Whiptips is an crafts advice column for readers to ask questions or offer advice by leaving your comments. View the Whiptips archive here. You can submit questions, to whiptips@gmail.com. Please include photos with your questions!
Thank you to Weeks Ringle for posting her response to some quilting questions we had received. Great drawings and ideas for what to do with unfinished quilts!
I thought this next question was good, but it means we’re asking people to divuldge their trade secrets…
“I know there are a lot of crafters here who have participated in shows and fairs and sell their goods and I was wondering what have been your best selling items? I have been asked to participate in a craft show of sorts through a MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) fundraiser. We pay a $25 table fee and get to keep all of our profits. Sounds like a great deal but I don’t want to make 20 art smocks when the hot selling items are tissue holders! So, any advice or input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so very much!”
This summer, we got a table at a concert. I made a wide variety of things, and got together with two friends to sell crafts at a stall. It costs us 100 USD for the table. Yipes! I I sold two things I called ‘travel collage holders’, which is really like a notebook holder with space for a pens, glue stick and scissors. I showed my own I had done as a sample to give ideas. I sold them for 15USD
But my friend, Danny, made a bunch of funky wrist cuffs which closed with velcro. So sold lots and lots of them. They were 10USD. I think she sold 15, but she could have sold more the next day. She was just too hungover to set-up. I was annoyed because I spent ages making alot of different things, and she had made these simple, inexpensive and clever wrist cuffs, and the girls were swarmed around them.
She also displayed them well, having made a sort of ladder by tying long peices of driftwood together.
I think the thing to consider is your audience, the price and the time it takes to make the item. Each one of the travel collage holders took about 2 hours, her cuffs took 1/2 an hour or less. They were also priced at an easy-to-part with 1000 Yen, which was a big help I think!
Best of luck to Shannon!
The travel collage holder, open:
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
when I did the craft stall at our schools annual spring fair, the big sellers were totally unexpected items. The lined library bags and pretty petal fairy skirts were left on the racks, instead pet rocks and kindergarten art printed onto cards sold out really quickly. Also simple pendants for boys and girls on leather, and lavender eye pillows and wheat heat bags were good sellers too. Aprons, ninja turtle masks and hand puppets sold while stuffed teddies and dolls, cushions and pencil holders were left behind.
I found that a wide variety of things kind of scared people off – you were sharing a table so i don’t know how relevant it is but people have to be drawn in from far away and I found that too much variety of stuff is kind of off-putting. They need to be able to tell what is going on and too many things is just an indecipherable jumble.
I think it is really difficult to say what people will want to buy, the best tips from me would be to not massproduce anything you don’t enjoy making and could give away to friends as gifts if they are not sold! :-)
In this way you will have fun making stuff and won’t be to sad when you don’t sell, because even if you do not sell a show like that can be really fun and give you lots of creative energy to make even more stuff just for fun!
I took part in my first summer fete here in england and made a variety of things. People looked a lot but they didn’t start buying until the end of the day as we were standing in sweltering heat they only wanted drinks. I don’t think that you can predict what people will buy, you just have to hope that it will be your day. My first love is dollmaking and I get my greatest satisfaction from seeing the faces of the people who buy my dolls and love them, I would love to sell more but if I only sell one and I know that it will be well loved no amount of money can make up for that! It hasn’t put me off I am going to keep trying one day it will be me that has sold out. I think people buy more crafts at christmas so I am going to try again then.
Ana
I would LOVE to hear more discussion about this, also what kind of things sell at non-hip craft fairs! I have a stall at the farmers market every week where I’ve been selling jewelry, but i’m sick of it and I can sell anything I want there, but what would sell??!!! Its mostly middle-aged women.
I sell fiber related items at the farmers market. People like to touch the items so I display them to they are easy to reach. I have items ranging in prices from $6 to $75. I’ve been surprised that my stitch markers sell out. There also is an interest in my shawls and scarfs using fiber of various textures. I’ve also heard from other vendors that at places like a farmer’s market, buyers want to see you there every weekend. It seems to be true because I’ve had several people come by throughout the summer.
I like doing events such as these because I get to talk with people, find out their interests as well as talk about fiber.
my knitting group had a booth at the neighborhood street fair last fall & we too had mixed results. I made a bunch of baby hats & those seemed to sell really well yet the really beautiful baby booties didn’t. we had lots of people look but not many buy & quite a few who asked us to give them our patterns!
I’m doing my first craft fair this fall with a friend of mine. I’m very anxious to hear what other people have experienced as well. The “theme” of our booth will be baby and children’s items – she makes hairbows and knits hats and I make a little diaper roll up and embellished baby t-shirts. Would love to see any other ideas for great stuff to make to sell for children (I like the idea of the puppets and aprons).
It’s a total crap shoot. My shrinky dink jewlery sold pretty well at the craft shows I’ve put it in. But my recycled wool hats, kids clothing, ornaments, and note cards have not. I think people are mostly looking for gifts rather than things for themselves so things that lend themselves to office gift pools work well.
