Thursday, April 10, 2008

My First Craft Fair! Advice Please?

I signed up for a very low key craft fair next month at Cal Poly University and am SO excited to get my table organized. There will only be 20 tables for one day. As a newbie, I wanted to get any advice you guys could think of for how to make the most of my 6 foot long table space for a Saturday. I just got a bunch of business cards printed up, I am working on some tiny plush giveaways/promos for my table, and am thinking of putting together a photo album of all my work for people to look at.

So here are a few things I'm wondering about:

Do customers usually bargain or should I set a firm price? If they do bargain, how much should I be expected to come down? I try and price my items fairly and am REALLY bad at bargaining because I always just give it to them for the price they want because I'm flattered they want to buy my stuff at all.

Is "cash only" pretty standard or is there any safe way to accept personal checks?

Aesthetics: Any great tips of how to present plushies with just a 6 foot long table? I was thinking some kind of stacked crate formation rather than just throwing them all on top of each other? My stuff is all different so grouping like with like isn't an option.

Should I give attendees a promo code for my Etsy shop? What kinds of these types of enticements seem to work?

Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance :)

4 comments:

Tanja said...

I hope you have a great time there. Can you find out where the nearest ATM is so that you can point people in that direction when they need cash? HTH.

Sarah said...

Good idea! I like the sound of "cash." ;)

Amy @ CrabtreeStudio said...

Jessica and I (Crabtree Studio) accept both cash and checks. In the last 2 years we have yet to receive a bad check (knock on wood). Perhaps craft shoppers are good with their finances?

We don't really bargain with people. I think we've set our prices fairly and our plushies take a long time so we can't really discount them. We have from time to time given someone a deal when they are buying lots of inventory and can't decide what they like best ("Oh take both, with one half off!"). We do have many vendors ask us for swaps though. Trading alpaca for jewelry, an elephant for a art print, etc.

*DO* go vertical if you can - with stacked boxes, crates, whatever you can devise. It helps give you a more interesting table and gives you a chance to better showcase your wares.

I definitely recommend having a picture book of your items, particularly if you have the good fortune of selling out of items. You can then refer people to their pictures at least!

sugarcreekstuff said...

Amy pretty much got it covered. i have yet to receive a bad check, I have even told people they could send me a check later, (I.O.U.s)they all paid. No one has ever called me a savy business woman though.

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