I have been using my personal ipad for markets and craft fairs and i’m kinda over it lol.

Between square, email signups, pulling up product info and letting someone else help with checkout, it gets annoying fast. I only do a few events a year though, so buying another ipad just for that feels like a waste.

I came across fello and meeting tomorrow while looking at rentals, but i’m curious what other vendors actually do. separate event ipad, personal one, or just rent when you need extra?

I have one booked in November that are charging £30 which seems very reasonable for a small Christmas fete. But I enquired about another one that’s much bigger at the county show ground and they are charging £465 to £660 just for a row stand, with the corner stands coming in at £995! All pitch fees come with the slot but if you want them to supply you with a folding table for the day, it’s an extra £25 on top. This seems absolutely extortionate no? I was looking forward to doing it but I don’t think I can afford those prices at all. Is this how much they all are?

Hi everyone. First time poster here. This weekend I'll be a vendor for the first time at a Fall Festival in my hometown. I make handmade dolls. I was just wondering if there's any advice for someone about to do their first craft fair?

Hi! I've done a few markets but I'm constantly changing my setup cause I feel like it's either ugly or over crowded. This is my second outdoor market I've done two indoor last year (paused this year for my wedding) and now I'm back to it. The last outdoor market went terrible. My tent snapped in the wind, my table cloths got ruined, banner ripped, yes I did have the proper weights on each leg. Two sand bags 35-50lbs on each leg. One hold 35 the other is 45-50lbs anyways it didn't go great and I wasn't a fan of my set up. Next one is this Saturday and I'm practicing my set up. What do you think? Would you approach my booth?

I don't have everything out. My check out stand has a banner, My table cloths and table banner isn't out, some products not put up but is it ok? I have more stuff to put out. But this is basically it. I did upgrade my tent to a crown shade 10x10 with the zip up sidewalls and so far it's been holding up.

Please ignore the messy bins, table top area and the product not put out. The clamps on the curtain will be replaced with zip ties to not look so ugly.

I don't want to buy anything off of Amazon or Temu! I would really prefer a Canadian company: something similar to this US based site https://cleardisplays.com/

Any recs?

I make stained glass and this is my current setup. I only do indoor markets so don’t need a tent. Let me know your honest thoughts and advice! It’s hard to see but each piece is individually priced with a little white sticker so there’s no guesswork.

Hello,

I sell fine art prints of my original illustrations and I just started doing craft fairs (just finished my second one). How many fairs do you test a design/product at before you stop bringing it?

I want my stall to be all knock out pieces and no dead weight — but sometimes it is hard to judge for myself which are my strongest pieces and sometimes things I don’t think are my most successful still manage to find homes. To add to that, I have been trying out very different markets, one of my pieces that didn’t get looked at all at my first market - sold out at my second. All to say I think I would sell more refining my stall but I don’t want to prematurely start cutting things — so I guess how many markets did you do before you started removing designs? What metrics do you use to make those calls?

I'm doing my first market and I chose Montclair Flea because I'm hoping people would be willing to shell out $80 for a handwoven merino wool scarf. 😂

Has anyone been to this event? They host it every week and I'm not sure what to expect...

ETA: they don't host it weekly! I was wrong. Also it's supposed to be more artisan and handmade than an actually flea market. (Haven't been though so I can say what it's like) https://www.montclairflea.com

Hi everyone,

I create handmade beaded jewelry and run my own WooCommerce website.

I’m getting a small amount of visitors to my site, but conversions have been really hard to come by. I’d love to hear advice from other handmade jewelry creators who have dealt with low conversion rates.

Here are a few things I’m curious about:

1. What website issues commonly stop people from buying handmade jewelry? Things like product photos, item descriptions, pricing, checkout flow, shipping details, etc.

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2. What styles of handmade beaded jewelry catch your eye the most, and what pushes you to complete a purchase?

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3. What information do you want to see on an independent maker’s shop before you feel comfortable ordering?

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4. Which marketing channels sent you buying traffic? TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, email marketing, and so on.

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5. What small mistakes did you make when launching your online shop that you wish you fixed sooner?

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6. If your site had visitors but few orders, what was the first thing you checked or changed?

I don’t aim to build a big brand. I just want to run a sustainable small online shop for my beadwork.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience!

I normally have an even number of prints available but 3 went out of stock the day of the market.

Table behind grid wall has a jewelry tray with mini stickers and thats were I sit as well🙂

After resigning from my job, I started haunting thrift stores for crafting materials. I discovered lots and lots of cheap and beautiful crystal. I start building fairy lamps from recycled crystal by putting solar lights in them. The facets in the crystal make beautiful patterns of light and there is no shortage of sunlight where I live.

I have never owned a business but was a kid sitting under my parents flea market table. We did craft shows and flea markets to make ends meet selling hair accessories. From that experience I learned that I never want to own a business.

After selling a few lamps on Facebook, I worked up the courage to apply to a bunch of craft fairs. Boy, not having a business location, card, website, or name makes it hard to get accepted. However, I did finally get accepted to a tiny craft fair run by a local church. I was thrilled! I bought a 10 by 10 pop up on temu, paid the $25 fee and made a big ass lamp from a crystal punch bowl for donation to the fair.

Honestly, my set up was more akin to the kids in your neighborhood trying to sell lemonade on a card table and a hastily made poster of sharpie and science fair trifold. So im not surprised that I sold only three lamps all day. It also doesn't help that after months of no rain, it started to rain. So everyone was not interested in buying solar lamps on a rainy day.

