Selling Greetings Cards/Gifts & other goods at Fairs & Fetes

katchambers

Hi everyone,

I am going to share my experiences of how I make extra money, and if anyone else sells at Fairs/fetes they can share their experiences too.

I am now self-employed after being made redundant in June, I make my living selling books on amazon, play and ebay and also selling goods at craft fairs, christmas fetes etc.

One of my businesses is selling greetings cards, which I thoroughly enjoy, the designs are fantastic, funky and much cheaper than you can buy in the shops, and they sell really well. They are only £1 per card or 90p each if you buy 10 or more.

I wanted to start a discussion about experiences of selling at fairs/fetes because I personally find it a very rewarding and interesting part-time activity that other people could enjoy doing, to earn a bit of extra money.

Unfortunately I am not going to disclose the greeting card company that I trade for as they don't like us promoting them on discussion groups as people can be mislead. They are very ethical. So I am not going to disclose anymore information about it, but if you like to sound of selling greetings cards in your own time feel free to PM me for further details.

Otherwise I would like to talk about selling at Fairs and Fetes.


Finding Goods to Sell
Some people make their own goods, like making cards or jewellery and then sell them at these fairs, which is a possible good idea, although I am not talented enough for that.

If you can't make stuff either, you can find some really great goods to sell by attending trade fairs. For example:

http://www.homeandgift.co.uk/

It is only open to trade, not to customers/retail so you have to be serious about selling their goods to the public. The outlay can be fairly large as some of the companies prefer minimum orders of say £100/£200.

If you don't want to wait to attend the show next year, just check out the exhibitor list, it has all the exhibitors contact details, including websites for many:

http://www.klinedavis.co.uk/hg07/exhibitor_list.cfm

To start out I visited various exhibitor websites until I found some goods that inspired me, I then requested catelogues and trade details, including minimum orders and then I purchased my first order and sold it on.

The first company I purchased from had a minimum order value of £50 (which I chose for that reason as I didn't want a large outlay at first) and they had some very unique gift items that I thought would sell well at a fair. So I set up a trade account with them, purchased £50 of goods and went to my first craft fair. I also took along my greetings cards and I made a very nice little profit on my first show. I sold 1/2 of the gift items (as well as cards) I took with me and used the profit to purchase more. So that is how it is done. Obviously it is not as simple as it sounds because you could purchase something that you just can't sell, so it takes some finesse and some trials to find the rights products, but when you do it can be very lucrative and very enjoyable work.

Finding Fairs/Fetes to sell at

Most of these events are on the weekend and therefore can be done part-time for those of you who work weekdays. There are lots of great selling venues all through the year, but there are even more this time of year because of christmas.

The various events you could sell at include:
- Craft Fair
- School fete
- Christmas Fair/fayre
- Autumn/Winter/Spring/Summer school Fayres
- Christmas Market
- Charity fair
- Specific events such as Horticultural, flower festival, boat show etc.

I find most of my events in the local papers. WH Smith sell all the local newspapers of my surrounding towns, so every friday I purchase 5 different local papers and then I circle all the events that sound relevant, then I ring up for details. It is important to find out the price in comparison to how many people they expect to turn up, and how much advertising they have done.

For example, I am doing a christmas market in december that attracted 25,000 last year and I am paying £150 for a large table/stand for 3 days, including lighting and cover. I am also attending a christmas gift fair at the end of november which is costing £10 for a table with lots of local advertising and they expect 1000 people to turn up. So it varies a lot and you have to weigh up the costs with how much return you expect. Also if you sell low priced items, you will have to sell a lot more of them to gain enough profit to cover the table cost and have enough money left over to make it worthwhile, whereas if you sell higher priced good you may only need to sell 2 or 3 to gain a good profit, but then it may take longer to sell.

Does anyone else sell at craft fairs or similar events? Please share.

Any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Kat xx

hemc

Hi I do for the same company as you lol
I love selling at fairs its my favourite way of selling but I am rubbish at finding them!
c x

LydiaSophia

I am so pleased someone has posted this - I have about 60 pairs of earings I have made - can I just ring up a local school that is having a Christmas fayre and ask for a table?

katchambers

LydiaSophia wrote: »

I am so pleased someone has posted this - I have about 60 pairs of earings I have made - can I just ring up a local school that is having a Christmas fayre and ask for a table?

