How to make money at Craft Shows

Let me tell you, if you've never been to a craft show, it's a great experience, selling or not! If you are a people person, you'll love it (plus, for us moms, gives us a time to be with grown-ups and a day out!)

After my second show, I realized that finding the shows to sell in is really hard work! I had no clue how to go about it. I knew about Craft listers as I said above (now called Events Lister) online and that sort, but there are so many show promoters that do not use it and smaller churches that host shows that do not know about places online such as these.

It was during that show that I decided to host a yahoo group for local crafters. While we had a slower time during that day, I went around to all the people in the show, told them my idea and those that liked it, I grabbed their email address or gave them mine.

Now for those of you that may not know (of course if you're on this site, chances are you are pretty well internet saavy, so therefore yahoo groups and the like are well known) But just in case, they are an email group where you write to one email address and your note shoots out to everyone in the group. There's a link below to the yahoo group's main site...feel free!

For the most part, everyone in that show was quite interested and I realized that I wasn't the only one that had problems finding the shows. That night I went home, created the group and had 15 members invited.

It's been a few years now and by '08 we were up to over 160 members. This may not seem like much compared to other groups, but when you think that it's all local and all same goal, I think it's great!

The yahoo group includes a calendar that anyone in the group can add events to. Anytime we find out about a show, we add it to the calendar with contact info and any other info we have about it. It's like a one stop place then for everything going on in our area!

Another thing that our group does that I think is very important is rate the shows we go to. We have a forum (feel free to check it out, link below) where we can chat about things and where we post past show ratings. This is things like how well the staff interacted with the vendors, were the customer #s as promised, things like that. Then I send out emails to the show promoters that I know (a vast amount of course!) and let them know they are welcome to come to our forums and see what people said about their shows. For the most part, the crafters send the ratings to me (which I don't mind) and I post them in the forum. That way it's all unnamed. The only thing that I ever ask and that I'd suggest you ask is that if posting negative comments to not use names. But this way the promoters can come and see what they might need to work on or how much the crafters loved their show. This also helps us as crafters in that we know what shows to attend and which to avoid in the up coming years! Promoters of course are welcome to comment...maybe there was a reason things may or may not have turned out the way they planned...let us know!We list the shows we've been to with a list of questions to answer about each one.

We ask:
Facilities as described? (y/n)
# of customers as promised? (y/n)
Rate advertising/promotion (1-10)
Rate ease of unloading/loading/setup (1-10)
Rate staff relations helpful/breaks/food/friendliness 1-10)
Overall rating (1-10)
Comments
And we ask that if the comments of ratings are bad that no names are used.

This rating system helps us all know if a show is good enough to join in the next years. The "force" part of it is, most of the show promoters now know that we do this...we're large enough (not to boast) but that we could make or break a show if things are not as advertised. We've all had down shows, that's normal, but when a promoter says that so many people will be reached with the advertising, or that the show will be held in this specific area, things like that, it's pretty darn obvious when they are not keeping their end of things. And of course, we've got promoters that have joined our group just to keep in touch with what the crafter/vendor end is thinking:)

Now being an online-aholic and knowing how to create websites and the like, my next step was obviously to creat our group a website. We use this to link together our businesses for the sole purpose of selling our things...main reason why we do this anyway right? This has been a lot of fun for me personally as I love creating and keeping websites.
(our site is linked below)

That is all I will write on this subject for now. I know as we keep growing and new ideas come along from our members, that more will be added here.

Lastly, to all the members of Carolina Crafters & More, I've so enjoyed getting to know you all at shows and online, you all are a great group that I'm darn proud to work with!

You know I had to! I found there are others in our group that has squidoo lenses...soooo, I've created a linking page on our carolinacraftersnmore.com website for all those that do squidoo!:)

This is for all the "newbe's" of shows/festivals. I've seen a lot of things at shows and there are things that people do that can make or break not only your chances of making $$ at a show, but the show itself!

Do -
Apply early for the shows - This goes double for jewelry makers! Generally because there are so many jewelry makers/sellers out there that's the first category to be closed. If you're not early, you won't get in. This is another reason why a local group like what I've described is a great idea!

Set up your table with a clean not wrinkled table cloth. You wouldn't believe the times I've seen tables with messy clothes that don't reach the floor. I know it sounds silly, but it gives off an "I don't care attitude" to your customers. One thing I do that works and is cheap is get the $2.00 flat queen size sheets from Walmart. I can get a few different colors to match the season of whatever show I'm going to and they are easy to keep clean. Now a little tip, if you pack the way i do, it's hard to keep your table clothes wrinkle free...Keep a bottle of Fabreez in your stuff. I generally try to set up the night before, but either way, once you have your table set up and the cloth settled, spray your table cloth with the Fabreez. First it'll give your area a nice smell (this is also important) and will dry out the wrinkles...I do this to my table at home too! lol I also use my table cloth a a way of hiding my bins and boxes that I use to transport my items. Once everything is unpacked, the boxes go under my table and the cloth hides that, so make sure it's floor length.

Bring something that smells nice - This is a silly rather over looked thing, but helps. I sell candle holders so a few tea lights is a good thing for me. I get the kind that smell nice. It just adds to the general ambiance of the show. If it's Christmas time, my candles are cinnamon smelling, if it's spring, a floral type. Just make sure it's not too over powering, but smells can draw people to you.

Make tons of eye contact - People like to know that you acknowledge them. Making eye contact while you talk to them is a great way to do this. Make sure to talk to each of your visitors, even if it's just a simple greeting. You'll get a sense of those that want to talk and those that don't, use your gut feeling with this. If you are too pushy you'll drive them away, but more on that in the don'ts:)

Don't -

Do not be pushy! - I was at a show once where the person across from me actually shouted to a person to come here. I saw this person pull people to their booth and shove their cards into the customer's hands. I also saw the reaction of the people that were treated like this...They didn't make that many sales. Now yes, talk to each person and be friendly, but do not over do it. There will be many people that are just perusing. Talking to them more than a simple greeting will actually drive them away faster than if you are in the background. Be there, be ready to answer any questions they have, but do not get in their face.

Do not sit there and read - This may seem like a dumb one to post, but I've seen it happen! The vendor just sits behind their booth and reads a book....not really inviting to the customers! Be friendly, as I said above greeting and looking your customers in the eye will go a long way to them remembering you and possibly buying.

Do not close your booth early! - This is a pet peeve of mine. When someone starts to close their booth early it makes the whole show look bad. 99% of the time when you go to a show, you have signed a contract with the promoter. These have the times, you know the times, you agreed to the times, stay the time! Every vendor/crafter has shows that aren't good for them and they sell next to nothing, I totally understand that, but when you agree to stay for an amount of time, stay. It's tacky and rude to all those around you to leave early. And honestly, I've made my biggest sales in the last 15 minutes of a show...you never know what you may be missing:)