The Essentials
I liked to be prepared for things before I do them even though everything may not always go as planned. I did so much research so much planning and I am so glad I did because everything went as smooth as it could go! Here are the things I think are most essential to have at the craft fair.
1. Different ways of accepting payments
I had 4 ways of payment. Credit card, Cash, Venmo, and Paypal. I was unsure of what kind of payments people had so I made sure to have different options just in case. I found that while I made more money with credit cards, Majority of my customer paid with cash! I guess they expect that first rather than card because I had a lot of people ask if I take card vs if I take cash.
If you sign up to use Square with your business, you are eligible to get a free magstripe reader. Although I got my free one, i found out late that it was not compatible with my ipad so I bought the square contactless reader, chip reader which was 50 dollars! So to me it was a good investment.
Third party processers have become really popular as well, there is paypal, Venmo, Cashapp, etc. So having those can help too. Although for me no one used those forms of payment. You just never know lol.
2. Business cards and info
Many people that came up to my booth browsed really hard and then asked me for my business card so they could check out my website. So having business cards on hand really helped. If you don’t want to spend money on business cards, there are apps that let you print a QR code for people to scan and get all your info as well! Linktree is one of many sites that lets you customize your link page to match your business! If not those, have signs that have all your socials on your table so they can silently look you up on their phones on their own.
3. Food, snacks and something to do!
It can be really easy to be caught up in everything you’re doing and realize you haven’t ate or drank anything yet so having snacks, water, and something for lunch is key to making it through the day. I borrowed my dad’s cooler, and they brought snacks and water. I brought my big jar of water along with some watermelon my sister bought! My dad also brought us different foods to try as well!
My mom brought her yarn with her so she could crochet while waiting! I brought my sketchpad with me in case I wanted to sketch anything out for future shop releases. Or just doodle! If there are slow times its nice to have something to do while you wait!
4. Support
For my first craft fair, I invited my mom to come, and I would sell her crochet items. It was a good experience for her to see how the craft fairs are as she thought about it before. Bringing someone along can help when you need a break, need to get food or to talk to multiple customers at a time! I am so grateful to not just have had my mom but also my dad stay for the entire event.
If you don’t have family close by, I think sharing a table with another vendor would be a good experience too! Costs of spaces can be high and if you can share your table it can help with your costs in a big way!
Luckily, the company that holds this fair has staff that comes by every so often to see if everything is okay like if you need anything or if you want to go use the restroom. So the vendors that were on their own had support from the staff!
5. All the tools
Things can go wrong, things can break, or things can be forgotten. So I brought a bin that had just about anything that would help me fix things or label things
my box had: Scissors, tape, glue, pens, pencils, an expo pen for my signs, paper, and my other bin had extra bags if people wanted them!
I left my pushpins at home for my cork board so i ended up using a lot of tape to hold things up lol.
I also had a sign fall off the clothespin, so it was a good thing I stole my husband’s superglue before I left.
So bring any extra tool that can help you in case things go wrong or need to fix things really fast!
