Craft market seller says their friend said no when they offered to sell her candles, then asked for 25% of their sales

Splitting a booth at a craft market can keep costs down for sellers, since each vendor pays for only half the table. One seller says that arrangement has now turned into a demand for 25% of their afternoon sales, according to a Reddit post by u/PuzzleheadedCut2198 in r/AmITheJerk. The request reportedly came from the friend who shared the booth and left early.

Both sellers apparently paid $75 each for their halves of the booth. Everything seemed fine until about two hours into the craft market, when the friend reportedly got a call that her child was sick. She packed up and left the event immediately, the seller said.

The seller says they offered to keep selling the friend’s candles to help out, but the friend declined. After she left, the seller spread their own prints across the entire table to fill the space. Sales appear to have picked up for the seller during the rest of the afternoon.

She saw the booth on Instagram and reportedly decided she wanted a cut

The conflict reportedly began when the friend spotted a picture of the craft market booth on Instagram. She apparently reached out to ask how much the seller made after she left the venue. Once the seller shared the total, the friend demanded 25% of those sales, believing the seller had used space she had already paid for.

According to the seller, they first tried to settle the disagreement by offering $30 toward the friend’s original booth fee. However, the friend reportedly rejected the offer and said money was not the point. The friend apparently insisted the seller should have asked for permission before taking over her empty half of the craft market table.

The seller admits they used the space without explicitly asking, but says paying a percentage of their own work seems ridiculous. They also say they helped the friend pack up and offered to sell her items before she left. The friend did not leave any products behind, so she likely missed out on potential sales either way.

Shared booths are a common way for vendors to cut costs, and the usual arrangement splits the fee evenly. However, The Craft Map notes that a 55/45 split is often expected when one vendor provides the canopy, tables, and other equipment. Some fairs also appear to take a cut of sales on top of the booth fee, which the site says is common at consignment markets. 

Commenters on the post largely sided with the seller. One person argued the friend should get no cut of work that wasn’t hers, as she would have reportedly left with nothing if she’d been selling alone. That commenter also suggested the $30 offer was already generous and that the friend’s day ended when she left.

Another commenter said the friend could have left some of her crafts out and asked the seller to track which ones sold. However, she apparently took everything with her when she went home. A third person pointed to the friend’s audacity and said offering her anything at all was kind.

Small sellers have seemingly faced similar money disputes online before. A Utah nail tech said one client tried paying with lunch instead of cash, and she later described how that client started pushing boundaries early.