I did a craftshow last Spring. I knew my audience was Midwestern middle-aged women = not going to spend the big bucks. I made about a 100 flower hairpins (I sold over half. See my tutorial here:) I priced them very low at $4 a pair. I had a folding screen to display a wall of them. I also had 4 totes at $25 (2 sold) and 2 totes at $45 (both sold and I got orders for 3 more). I made about 50 marble magnets and almost all of those sold.
I think price point is huge. If someone can walk away with a quality handcrafted item for under $10 they will especially if they can give it as a gift. I think it would have been a whole other story if I had gone with only my dolls. I would have been laughed. They just wouldn’t have understood why they cost what they do.
At craft fairs I’ve done, I’ve found that if I priced “things for girls” at prices the girls can afford to pay *themselves* then they sell really well. E.g. pairs of hairclips for a couple of dollars, stretchy-cord+bead bracelet kits.
Make things that are quick and easy and cheap, you can sell things like (for example) glass marble magnets because people will usually not mind spending a couple of $ of loose change for one or two.
Bigger items that are more time-intensive to make and therefore more expensive to buy may not sell so well unless you’re at a venue/event that will attract buyers with deeper pockets ;-)
thank you everyone for your advice, it is greatly appreciated!
I think it is difficult to predict what will sell on the day but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider your market and setting.
Consider whether they’re primarily there for the stalls, or for another event, like the concert setting mentioned. I’ve done a couple of events where the stalls weren’t the main attraction, and I find it’s more difficult to sell than at dedicated fairs. Your buyers may have money in their pockets, but most of it will probably go on food and drink or cds and concert t shirts or badges if they’re available. If they’ve also spent a lot on the ticket, it’s more likely that they’ll get smaller, cheaper items. Also consider whether they would want to carry items round with them if they’re doing something else. If they can buy something and put it on straight away, then its easier.
I have been selling my handmade goods at crafts sales for 5 or 6 years and at Farmers’ Markets for two. I have built up an interesting collection of innovative crafts which my regular customers have come to know me for and that people passing through find unique enough to have to buy as they have never seen them before. I often have a ton of stuff on my tables, displayed tastefully and uniquely, hanging, and sitting in different containers. I find that if I have a balanced blend of expensive, medium priced, and inexpensively priced items, I sell equal amounts of each and end up with a pretty good average total from all of them. The key is to have good quality items that are very unique and to display them attractively. If you are just starting out try making a couple things first and wearing them out and about or giving them to friends as gifts and see what kind of feedback and compliments you get. Try making small batches of things and seeing how they sell. If you sell out, make more, and if it bombs, try something different. It also depends on what kind of audience you are selling to. I hope that helps.
Here’s a HOT tip I’ll part with since I’m not doing any more craft shows. And yes, crafters don’t want to part with their secrets because who wants to see 20 other crafters show up at their next show with identical items?
I made fleece scarves for kids, and at three Oct/Nov shows they sold out before the show ended. Mine were snakes, with a snake face on one end and a fringed/pony bead tail on the other. (Martha Stewart did something similar on her website around Christmas time with a kitty cat scarf.) Mine were very simple, 2 contrasting layers of fleece just 5-6 in. wide x 1 yd long, with the edges topstitched and pinked. I added safety-eyes, bead nostrils, and a fleece tongue. The mouth was formed from V-notching the sides of the scarf at the head end and folding it onto itself to form a loop that the tail passed through, so the scarf did not need to be tied. They didn’t cost much to make, as you can get 3 from one yd of fabric (I snapped up fleece remnants in the spring/summer). It took appx 15 minutes to put one together, and I charged $15. You could do all kinds of animals (or anything with a face!) and get fancy with tails, paws and more. Many people commented that they liked the fact that they were snakes, so try making something atypical, because you see a LOT of teddy bears at craft shows. Maybe a bug!
I came over here as recommended by Fun Quilts, and now you are in my computer Bookmarks.
I have a blog post at
MrsDoF’s Dear Ones 3/12/06
about some crocheted potholders which sold out at $3 each for our church Relief Sale. They need to be worked in cotton, however. Next to my pile was another done in acrylic by someone else, but a good number of those were left at half-price time.
Machine quilted potholders also went very quickly, at $3.50 each.
Another item I crochet which gets good response is
treasure bag
I usually give these as a gift myself, full of candy or other small items.
One year, for the Relief Sale, I crocheted a dozen drawstringers, placed them in plastic bags, and sold them, empty, for $3 each.
There were requests for more, but at an hour and a half of work made them not quite worthwhile. Next time, I’ll probably raise the price.
These lacy items (which take a bit of time) sell well at $3 to $5 apiece
Christmas bookmarks
As someone above already mentioned, the items should be small enough to carry around at a festival, and cheap enough to be a gift or impulse purchase.
I have a blog about recycling and crafts. I live in the UK and I’m wondering how easy it is to sell crafts online. There seems to be heaps of people on ebay. Any comments on my makes are welcome.