Our business idea isn't really that complex to follow, and for anyone that wants to replicate it - feel free to borrow our model. And if you want help setting it up then please get in touch and we can help you become the next Little Hippo Presents :)
What possibly is slightly different from us compared to others is that no one person makes a living from someone else's work. Our personal income, as with all the other sellers, comes from their own work sold. All the percentages taken from sales pay for boring things like rent, telephone, bags, stickers and all the other things we need to operate as a retail outlet.
The Hippos are a community of makers, we all want to make our living from what we make but none of us want to take anything away from another maker. We started from the position of adding up all our bills, working out how much shelf space we could fit in, how many craft fairs were sensible to do in a year then dividing it equally between folk - and that includes our glass. As makers selling through the shop we also pay shelf space and also pay our sales percentages towards the bills just like other maker in the shop.
What we now have to sort out is spreading the time and workload a little better, but that will come as we build the business because it is a business. We do have to be accountable to our customers, our makers, the tax man just the same way as any other business has to. The difference is we just choose to use any profits made to make the shop stronger, or put on other workshops, or invest in things that help many.
This is basically the model we work off, each element contributes to the whole which spreads the risk, helps the cashflow and stops us getting bored!
The reason I felt the need to explain was that someone pointed out that it was fair to take a % as we had to make a living and they seemed really impressed that we don't make a living out of other sellers, we make a living by making things that are sold. Hope that all makes sense, and see you all soon. Hippo xx
