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Question for Craft Show Participants

12 years ago

When you go to a craft fair, as a vendor, how much of your product do you bring with you. This is for a one-day show, approximately 6-8 hours. If you are selling dish gardens, how many dish gardens do you plan to bring. If you sell totems, how many totems do you plan to bring. If you have a variety how much product do you bring? Thanks.

-Sprout

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Comments (6)

beatrice_outdoors
12 years ago
I think it would depend on the size of the booth, your setup style and design. You're basically creating a "store window display" to catch the eye, so some thought does have to go into this in advance. What goes on a table, on a post, on the ground, etc. If you know how you're going to set up, and how many pieces would fill your display, I'd bring 2-3 times the amount to fill the booth, with extras in the vehicle or under the table/stored for re-filling the empty spaces.
luvs2click
12 years ago
I take everything I have. People really like a full booth. For my 2-day show in June I probably had 45-50 miniature gardens and only brought 2 home. How many to make in the first place depends on how big a show it is, how well attended, etc. The one I do is pretty big and very well attended. I would rather have extra and not sell it than sell out right away and wish I would have made more. I like to feel I gave it my all and made as much money as was possible (since, after all, this is the bottom line!) rather than question how much more I could have made if I had more items. I don't know if this helped or not.
Arlene
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concretenprimroses
12 years ago
I have only done one, but I brought 37 plate floweers and 2 totems. I sold 22 plate flowers and 1 totem. My goal had been to bring 50 plate flowers and that would have been better. Sales dropped off and the booth didn't look as good when the amount of product dropped.

I keep pondering what an experienced full time crafter once said at the Crafts and Decorations forum: If you sell ten times your booth rental price that is good. So I'm wondering if bringing product equaling 20 times your booth price might make some kind of sense. If I do it again, I'm going to have that as my goal.

Kathy
flowers12
12 years ago
I agree that a full booth brings more sales. It gives buyers a good selection to choose from. I've only sold at 3 craft fairs last year and did very good which was exciting. I'm scheduled to do the same 3 coming up in the next few months. I have a question. How do you ladies "pack" your totems and plate flowers for the trip to the craft fairs? My son and husband made me some wonderful displays that allow the items to stand up on the ground or table but we haven't thought of a good way to transport all the fragile items. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Marilyn
concretenprimroses
12 years ago
Marilyn what do you sell? I'd love to see pics of your displays.

Re packing: We have a lot of empty 4 gal joint compound buckets (you can also buy new pretty colored ones at HD) that I layered the wrapped plate flowers in. I put out a call to friends for bubble wrap and packing materials so I didn't have to pay for it. I also put some wrapped plate flowers in a metal milk crate that was part of the display.

The wrapping comes in handy when you sell. What did you use for bags? My favorite bags to put the sold items in were 12x12 clear scrapbooking bags that I had saved from when I used to buy lots of sb paper. I actually called my friend who used to have a sb business to see if she had any leftover bags, but she didn't. I may invest in some of these bags if I do it again. I put my flyer so it showed from the outside throught the clear plastic and the wrapped plate flower fit perfectly inside.
Kathy
flowers12
12 years ago
Hi Kathy, I would love to post some pics but I just can't figure out how to. Layering the plate flowers in buckets is a great idea, hadn't thought of that. I've been using some of those plastic storage bins and using towels, blankets, bubble wrap and whatever else to pack them in. I guess lugging them to craft fairs is just a lot of work. This forum is so wonderful. I've gotten so many good ideas from all you.

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