-250 per vehicle, and we take two, because three people in the cab of a standard old school pickup for two days is... a LOT.
And you have to eat, so however you prep for that, you do. You can eat on site - average meal is around $10, which is pretty good for a festival, and Penn Market has ingredients. Three people for 16 days.
Put all that together, and we spend around $3000 for Pennsic before we ever open the tent and sell the first block.
Some merchants come from further away, some are closer to site. There are merchants with a bigger footprint and larger crews, and there are smaller merchants with a smaller footprint who are merchanting by themselves. In all cases, it's a financial commitment that means we spend a lot of money even before we get to site. That doesn't include the thousands of dollars in production cost and labor - from Grav and I drawing blocks, to him lasering and cutting them out and gluing and sanding and finishing them. And there's the time I have to take off from my job, which between travel time, event time and recovery is at least three weeks where I'm not on the road or writing. Getting my work done at Pennsic really isn't an option, considering the hours we put in there. And he can't make stock while we're at Pennsic - we can't haul a laser with us, and there's a no power tool rule. And trust me, you don't want him hand-carving blocks. It takes months for each one and he tends to bleed on them.
We're fortunate that most of our clientele has been understanding about our prices. But from time to time, someone will make a statement about our prices being too high. We don't pass along a lot of the extra cost to customers - we charge the same whether it's through Etsy or if we're at the event - and we're conservative on our price structure. We suspect the same of our fellow merchants. We're all just trying to survive, ,marketing needed goods to our fellow SCA friends.
If that hasn’t scared you off, here are simple suggestions for merchanting:
Make friends with fellow merchants and seek out their advice.
Pay your taxes.
Communicate with event sites and stewards.
Make sure you have plenty of stock.
Take physical and mental care of yourself.
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