When your mosaic addiction becomes strong enough that you need to start selling the results of your addiction, you too may want to try out selling at a craft fair.
I recently participated in the Artisans In The Garden event at a local community garden. Here are some of the lessons I learned for my next event (coming up next weekend!)
- Do a dry run and make sure your plans for setting up and displaying will work. I had some larger pieces that didn’t hang properly from the hooks I had purchased, so I was left leaning them against a table leg.
- Take Plastic: I have used PayPal Here and Square (both are free to get the readers) and find them equally easy to use. But I would have lost oodles of sales if I was only taking cash.
- Bring Shade (always): I had a tent borrowed from a friend, but I didn’t bring it because they told us it was going to be in the rain location, but when I got there, everyone was setting up outside because the rain was passing. It was hot!
- Invest in a cart: You’ll want to pack in and out as quickly as you can as everyone else is doing the same thing at the same time and if you were a thief, it would be a good time to grab a box of inventory!
- Pack well: I had a few pieces with odd parts sticking out and so I had some pieces that needed to be repaired. Some extra bubble wrap would have saved me the repair time and possible lost sales.
- It takes a village: or at least a friend or a family member (or three) to help with set up and keep you entertained during the day.
- Pack a “Go Box”: I started with a list from the Merriweather Council and edited to fit my needs, pasted here:
go box items
- Business Cards (include one of these in each bag, even one per item, so that if they are given as gifts your name stays with the work)
- Quarters/Change in a Moneyholder
- Calculator (I used my phone and the square ap for the calculations: you can set the sales tax to calculate automatically)
- Sales Tax License
- Scissors
- Shopping Bags
- Tablecloth(s)
- Strong Tape (packing, masking or duct tape)
- Scotch Tape
- Notebook/Inventory Sheet
- Pens/Markers
- PriceTags (definitely recommend you have everything priced and marked ahead of time!)
- CC Reader + Ap (install and set up the application on your phone before you get to the event!)
- Phone Charger
additional must haves
- Table (my friend let me borrow two of her six-foot folding tables that fold in half and have handles, they were amazingly handy!)
- Stool (I forgot this one and borrowed a folding chair, but a stool is better!)
- Tent (see above!
- Waterproof Bins (to pack your goods in!)
- Inventory! (see above for packing extra well advice)
- Cooler with at least a few bottles of water and some snacks