Hi Lydia,

All schools have different rules about letting outsiders sell in their school fetes. However, I recently sold my cards at a school Autumn Fete of which I had no affiliation to, it was only £6 for the table and was an all afternoon event. I made a nice little profit. The lady on the table next to me was selling her homemade jewellery and she was very popular.

I suggest, either ring up some of your local schools and ask if they have any upcoming fetes/fairs, although that could take some time. Or just check your local papers every week and if a school is advertising a school fair ring them up and ask for a table.

You may find your homemade jewellery sells well at craft fairs and christmas fairs too so just look in your local papers every week.

HTH

Kat x

katchambers

hemc wrote: »

Hi I do for the same company as you lol
I love selling at fairs its my favourite way of selling but I am rubbish at finding them!
c x

Hi, nice to hear from another 'trader'! I love selling at fairs too and combining it with the gifts that I also sell works really well!

I found it difficult at first to find some fairs but I found the best way was to look in the local papers every week. As I said above, contact your local WH Smith (bigger is better) and ask them what local newspapers they have each week and what days they come out, for me there are 5 surrounding areas that have newspapers and they come out on weds, thurs and fridays so on friday morning I buy them all, take them home, look for fairs and ring up all the ones that are relevant. Also, think outside the box helps, as what we sell is popular and we are normally beaten to it by another trader, so look for things like: fun days, coffee mornings, charity fairs, even fashion events.

Last week I had a stand at a fairly local Charity fun day at a dog rescue home, it went down really well. Also I have signed up to an Accessories Fair at this fashion event in november, where I will be selling my fashion-related greetings cards as well as jewellery and other bits. All of these events were found in my local newspapers.

Some good websites for you too:
http://www.thebestof.co.uk/nottingham-central/events
The best of website is good for all areas of the country but I have put the link to nottingham central as it says notts in your profile.

Here is your local bbc webpage that has events in nottingham:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/entertainment/event_previews/index.shtml

HTH

Kat x

katchambers

Hi Hemc,

Have you tried this directory of shows/events:
http://www.showmans-directory.co.uk/index.asp

I bought it and it is very comprehensive. It costs about £35 I think, but has a list of a lot of the bigger shows, it tells you who to contact and how many people showed up last year etc. I found it helpful.

Does anyone else sell at events?

I have just booked into a health & beauty fair this sunday.

Kat x

samj2007

Thanks for wonderful advice katchambers. I have literally just started selling a fairs. I make my own jewellery and bags and my friend suggested selling at events, I was having a lot of trouble finding them on the internet though, dont know why didnt try looking in local papers. I looked in my local just now and found one for next week, and it is a good price for the stall. i think i will try and get some of the papers of the towns around me too, that's good advice thanks.

I did a chrildrens fete at the school my son attends and it went well. I surprised by how much people like what I make, the table cost the price of a raffle prize, so about £10 and I made £50 profit so I was really happy.

I will read this post with interest as I want to learn more about how to find and how better to run fairs.

Thanks for your advice katc.

labrador19

i am interested in selling greeting cards can you advise me on where i can get them from

Many thanks debbie

katchambers

I did the health and beauty fair this weekend. It wasn't too bad, I enjoyed it actually, shame it wasn't busy enough though, I don't think they did enough advertising, which was a shame because there were some great exhibitors there, including 'Lush' which I love! I made a small profit, but I did win first prize in the raffle, a big box of Lush goodies - yey! :j

So my advice is, try to find out how much advertising has been done or how many people they expect to show up, before you fork over the table cost.

Not all bad though as I have possibly a few customers who may come back to order more.

The gifts from my new supplier were a hit, I hope to sell more over christmas.

Sam I hope your fair goes well next week, log on here and let us know how it went!

Hemc have you done any fairs recently? How did they go?

Kat x

hemc

Hiya, I did a NWR event which was a book review /confrence type thing it was great the product suited the client group really well and I made quite a bit.
I am now trying to find xmas ones.
c x

novagirl

So glad I've just found this thread. I sell craft items at fairs too. I have a bit of a mixture stall with items varying from a 15pence to about £40. Obviously some items sell better at some places than others. I find it really enjoyable way of making some money. I left my full time job in March and although this isn't a set amount of money each month, I enjoy it

I've got my next event on November 1st then the local Church bazaar on 1st December. Can't wait!