A list of current craft trends and trend predictions for 2024 that handmade business owners can make and sell on Etsy or at craft shows.
If you sell at enough craft shows, markets, and events, you’ll eventually run into shoppers who think your prices are too high. They’ll tell you they could make it themselves, get someone to make it cheaper, or find the item at the mall for less. Yet they still want the item and are asking for...
These are the top 5 mistakes handmade vendors commonly make at craft shows. If you're wondering why sales aren't higher, take a look through the list.
Imagine walking into a store and a sales associate stays within two feet of you the entire time. Most people prefer space while they shop. It takes the pressure off and lets them be with their thoughts as they consider a purchase. But most craft show booths don’t allow for space. You may have as...
When you hand your business card out at a craft fair, 80% of them end up in the trash. Here's how to make your business cards more effective.
10 places to find local craft shows and markets to apply for and what to do to ensure you're applying to the right events & actually making money at them.
Illustrations of 6 common craft booth designs and layouts to help you plan an effective art fair display.
Choosing the right craft show can make a big difference in your success in selling crafts. Here's how to decide if a show is worth your time.
There's a lot for craft show shoppers to take in and they likely won't stop at every booth. Here's how to ensure your space catches their eye.
There’s an image on Pinterest that catches my eye every time I see it. I’ve probably seen it close to a hundred times. It’s a picture of a craft show table displaying greeting cards. The photo only captures a corner of the table, but you can tell it’s a clean, cohesive display. Today...
Craft shows are a unique way to shop and vendors can get creative with their setup. But there are certain things craft show shoppers shouldn't see.
If you plan to use craft shows as a sales channel for your business, you don’t want to make a bad impression on organizers who decide whether or not you’ll be accepted as a vendor. These are common mistakes vendors make that can annoy craft show organizers and have them second-guessing if they want you...
This sales technique is one that I saw used over and over by the major retailers I worked for and it's one that got results...as in sales. Here's what it is
Color, and how you use it, is the most important element of your craft show display. Color can instantly catch a shopper’s attention, tell your target market your products are right for them, and help tell a story. There are many ways to incorporate color. This article’s quick fix focuses on color in product groupings. ...
Although craft show organizers should be doing their part to get lots of shoppers to the event (if they don’t have a marketing plan, it’s a red flag, watch for these ones too before you commit to any event), those shoppers aren’t guaranteed to be interested in your products. You know who is guaranteed to...
Not all of these points are red flags telling you not to sell at a particular craft show. However, they may be signs to proceed with caution. Craft shows can be labor intensive and come with several expenses. So you want to be sure a craft show is the right fit for you and your...
Getting customers to your Etsy shop, website, or craft show table takes a lot of work. So it’s important that you make the most of every shopper. It’s not about taking advantage of shoppers and tricking them into spending more money. It’s about presenting options so they can make an educated purchase. Up-selling is a...
When I was making Christmas dinner for the first time, I had a lot of questions for my mom. I asked how much poultry seasoning she puts in the dressing and she said: “I don’t know…until it smells like dressing”. It’s an odd way to determine how much seasoning to use, but it works. If...
When I was making Christmas dinner for the first time, I had a lot of questions for my mom. I asked how much poultry seasoning she puts in the dressing and she said: “I don’t know…until it smells like dressing”. It’s an odd way to determine how much seasoning to use, but it works. If...
Craft shows are a unique way to shop and vendors can get creative with their setup. But there are certain things craft show shoppers shouldn't see.
Learn how to start a craft business from home with these step by step tips and ideas. Sell your handmade goods and make some extra cash!
We love custom orders chalkboard sign. Perfect advertisement for your business! Weather your looking to advertise at a craft show or need a sign to display at your local shop, this is the perfect sign for you. Measures 8x10. Twine cord for hanging. Hand lettered with acrylic paint and gone over with seal to ensure durability. Want different colors or saying? Message me!
One of my most popular articles details the types of products that sell best at craft shows; you can read that here: What Sells Best at a Craft Show? This article explores the other side: Types of products that don’t tend to sell well, or that can actually harm the sales of best-selling products. I’ve created...
This may seem like a bit of an odd topic to write on but I can tell you; being an introvert, who’s married to an extrovert, my thinking and rationale is quite different from his. Not all introverts are the same and they’re often confused as being shy. Introversion does tend to go hand in...
Asking what to wear to a craft fair is like asking "what do I wear to work?" The answer depends on many variables. Find out how to choose the right outfit.
