Tips for Selling at Craft Fairs: A Creative Business Owner's Guide

As the weather gets warmer and summer starts to hit, that means one thing for artists who sell physical products—it’s craft fair season.

Craft fairs can be a great income generator for creative business owners. Not only do you make sales that day to an audience of people who came ready to shop, but you can also get exposure to potential future customers and collaborators that will help your business out down the line.

In this post, we’ll cover top tips for selling more at craft fairs, as well as leveraging craft fairs for long-term success in your creative business.

How to Sell at a Craft Fair

Let’s not sugarcoat it—it takes a ton of energy and effort to sell at a craft fair. You’re out in the heat all day, keeping your energy up and staying in “on” mode to chat with customers for 6+ hours… it can take a toll!

But when you have systems to stay organized and keep things running smoothly, it can make selling at craft fairs a lot calmer and easier.

Here’s what you’ll want to have prepared:

Your Craft Fair Booth Setup

Your booth setup is an important factor in selling more at craft fairs. You’ll want to make sure your booth showcases your art effectively, and draws customers in to look closer. Here are 3 considerations when planning your craft fair booth setup:

Use different heights to give people a better view of your products.
Using stands on top of tabletops can give a range of heights and allow people to better see your different pieces. If you sell paper goods, things like peg boards or standing racks can be a great way to make use of your vertical space and show off your art.
Leave room for customers.
You have a limited space for your booth, so you’ll need to ensure that you have enough surface area to set out your products without things getting too cramped. But, you also need to remember to leave room for customers to walk around and look at your products—you don’t want customers to pass by your booth because there’s no room for them to come in!
Think portable.
Remember that you’ll have to carry your whole setup in and out of the fair. Try using pieces that can break down or fold easily, like folding tables and chairs. Pack your artwork in plastic bins so you can easily pack it all up and transport it. A fold-up wagon or a dolly can be really helpful for these events.

When I ran my lettering business, I got my booth setup down to a science: 1 plastic bin with artwork, tablecloths, and clips, 2 folding tables, a greeting card stand, a standing rack for prints, a wagon, an 8x8 tent in a roller bag, and a bag with my change, inventory list, and card reader. And it all managed to fit in my Ford Focus 😅

After a few craft fairs, you’ll hone your system for easy and quick setup and tear down. But don’t be afraid to ask for help! These fairs are full of other artists trying to manage their booths solo too. They’re all in the same boat, and it’s a great opportunity to build some community.

Your Payment Methods

We live in a digital world where everyone expects to be able to pay with a credit card or with their phone. When you’re selling at a craft fair, you need to be prepared with a few different payment methods so you can capture sales quickly and easily.

Taking Credit Card Payments at Craft Fairs

Luckily, it’s fairly easy to get and set up a wireless credit card reader that connects to your phone or tablet. Here are a couple popular options:

Note for Etsy users: If you have an Etsy shop where you sell the same products as you sell at craft fairs, you may want to look into Square. The two apps have an integration, so you can sell in-person using the Square app, and your inventory in Etsy will be updated in real time. This can save you some extra post-fair admin work!

Whichever you use, make sure to activate your account, log in on your mobile device, connect the card reader device, and test everything before you go to your craft fair! The last thing you want is a customer standing in front of you, ready to purchase, and you can’t take their payment because of technical difficulties 😓

(Also, make sure everything is charged ahead of time! I recommend also bringing a spare battery pack for your phone and card reader—hopefully it’ll get a lot of use throughout the day!)

Taking Cash Payments at Craft Fairs

Some customers will still pay with cash, so you’ll want to be prepared by bringing change. If you’re accepting cash, it’s easiest to keep your prices at whole dollar amounts so you don’t need to bring a whole change drawer with coins too.

However, make sure you’re considering sales tax when setting your prices for the craft fair. Depending on the state you’re selling in, you’ll likely need to pay a percentage of each sale as sales tax on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Do your math before the fair to ensure that you’re still going to hit your desired profit margin after that tax comes out of your whole dollar sale price.

Your Inventory Tracker

It’s a smart idea to track your inventory before, during, and after a craft fair. This allows you to analyze which products were best sellers, make sure your amount of sales matches the items you sold, and accurately update your inventory in other places after the fair, such as an Etsy shop where you sell the same products.

If you’re using a POS system, you can likely track your inventory in that system and it will automatically reduce when you record a credit card sale. Make sure to set up your product catalog before the craft fair, so you’re not fumbling with it when a customer is ready to buy!

You may need to track the inventory changes from cash sales separately, and total everything up after the fair.

A simple spreadsheet can be great for this. List out each of your products in one column, then leave another column blank where you can track the amount sold during the fair (you can do it digitally on your phone, or print out your spreadsheet and tally with pen & paper as you go).

If you include a column with the selling price of each product too, you can set up your spreadsheet to automatically do the math after the fair to get your income totals.

The spreadsheet setup may look something like this:

After the craft fair, you’ll want to:

Count your cash, subtracting the amount of change you started with
Add your cash and credit card sales, and make sure it matches the total that you tracked on your inventory spreadsheet during the fair
Count your remaining inventory and update any e-commerce sites where you’re selling the same products

Your Elevator Pitch

You’re going to be meeting a LOT of new people at these craft fairs—you should come prepared with some words to say about your business and what you do!

Practice a few elevator pitches before your fair: what will you say if a customer asks to know more about your business? What about if another artist comes over and asks if you’re open to collaborations?

You may also meet people looking for goods to stock their local shops, or looking to collaborate with artists in other ways, like hiring for a design project or to teach a class.

Be prepared and be open to conversations about your business, your goals, and your availability for other projects to pave the way for future business growth opportunities too!

How to Use a Craft Fair to Generate Future Sales

Selling at craft fairs is a great way to bring in a lot of sales in one day, but you can maximize your time and effort by capturing customer information for potential future sales too.

Getting Email List Sign-Ups

If you have an email list set up for your business, you should absolutely bring a clipboard with a sign-up sheet where people can opt in to your emails. Offering a discount for your products if you sell them in an online shop can be a good way to entice people to sign up.

After the craft fair, you’ll have a list of people interested in your products that you can send marketing emails and announcements to in the future for additional sales.

Giving Out Business Cards

Business cards may seem old school in this digital age, but in my experience they’re still a great way to get customers to remember you in the future.

With my lettering business, I had multiple people reach out to me via email or social media with design job inquiries because they had seen my booth at a craft fair and taken my business card.

But if you don’t want to buy a bunch of cards, you can get creative with a way for customers to capture your contact info.

For example, you can set up a QR code that they can scan that leads to your website or prompts them to save your contact information in their phone.

You could even set up a photo booth experience in your tent where customers can pose with one of your products, and the backdrop has your business name and social media handle displayed prominently—that way you’ll definitely be saved in their phone for weeks and months to come!

Making More Money at Craft Fairs

Selling at craft fairs can be daunting if you’re just getting into it, but it can be a very lucrative income stream for creative business owners. With the right setup and systems, you can make the experience run smoothly, and operate at your best to maximize sales and build relationships with customers.