Well, dear readers, here it is: the craft fair advice post! I didn't know I had learned so much until I began to write it all down for you. A craft fair is a lot of work with a steep learning curve from start to finish!
Here are my tips as well as my checklists, a few pictures, and some more resources at the end.
Table Decorations & Props
I felt rushed to build up my inventory (because I only found out about the craft fair three weeks before!) so I spent very
little time thinking about how my craft fair table would actually look. I should have designed my display
on my kitchen table before the event so I could play around with spacing, props
(like bowls or dishes or pretty trays), and even the amount of products I
wanted to display. Therefore I only had a basic vision for my table and just played around with the design once I got to the fair. Since I had a couple of hours before the fair
began, I could arrange and rearrange a dozen times.
A couple of things I did know ahead of time: I wanted to use a
plain white tablecloth over
the dark wooden table to really make my brightly-colored products pop. I wanted to display smaller items in
matching
Polish pottery bowls, which are the prettiest things in my kitchen and are very
complimentary to my fabric choices and personal style. I also planned to hang a
homemade pennant
banner on the front of my table so I didn’t just have a plain white tablecloth
there. (Some of you will remember it
from
Lena’s first birthday party.)
As you can tell from my photos of the craft fair, my friend
Anna spent a lot of time thinking about her display and had some darling ideas
and a beautiful vertical display for her chef’s hats. Her attractive use of space definitely drew
customers in! She also had printed a
larger version of her logo to hang on the front of her booth.
Because Anna and I were sharing a table, we both had to crowd
our displays in order to show all the items we offered. Considering this, we took a lot of care to
make sure that all our items were grouped well and that we kept any extra
inventory off the table to provide as much calming white space between items as
possible. In the end our table looked
rich with attractive choices but not overcrowded or overwhelming.
We both encouraged people to interact with our displays and
products, meaning Anna was happy for kids to swirl her whisk around a bowl with
her felt sugar cubes and felt eggs. I
also cheerfully suggested that people try on my gloves whenever they paused to
look at them; I know they look so much more attractive on your hands than
simply lying on a table.
Business Cards and
Logo
Most professional crafters will have invested in a
professional designer create a logo for them.
I haven’t done this yet, so I just made my own sign with the name of my
shop, a tagline (“Knitted and Sewn by Becca Garber”), and the addresses of my
blog and Etsy shop. In retrospect there
were a dozen things wrong with my sign design (ie., it wasn’t colorful, the web
addresses were long and distracting), but hey… better next time. I printed a sign with my shop name, tagline, and web
addresses on fine resume paper and framed it in a picture frame we had in our
house. I also printed “business cards”
that looked exactly the same as the sign.
These I printed on resume paper and then cut out myself with a craft
paper cutter.
Price Tags
All the resources I read before the craft fair emphasized
that your prices
must be
obvious. They suggested framing little
price signs by each category of your inventory.
I didn’t have enough little frames for that, so I made little paper
"price tents" with the name of the product, a description, and its price on the
front. Here’s an example from my bean
bags:
The “price tents” were easy to make on Microsoft Word. I formatted a page to have two columns, typed
up a product description and price in each column towards the bottom of the
page, and then printed the page. I cut
the page in half lengthwise—two strips of paper, each with a product
description and price near the bottom—and then folded the strip in half and folded
the ends underneath. I taped the ends
together and this made a little 3-sided tent with the product description and
price on the front side. These stood up
well by themselves and didn’t lose their shape throughout the day. When I packed up after the show, I carefully
peeled off the tape and smoothed the papers out. They’ll be used again!
For individual products like a scarf or hat, I made
price
tags on fine resume paper and attached them to the product with a natural
cotton yarn. I also made “original price
tags” and then “alternative price tags.”
The alternative price tags were $5
less
for everything in case I decided to lower my prices to encourage sales
halfway through the show. Kind of
awkward to decide this and then have to rewrite your prices with a Sharpie.
I made sure
every
sign was printed (no random handwritten signs) using the same type of font
and the same kind of paper. This
consistency gave cohesiveness to a table full of various products.
Gift Wrapping
It’s a nice touch to hand your customer their purchase in a
pretty bag or box. I bought
brown paper
lunch bags at the grocery store; they were big enough to fit most of my
products. I would have liked to glue on
handles with a hot glue gun and twine, but I ran out of time. I did manage to use a hot glue gun to quickly
attach my business card to the front of the paper bags, and that was a nice
addition and guaranteed that my customers would go home with my card and all my
contact information.
I bought cute
red-and-white-striped tissue paper to go
inside each bag. This made the new
purchase look more like a gift and reminded everyone that they were shopping
for Christmas… yay!
Paperwork: Receipts,
Custom Orders, and Inventory Checklists
These are a few pieces of paper that you might like to have
with you at the fair:
The first is
receipts.
Some customers might like a receipt of purchase, particularly if they
just bought a large item. You can create
your own in Microsoft Word or download
a customizable template here.
Secondly, if you are willing to offer custom orders, you
might be opening yourself up to a whole new scope of your business. I was eager to offer custom orders on my
gloves, particularly because I’d only had time to make three pairs before the
show. Every time people showed any
interest in the gloves I encouraged them to try them on and then pulled out a
bag full of yarn so that they could imagine a pair of gloves in colors that
appealed to them. This way I got three
custom orders in a three-hour show, which is $75 I wouldn’t have otherwise made! I designed little
custom order forms.
Lastly, you will want to keep an
inventory checklist so that
you know what you’re selling. I made a
nice one on Microsoft Word but ended up just keeping a running list myself of what
I had sold and for how much. This tally
of how much I had made thus far also motivated me to keep selling hard! I’m glad I have this record because my memory
fades quickly and I’ll need to know these figures for taxes in April.
Ploys
By this I mean
candy or cookies or your business logo stickers or whatever
encourages people to come on over, snag a handful, and take a look. I wanted to accommodate all those who might
be tempted by chocolate! I set out an
attractive Polish pottery dish that matched my other display dish and filled it
with Hershey’s kisses wrapped in Christmas-colored foil. These were a hit… especially with me.
Craft Fair Checklist
- Your inventory with price tags either attached
now or made to be attached later. I
recommend packing everything in a rolling suitcase!
- Table decorations and/or props
- Receipts
- Custom order forms
- Inventory checklist/price list
- Paper towels for unfortunate spills or accidents
or to provide shape to your products (like stuffing hats instead of laying them
flat on your table)
- Mirror so people can see what they look like as
they try your products on!
- Cash—I had $20 in $10, $5, and $1 bills and it
was more than enough as people began paying in cash immediately and bulked up
my stash. I also accepted checks.
- A small table or a chair on which to place your
cash box, paperwork, pens, and water bottle, as it’s awkward to have them on
the floor and you need to use your table to display your wares.
- Office supplies
- Tape—masking
tape for securing your tablecloth/décor and gift tape for odds and ends
- Pens and Sharpie
- Pins—preferably
plain metal straight pins so as to be as invisible as possible in your display
- Safety
pins
- Scissors
- Needle
and thread
- Calculator
- For yourself
- Camera
- Phone
- Water
or drink of preference (ie. decaff coffee for that early morning for me!)
- Sweater
if the craft fair location is cold
- Food—consider
including a full meal if you’ll be there all day, but also consider that the
booth down the hall selling fresh Mexican street tacos might be calling your
name! Also consider if you want to eat
behind your table (not recommended for appearance’s sake…) and who will sit
there in your stead while you go eat.
Can your husband or a good friend relieve you for 30 minutes and also be
trusted to bring in sales while you’re gone?
Resources and Other Considerations