Well, I had decorated my table with little fairy garden pieces I had started to collect to maybe evolve my creations transformation from crystal light to super fairy crystal light of immortal cuteness in your garden. As I saw kids walking by, their hungry little eyes started darting around at my sparkly little mushrooms with faces, glass dragonflies, and enamel gold bees with diamonds on their wings. On a whim, i declared: all kids get one piece of free fairy magic. Within 10 minutes, every child within the boundaries of the lutheran church manifested to my table. As eager little hands clutched at bits of plastic between my crystal lamps, i contemplated that this was probably not the best idea in general. However, no children nor crystal were hurt in making of this story. Nor did this idea garner any more business from the reluctantly following parents.

A booth across from me was a group of kids making bracelets and Keychain out of beads and selling them. We had very similar levels of business infrastructure and felt a certain kinship through our bonds of poster board and marker. One little girl from that stand took a piece of fairy magic and ran back to her station. I smiled. But then she suddenly ran back to me and gave me a hug and a little Keychain she made. Even though my grand total profit was -$10 and a hug, I think i still did ok.

Hi fellow crafters,

I hope my question isn’t silly! So I have been making my inventory of pressed flowers in photo frames. I’ve been using a lot of vintage and antique frames and frames I’ve bought from thrift shops and up cycling them. Repurposing. I also have some new frames as well that I bought. But I really do love a vintage photo frame, especially the gold and brass tone metal ones.
My question is regarding few frames I have purchased. Two have these tags on it. Should I keep that on there or remove when I finally start selling?

What do you do when your supplies have tags or stickers like that are used for a finished product? I’m not sure if they legally need to stay on or not?

I posted a couple pictures so you can see my designs and get an idea.

Thanks!

My dad and I have been doing vendor events for two years now, and this is our most recent booth setup after a much needed refresh.

We typically do artisan markets, but have been getting accepted into more of the ren faire scene, so we're attempting to appeal to both crowds. It was our best show ever by a LOT, so we think we are on the right track, but obviously one can always improve.

What are your first impressions? Feedback is welcome, we're hoping to start planning for next year. Thanks!

I am currently doing one product line with multiple design variations, they are plant markers. I am not heading toward anything fall/winter but hoping to hit up and register for some stuff in spring. I'm including a sample of my product, which was from a Facebook Marketplace listing.

I am currently selling local on Facebook Marketplace and I am hoping, as mentioned, to start in the spring at some small craft sales - I am thinking church sales and stuff. Do you think it's enough to apply to a craft fair with just one product type (Plant markers only)? I have countless designs, still deciding if I will run a larger inventory of markers or a smaller inventory to do more of a "make on demand" style with my very tiny Cricut (Joy 2) at the craft fairs. Worried I might need to flush out with more products, which is difficult for me at this stage. I make a lot but nothing that is really related to plant markers and I'd like to keep a cohesive/put together booth.

My idea is to do mix and match bundles where they could choose their own from available designs:
1 marker $4 (CAD for all)
3 markers $10
5 markers $15
10 markers $28

I can make a marker in about 7-10 minutes so the "make on demand" is somewhat feasable, I think. As I'm choosing a fair type that might be somewhat slow.

For my product line I have literally 50-100 sayings to choose from, but the main inventory I run is my top 10 sayings. For each show I can tailor that down to the top 25 for choice of a make on demand too, since 100 is very overwhelming even if it does exist.

I have done a few craft fairs before. I did Renegade Craft fair with homemade soap in 2003 in Chicago and that was very overwhelming and I didn't realize I wasn't ready for that at the time. I learned a lot though. I have also had a market table at a flea market for selling other type of products in the spring of 2026, so I am sort of recently active in that market type. I'm hoping to sign up for very small craft fairs to start.

Picture added to show product in a display.

The first photo is my display at my very first pop up event in December 2025, and the other two are from this weekend.

The clearer pricing has helped with making sales & adding risers to the tables was a huge upgrade as well.

I'm currently displaying my chokers on corkboards, held in place with pins. It takes some time to take them off/put them back on when a customer wants to try one on. I would like to figure out a way to make that easier for me when a market is very busy. Any ideas?

Don't mind my face I was dead tired😅

I enjoy the social aspect of craft fairs and getting to chat with people all day (and then hibernate for like a week cause it's a lot lol)

But I meet a lot of vendors who wish they weren't vendors at all. I've heard them mention that craft fairs simply seem more profitable than spending all their time agonizing on oversaturated platforms like Etsy.

That's one of the reasons I prefer being a vendor too.

I'm wondering how common this sentiment is, that craft shows are the lesser of two evils (the other being an online platform) and would be avoided if possible 🤔

On the brighter side though, I'd love to hear why you love being a vendor if that's the case!

Edit: Wow, thanks so much for commenting! I've gotten a lot of insight reading y'alls comments<3

My stuff is half stainless steel and the other half of stuff I sell is sterling, I try to do fair prices, I have stuff that ranges from $10-50 and I have a mini three dollar bin of stuff that is just small or hasn’t sold over the course of many shows. People rummage through that frequently. My last 5 or so shows have been incredibly slow only making around 200-300 dollars a show and the vendors around me are telling me that they’re making 1000+ is my jewelry just up to standard or over priced or do you think it could be a display issue or what. Criticism is appreciated