My First Craft Fayre

On Friday, November 17th I attended my very first craft fayre as a vendor. It was only a small event – just Christmas fayre for the village I grew up in, but it was a huge leap on the road to becoming a proper artisan crafter. I can’t say I went in with no idea of what to expect – I’ve attended my fair share of these things, and I’ve been conned into manning stalls before – but i hugely underestimated how much work it would be. I’m not sure I was entirely successful, but I certainly learnt a lot. Fayre: Village Christmas Fayre

Cost of pitch: £5

Stock: The Happy Purse and Mum’s Cable Tidies

Sales Target: 3 purses

Preparation

As I say, this was my first ever craft fayre, and I hugely underestimated how much work it would require. Moreover i did the whole thing with the beginning of some kind of cold, so all I wanted to do all evening was curl up in a blanket and not talk to anyone. Nonetheless, I went out, armed with hand sanitiser and got on with it. This is what I thought to do:

• First of all, I did book a table – though not nearly far enough in advance. I got sidetracked by a huge project at work that put my entire life on hold through October, so I missed the application window and I was lucky that they managed to squeeze me in at all. As a result, I ended up with just a card table – though I can’t say that this was any particular hardship, as it was cheaper and my table didn’t look so bare
• I made some stock! though not nearly as much as I had planned.
• I ordered some business cards – which even arrived in time (though I left them at home and nearly had to do the show without them).
• I got a version of my website up and running – though it had nothing but my purses on it, and not even in the current fabrics.
• I remembered to take a float, though for some reason the bank wasn’t able to give me any coins, so I only had notes.

What I didn’t think of

It quickly became clear that there was a lot of stuff I hadn’t thought enough about, including:

• Table dressing – I hurriedly nabbed a metre of hessian from my mum’s stash and laid my purses ‘artistically’ out flat.
• Marketing – I thought I was ahead of the curve having business cards and a website, but what I had failed to do was effectively advertise the features of my products – or even their prices.
• Actually making a sale – I hadn’t prepared anything to send them away in, nor how i was going to keep track of my sales. Fortunately my mum lives in the village, so she was able to run home and find me some tissue paper to wrap them in, and i had taken a note book on which to keep score.
• Glamour shots – I didn’t think to take pictures of my stock before I sold it, nor any pictures of my stand, so until I can find out whether anyone else got any good ones this post is a little
• bare (sorry!)

Lessons learnt

Even at a small fayre, the learning curve was steep.

• Publicise your qualities – no one that walked away from my stand that night knew about the anti-fraud lining, for example, and they may never realise it, so, in a way, it was almost a waste of materials to add it.
• Take a friend (that’s not sitting distracted by chatting to their neighbours) – someone to man your stall while you nip to the loo, that knows your stock and can talk to any potential customers
• Plan your accounting strategy in advance
• Do you take card? – my purses are not exactly cheap, and most people don’t carry that kind of cash these days. I am certain I missed out on at least one sale because I had no facility to take card payments. For me, the capacity to take cards would have been really handy, as I was relying on a few high value sales. For others it was not a hindrance, but it would definitely have helped me.
• Be confident in your pricing – you set your price that way for a reason, that reason is no less valid because you’ve put yourself out there. okay, there’s a degree of sensitivity you may want to pay to the type of even you are at, but make these decisions ahead of time and stick to your guns. they’ll never buy anything if they can’t even tell how much you want for it.
• Don’t worry if no one buys early on – especially if your items have a high ticket value, and you’re sat just inside the door. People want to look around, scope out the room and browse.
• Talk to everyone – even if you don’t feel like it; talk to the customers, talk to the other vendors, you never know where your next sale will come from, who you may run into again, and who you may need to ask for help. ultimately, your brand is only as valuable as you are, and if people don’t like you, they’re not going to look you up later.

Outcome

Overall, this evening was certainly a success. By the end of the night, I had sold about a third of my stock – which, given that my stock consisted of eight purses and fifteen cable tidies, may not seem like a huge amount, but it exceeded the target I had set for myself, which covered my costs and got my name out there. Since then, I’ve had several further orders from people that saw me but didn’t get a chance to come over. It was a huge confidence boost, especially as I’d turned it all around in such a short space of time – people actually wanted to buy my stuff, so this can’t be such a stupid idea!

Best of all, I made a friend who is in almost the same boat as me. She, too, told herself ‘this year’, and is winging it, though she’s a bit more organised about it than me. We’ve since signed up to collaborate on several more, bigger events, so more updates to come.