Selling handmade crafts at fairs
Hi
I’ve just started making resin products from hair clips, earrings, coasters. I’ve started selling on Etsy but want to expand a bit more. Thinking of crafts fairs, or some boot sales, and how’s best to find out about them?
But just wondering if I need any insurance? Seen with one I need public liability, I am not registered as a business, just been doing it in my spare time. So any help would be amazing thank you
I’ve just started making resin products from hair clips, earrings, coasters. I’ve started selling on Etsy but want to expand a bit more. Thinking of crafts fairs, or some boot sales, and how’s best to find out about them?
But just wondering if I need any insurance? Seen with one I need public liability, I am not registered as a business, just been doing it in my spare time. So any help would be amazing thank you
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As you say, some events will require that you hold public liability and given you are making goods then product liability is also sensible. Thankfully for small to medium companies public and product are sold together. If the event doesn't require you to have insurance then its a personal choice but as you are not an incorporated business then your personal assets are at risk should someone be injured by your goods or stall. You can buy event based policies, if you are just ticking the box or you can buy an annual policy that'll cover all events.
As to finding out about events, its mainly about networking and keeping your eyes pealed for advertisements for events. How events work varies considerably... some are fairly expensive but if your willing to pay the £1,000 fee for the weekend and can put a half competent stall design together then you'll get your space (probably tucked away in a little corner for that low a price). Others can be much cheaper but are much more heavily subscribed and its very much about who you know. A lot of events are organised by the same people and it can be a case of having to prove yourself at some of their less popular ones to get a chance at the better ones.
Product liability for hair clips...really?
The only normal people you know are the ones you don’t know very well
Earrings were more the concern having had a flatmate that had to have her ear cut open to remove and earring after an allergic reaction cause her lobe to swell up and swallow the earring.
At the end of the day, if the risk is low then so will the premiums be and rather pay a small amount for insurance than have a personal liability for that 1 in 10,000 event where a product causes injury.
The only normal people you know are the ones you don’t know very well
Local fetes may be worth doing - local church etc. Avoid at all costs those village/school fetes that demand £20 for the stall and a raffle prize on top, and make sure you become stubbornly deaf when they whimper that they are a charity and its for A Good Cause. You're not a charity and you are there to at least break even. If you are asked to demonstrate your craft, make it crystal clear that you expect your stall fee to be waived as your payment for lugging all your materials and equipment there, on top of your goods and your table and presentation items, otherwise its a no-go. Often you can't sell and demonstrate at the same time. And get the agreement in writing before the event. It sounds hard, and it is, but its also part and parcel of starting to be more professional about your little business.
We personally don't do local fetes, except for one favoured village where we appear to provide support, and give something extra for people to look at. (My husband is a woodturner. Giving demonstrations demands the transportation of a lathe about 4 foot long and b*****y heavy, four tool kits, and timber, and by the time we have added six crates of turned bowls and other items, two tables, the gazebo, bags and the various other bits and pieces we need to take, we have to take a trailer) But we go expecting to sell nothing, and are surprised when we do. Its our way of giving back to the village where I grew up and where my parents lived for 56 years