How do you find markets?

[homesteaders]

How do you find markets / craft fairs to sell your soaps and other products? There are several Saturday Markets nearby -- within half an hour drive, but all I have found already have several soapers. One market only allows 40 vendors and has 4 soapers each week. One larger market has more vendors and only 2 soap booths, but even though mine are very different, the organizer said he doesn't want to add competition to the vendors who are regulars for him. Suggestions? Are there publications or websites that organizers use to publicize their markets and shows? Thanks!

 

[cmzaha]

This is one publication, but it really does lean towards to large craft fairs at least when I joined it 9 yrs ago. I only kept my membership for a year. You can call your local Chamber of Commerce and possibly find some. Are you in a large city by chance? Where I live most markets have multiple soapmakers and some managers limit how many duplicate vendors they accept some do not. The best way is to talk to other vendors and ask them about markets, they are the one's that know. I am Not telling you to ask one of the soap sellers . Vendors are really a fairly small community that tend to know each other, so spend some time visiting your local markets and talking to some of the craft vendors. Also look up Farmer Markets online for your area.

Another key to success in the vending world, make friends with the market owner, organizer or manager. The person/persons that handle the market on a weekly basis. Even if most vendors hate the manager/owner it is best to figure out how to make them a friend. Until the market fell apart my big Friday Night Market, which I attended for 5 yrs, had an owner that most disliked immensely, we actually liked him, plus his wife loved my products which I kept her supplied with. I had a prime location, middle of the street where the crafter's ended and the farmers began, plus he let me pay the 10% farmer rate instead of the $65 nightly fee. A market manager can also be a wealth of information about other markets. It is a small community for them and they almost all know each other

One word of advice do not expect to make great money, and it is hard selling just B&B and soap. There is a lot of competition and it is very hard work. I am fortunate that I have a fantastic market at a Kaiser Hospital and I am the only crafter allowed, because my crochet hats cater to chemo patients. Love it... Having to take care of parents every other month I cannot commit to weekly markets anymore. At least here, large venues do no necessarily mean lots of sales, the market I do is tiny and my sales consistently run much higher than any other markets I have done. My former Friday night market which was 4 blocks long, when I was attending weekly, was not as good as my tiny market.

Much good luck to you

 

[Lin19687]

Also look for Holiday fairs.
If you are a Homesteader (in Alaska) and not near any huge city, you might want to get together with other Homesteaders and think about what wares you all would like to sell.

Maybe you all could meet in a small town around you all and make a Farmers Market

 

[amd]

If you're on FaceBook, check and see if there are any vendor or craft show groups specifically designed for organizers looking for vendors at their shows. Also check with churches, especially during the fall and christmas season many have bazaars that you either have to pay a fee to be at or give a percentage of your sales (I have not experienced the latter, but have heard of it). Good luck! As @cmzaha said, it isn't easy sales, especially if your market is as saturated as it sounds.

 

[Misschief]

I found out about the market I'm in from a customer in my day job. She came in for business cards and we started chatting. I was going to offer soap for some of the eggs from the chickens she raises and she asked if I sold at a market. She told me about this particular, fairly new, market that had no soap makers and gave me the name of the person in charge. It went from there. It's a fairly small market, only 100 vendors in total and they're not all there every week.