# First craft fair



## bathgeek (Dec 10, 2017)

(Yay I’m finally at three months!) 

My first craft fair was yesterday! A couple of learning points I got: 

1. Too many soap vendors! There were maybe 25 stalls in total. Three were soap. Thankfully I was off in a hall and was not in the main area with all the other soap vendors. The other two were right across from each other!

2. Branded bags are amazing for generating buzz. I bought plain blank white paper bags and used a 3” x 4” stamp to stamp on both sides of my bags. At the fair, a few people came up and said, “So HERE is the Bath Geek stall! We saw your bags all over the place and we were wondering where you were.” The bags generated buzz, which made me super happy. Considering this was me improvising as I couldn’t afford nice bags but still wanted a standout and that stamp was a mis-measured order that I repurposed? Super happy at the result. 

3. Flat shelves are better than shelves made with rods with canvas strung on top. Really. Lots of soap avalanches happened and bars fell off my shelves because they’d overbalance. 

4. Knowing the fair was super helpful. By far and away my best seller was bath bombs. Teenagers seem to REALLY love those things. Knowing I was going to be at a prep school, I made extra and I sold 2/3 of my bombs. Nothing else sold like them. 

5. Square has a cash option so I can still keep track of inventory. I didn’t realize this, and was dividing my sales records between Square and the WooCommerce POS because I thought I needed the POS to record cash sales (to keep track of inventory). At the end when I was packing up, I took a second look at the Square app and then kicked myself. I could have consolidated EVERYTHING! Bad Ai.


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## dibbles (Dec 10, 2017)

Congratulations on your first craft fair. I'm glad it went well for you!! Yippee!!


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## shunt2011 (Dec 11, 2017)

Congratulations!   I love my square.  Keeps track of inventory and so easy to use.   Great job!


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## toxikon (Dec 11, 2017)

Congrats! Do you have a photo of your booth setup? I really love looking at those!


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## bathgeek (Dec 11, 2017)

I do! 



Sadly I bought what was supposed to be a six foot tablecloth but seems more like a 4-ft. It only covered the top of the table. Thankfully everything else went well!


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## toxikon (Dec 11, 2017)

Wow that looks fabulous! Really professional and lots of stock. Great work!


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## bathgeek (Dec 11, 2017)

Thanks! I did a TON of research. I’m so glad it paid off. *hearts*


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## TBandCW (Dec 15, 2017)

Good job!!!  And the booth looks great!  Square is awesome!

Even out west there are way too many soap vendors at events.  Bubble bath and bath bombs were good for biz this year.
We have colored bags with our label on front and back and it does pay off big time.  I've had people come to the booth just because they saw someone else with our bag.  Branding is the key!!  And I love your name and logo, it really stands out.
Simple, but classy.


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## Zany_in_CO (Dec 15, 2017)




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## SunRiseArts (Dec 16, 2017)

Looks great! So how much did you sell?


BTW I love your logo


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## bathgeek (Dec 16, 2017)

About five times the booth fee. ^_^ Ended up being 10 times because I shared a booth with a friend.  Booth fee was $70, split in half was $35.  

Thank you! DH designed it. He’s good at that sort of thing!


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## TBandCW (Dec 18, 2017)

I generally use 10 x the booth fee as the barometer to see if it's a good show or not.  Sounds like a winner for the first time out!!


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