Most winter mornings, Jamie Randle loads bread, stacks of cups and cleaning supplies into the back of his SUV, commuting about two hours from his home in Connecticut to his stall at New York’s Union Square Holiday Market. “It’s like opening a mini-store every week,” she says.
Randall, 39, is the founder and chef of Coco Bread, a food stand that offers portable Coco Bread pockets stuffed with Jamaican jerk chicken, oxtail and curried goat. She says working as a vendor at a popular tourist destination is expensive and “tiring” but rewarding. Coco Bread made more than $31,000 in sales in its first 17 days at the market, starting Nov. 13, and paid off its nearly $23,000 market entry fee in less than a month, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
For vendors selling ornaments, tea towels and Jamaican jerk chicken sandwiches, renting a booth at markets across the United States can cost up to tens of thousands of dollars. Despite the heavy investment and up to 12-hour days spent running a pop-up, some small business owners say they bring in more revenue and profits during the seven weeks of the holiday market than during any other period of the year.
At New York’s big markets in Union Square and Bryant Park, the payoff comes largely from the high numbers of up to hundreds of thousands of local residents and tourists a day, creating weeks of nonstop sales for many vendors, said Evan Shelton, vice president of Urban Space, the private operator of both markets.
“We’re seeing more and more people coming to the market every year,” said Shelton, who has worked at Urban Space for five years. The business from that traffic keeps many vendors coming back year after year, Shelton said. “With a 90% return rate, we know it’s worth the time and effort.”
Some sellers and business advisors say not all markets are valuable to all vendors. In a small operation, foot traffic doesn’t guarantee a profit, and you may need to spend whatever money you have on things like labor, inventory, and holiday decorations to make your booth a success.
Kayla Hill Trawick, a business advisor for more than 20 years and founder of Little Fish Accounting in Washington, D.C., says that if an entrepreneur is still “understanding what works and what doesn’t, it’s probably not a good time to invest that money just to get people comfortable with you. I think holiday markets tend to be more useful long-term when they’re already part of the local economy.”
In smaller markets across the country, even in cities with far fewer tourists than New York, many small business owners enjoy the intense work, financial rewards, and connections that come with working in a holiday market.
“I invest a lot of time and energy.”
Operating a booth at a holiday market can be very expensive, potentially exceeding the cost of participating in the market. For example, Rundle had to buy equipment, pay the contractor who built the kitchenette in the booth, and compensate her 11 employees, she said. Rundle added that she paid the $23,000 entrance fee, which included electricity, on a credit card.
“I’m investing a lot of time and energy, and what I hope is my daughter’s future,” says Randall, 10, who often helps out at Coco Bread. “So it’s very flexible for me and for her to say that her first job was at her mother’s company. I’m very proud of that.”
Coco Bread founder and chef Jamie Rundle and his daughter Ruby.
jamie rundle
Coco Bread, which also sells at a stand in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, generated more than $41,000 in sales from January to September, according to documents. Entertainment venues will receive a 30% reduction, Rundle said. She predicts the market’s sales will exceed that number by Dec. 24, when the holiday market ends, but the venue doesn’t have any percentage. Coco Bread Co. is also profitable, Rundle added.
Not all vendors are so lucky. Much of a vendor’s success depends on matching their business with the right market. In 2024, Amy McCoy said she spent $13,000 renting a booth at Boston’s outdoor Snowport Market for her side business, Tiny Farmhouse, which sells tea towels and other stationery gifts. She sold $13,000 worth of merchandise in just two weeks, but exited the market at a financial loss due to other expenses, documents said.
There was a learning curve for McCoy, a full-time freelance video producer. She overordered inventory and didn’t budget for labor costs, she says. She hired additional help two weeks later after experiencing the toll of long hours in cold temperatures.
“We came into the venue after a snowstorm and the booth was covered in snow and ice,” she says. “On the last Saturday before Christmas, we spent about three hours removing snow and ice from all of our display surfaces and floors, but we weren’t able to open until 2 p.m. There were more than a few tears shed.”
Instead of returning to the snowport in 2025, McCoy spent $6,375 to rent a booth at the SoWa Winter Festival. The festival is held inside a restored power plant, a 10-minute drive from the larger market, and customers pay a $10 admission fee. Documents say it took her a week to raise more than $6,000. Sales from her booth will account for 30 percent of this year’s sales, she added.
McCoy said the warm temperatures and short hours of the indoor market allow her to work mostly alone and without heating. Her side hustle typically breaks even most months of the year, but she says she’s currently operating at a 20% profit margin.
“Rain or shine, we will all get through this together.”
Smaller markets tend to have lower vendor costs and less foot traffic to their booths. That can still be a winning proposition, says Cynthia Green, who sells handmade pressed flower art and jewelry at the Cambria Christmas Market in Cambria, Calif., each year.
Tiny Farmhouse CEO and Owner Amy McCoy at Boston’s Snowport Market
amy mccoy
Market officials said Green paid just under $2,000 to rent a booth for 28 days at the market, which attracts about 80,000 visitors each year. Mr. Green’s business, Pressing Petals, brought in just under $21,000 in sales from the market in 2024, according to documents. That revenue represented about a third of the business’s annual sales, Green said.
Green, who sells her products year-round at markets in Paso Robles, Calif., and at various art festivals, says that as a business owner, paying to participate in any market is just a “planning thing.”
Hill-Trawick points out that holiday markets don’t always have customers. Freezing temperatures and expensive products can keep them away. In November, the city of Chicago imposed capacity limits on the famous Christkindle Market. Some merchants reportedly say the drop in foot traffic is having a negative impact on sales. (The city has since raised capacity limits).
According to Hill-Trawick, what you sell can make or break your performance in the holiday market. She says customers tend to look for easily portable items like food, figurines and earrings, and are drawn to “unique” items like vintage pieces and sentimental finds. “It takes experience to be worth anything.”
Now in her fourth year with Cumbria Christmas Market, Ms Green says there are added benefits to finding the right market for your business. That’s because every winter, you get to interact with the same community of small business owners who operate there every year.
“It’s like Christmas Day when you get a notification telling you when you can go get ready,” Green says. “We know everyone and we’re a little family. Rain or shine, we all get through it together.”
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