10 places to find local craft shows and markets to apply for and what to do to ensure you're applying to the right events & actually making money at them.
If you walk into any retailer at the mall, you’ll find that almost all of them follow similar techniques when it comes to catching a shoppers eye, drawing them in and selling to them. Of course, you don’t want to follow exactly what large retailers are doing because you’re a small, independent, handmade business and much cooler than...
The 7 essential items you need for every craft show or farmers market to set you up for success! Add this list to your craft show prep checklist!
What to bring to craft fairs - Everything you need, so you can be well organized, prepared, and calm. Don't forget anything important at home with this craft show supplies list.
A list of current craft trends and trend predictions for 2024 that handmade business owners can make and sell on Etsy or at craft shows.
Although you may be working with a small space at a craft show, it should still have a strategic layout, with 3 key areas that transition shoppers to buyers
Handmade product? Check! Business cards? Check! Wicked display? Check! You'll all ready for your craft fair right? There's one thing most vendors forget.
When it comes to selling handmade, you need multiple ways to get your name out there and sell your goods. Craft shows are one piece of that puzzle. They allow you to test your products, meet local customers and make a lot of sales in a short period or time. There are so many...
If you want to see your handamde products in retailers you should create a lookbook to help you pitch to shop owners and sell your items wholesale.
Color, and how you use it, is the most important element of your craft show display. Color can instantly catch a shopper’s attention, tell your target market your products are right for them, and help tell a story. There are many ways to incorporate color. This article’s quick fix focuses on color in product groupings. ...
Fall of 2012 marked our first experience as an art vendor, at Cooper Young Festival in Memphis, TN. Over the years, we’ve padded our resume with quite a few more shows and experimented with a LOT of trial and error on our vendor booth layout and setup. We’ve learned a lot, both from our own experiences and from looking to other vendors for inspiration. Today, we’re going to share with you our top 16 ideas for selling at art festivals, craft fairs and indie markets. These tips can be summed up into three key categories: Booth Display, Signage/Décor and—the most important—Branding. FIRST, LET'S DIVE INTO VENDOR BOOTH DISPLAY. 1. Plan out your booth space BEFORE the day of your festival. Before we set foot at an art festival, our vendor booth is completely laid out. We measure all our display pieces (shelves, tables, etc.) and configure the space to help speed up the set up time. Plus, not all shows have the same options for booth sizes (because that would just be too easy). This year, our Cooper Young booth featured a 10’ x 15’ space, while some of our holiday shows ranged from a 6’ x 8’ space to a 10’ x 20’ double booth. It helps to lay everything out beforehand to know what will or will not fit in the allotted space. Once everything is measured, we use Adobe Illustrator to plan out the booth space, with everything to scale. We print out copies to take with us during set up, as well as email a copy to ourselves in case we lose the paper copies (it happens). Here's a look at my Adobe Illustrator artboard for our most recent Cooper Young Festival vendor booth: And here is our finished vendor booth, based on that original mock up: 2. Display vertically. When potential buyers pass your vendor booth, they’re not seeing product that is flat on tables. At least some of your work needs to be in their line of sight. One way we add height to our booth display is with these adjustable white metal shelf units we found at IKEA (shop them here). The shelves are completely adjustable and IKEA sells individual shelves, so you can add to the original four included. We switch it up depending on what art we need to display at each festival or market. In the past, we've used these custom built white-washed wood displays on rollers, which our brother built for us. We love how they look in our booth, as they mimic a more retail-style setting. However, these are rather heavy and bulky to transport. Looking for something a little more transport friendly, this year we commissioned a custom white wood peg wall. The unit breaks down into four separate pieces, so it's easy and convenient for traveling. Everything hooks together via large bolts and wing nuts, with the shelves and pegs packed separately. It's also completely adjustable, as the pegs can be configured in various ways. This wall unit is great for displaying our larger 5 panel wood pieces, which serve as great eye catchers for potential buyers walking by our vendor booth. For smaller shows, we take just two of the four wall panels, usually paired with one of the white IKEA shelf units. Bonus: extra pegs are great for hanging ornaments! Clear acrylic risers are also a great way to subtly add height and levels when displaying artwork on a table. Because they're clear, they don't take away from your displayed art. We use combinations of this 5 piece set from Displays2Go. 3. Choose display colors that will make your work pop. As you can see, for our larger display pieces (shelves, walls), we incorporate as much white as possible. Because all sides of our wood art is stained in a dark finish, the white background helps it pop. We also prefer how clean the white and neutral hues look. 4. Store and display multiple art prints. We have ALL-CAPS-STRUGGLED with how to display and store our art prints, other than stuffing them in baskets for browsing. We recently discovered these gold wire baskets from IKEA that slide on perfectly to our white IKEA shelves. They are great at storing stacks of prints! To actually display the prints, we chopped up a 4” x 4” piece of lumber and sawed angled grooves down the top. We stained them to match the color of our wood art. The art prints stand up perfectly in the grooves of the wood, which we then prop up above the wire baskets. It’s easy for buyers to see the print displayed and simply pick it up from the basket underneath for purchase. 5. Use slim Christmas trees to display holiday ornaments. During our holiday shows, our Christmas ornaments are HUGE sellers. While we use our peg wall for some ornament overflow, ornaments look best hanging on an actual Christmas tree. This also better demonstrates to potential buyers how it will look on their own tree. However, for those smaller booth spaces, a full Christmas tree takes up too much valuable real estate and just isn't practical. And some of the smaller, table-top trees aren’t known for being sturdy. Because our ornaments are on the heavier side, we've had issues with the smaller trees tipping over ... especially when buyers are trying to take the ornaments off the trees to purchase. We found a great slim Christmas tree from our local At Home. It measures only 18” in diameter but can still can hold quite a few ornaments. We re-stock throughout the show to keep the tree looking full. NEXT UP, WE HAVE BOOTH SIGNAGE/DÉCOR. 6. Emphasize your business name for potential buyers with branded signage. We have our friends over at Ella Jude to thank for this easy DIY pop-out booth sign idea. For this sign, we painted a thin piece of wood white, then transferred our logo (with our image transfer process) to both sides, though we've seen others hand paint their logo. We bought two pieces of copper pipe and an elbow joint and glued them all together to form an L-shaped corner. To hang the wood sign from the copper pipe, we spray-painted loose-leaf rings to match the copper pipe. We then use clear zip ties to attach the sign to our booth or tent. We're hoping to make an even larger version this year. For additional branded signage, we bought a large white vinyl banner with grommets and designed it to include our logo, website and social media handles. We use this when we have space available. For our outdoor art shows, such as Cooper Young, we hang the banner on the back of our tent so buyers walking down the sidewalks behind the booths can see our name. 7. Tell your story with signage. We sell handmade image transfers on wood and marble tile. The most common question we receive from customers during festivals and shows is,
Following a basic formula that uses the same markup no matter what you sell can easily overprice your work. Here's the right way to price handmade products.
Most handmade vendors don't love to sell. But it's necessary if you want to make money at craft shows. Here's how to ease into it and sell to anyone.
Most handmade vendors ignore these 3 important perspectives when it comes to their craft show setup. Find out what they are and how to fix any issues.
Unless you’re selling at a very small craft show, you’ll never get 100% of shoppers to stop at your table. Your products are not for everyone, nor should they be. However, some craft show vendors do a great job of grabbing the attention of more shoppers and drawing them in (giving them more opportunities to...
The brands that grow the quickest are the ones that get people talking. When your shoppers and customers become raving fans, they help promote your products
Handmade product? Check! Business cards? Check! Wicked display? Check! You'll all ready for your craft fair right? There's one thing most vendors forget.
There's a lot for craft show shoppers to take in and they likely won't stop at every booth. Here's how to ensure your space catches their eye.
A list of 30 things to do when your craft business is slow. Perfect for Silhouette, Cricut, Glowforge, and Juliet crafters.
What to bring to craft fairs - Everything you need, so you can be well organized, prepared, and calm. Don't forget anything important at home with this craft show supplies list.
Here’s how I used to treat craft shows. I’d go into crazy-woman sewing mode in the weeks leading up to a craft show. All other marketing and updating of sales channels would stop so I could give my full attention to production. I’d stay up late the last couple of nights before the...
Not all of these points are red flags telling you not to sell at a particular craft show. However, they may be signs to proceed with caution. Craft shows can be labor intensive and come with several expenses. So you want to be sure a craft show is the right fit for you and your...
Handmade businesses can sometimes be too accommodating and end up losing profits to please customers. Here are 10 times a vendor should say no to shoppers.
Revenue made at craft shows depends on so many factors. Here's how to determine how much money your business is likely to make and if you'll be profitable.
