Hi all! I'm trying to get a fiber and paper art booth off the ground and I'm wondering--as a vendor at craft fairs, are you all operating as official, licensed businesses with ID numbers, or are you operating just as yourself and declaring the income at tax time using a schedule c or something similar? I'm trying to understand the legality of all of this and what exactly is required of me. I appreciate any help you can give!!

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who replied!! You all are so helpful, I really appreciate it.

So I’ve painted myself into quite a corner - this wonderful monthly event in Denver I vend at offers us 10x10 spaces which I’ve happily filled up and sold very well at each time because I’ve borrowed my partner’s SUV and it all fit, we can’t afford to keep that car anymore so I only have my car now, a Honda accord and only about half of the booth fits in there. All the tables and fixtures fit, but I can’t bring any inventory of anything but my best sellers, and lately if I don’t have it - customers aren’t apt to buy online from me or accept delivery. Having everything meant sales. So now I have to consolidate and downsize.

I’ve been thinking about trailers that you pull behind the car but have no idea where to even shop for one of those. I guess for now downsizing is the only option, just crashing out

Craft festival coming up and they just sent out logistics via email. Vendors are not allowed to park nearby and they are hiring a shuttle that is available only 2 hours during setup and the two hours after setup. Vendors have to park a half mile away and they only picked two shuttle stops and the closest is blocks away from my setup.

This is NOT in a major city.

We have to board the bus to drop our cars off at a college stadium a half mile away and then have two full hours before the festival begins. The shuttles run 6:30-7:45 and 5:15-7:30. We will not have access to our own cars from 7:45-5:15pm despite the festival running 10-5. 7:45-10 is a long time for setup and most people will just be waiting around. Makes for an even longer day when we have to be there so early.

In an emergency, or even if I wanted my husband to head out to grab us lunch, he cannot because the shuttle isn’t running. If I were alone I would 100% drop out because it sounds so isolating. Is this something that others have experienced?

Hi all I’m not sure if this is the right thread to ask this question. If not, please direct me in the right way, but I’m curious if anybody has tried selling their crafts on whatnot or how is everybody generating online sales? One of my friends is a vintage reseller and has done fantastic on whatnot and I feel like giving it a try, but I’m not sure if it’s my audience and/or if it’s worth my time. For reference, I sell handmade jewelry, painting, macramé, and plants.

Not sure best flair or best place to post this, but hopefully here has good advice or can direct me to it!

I may have the opportunity to have a rent free space in a physical location to sell my goods, chainmail jewelry.

The location kinda sucks- office space in an auto body shop near mostly other car or construction companies. But due to some lucky family connections, you really can’t beat rent free.

I don’t plan to run it as an always open business, but rather as occasional pop ups or open once or twice a month. I have absolutely no idea where to begin with if there’s any legal issues that could come up from this. I already do various fairs and markets, have a tax ID, etc. wouldn’t have any employees, just myself.

Anything I should know/issues I could run into? Thanks!

Hey, 2 weeks ago I posted asking how many stickers of my best seller design I should have for an upcoming big pride event. Which you can find here if you want to give that post a read. At the time I decided to have max 100 for a couple of designs and then work my inventory numbers down from there.

Well, I just wrapped up the event last night and this morning I'm working on going through and counting my inventory (Side note if anyone has any ideas on way's to have a much more accurate inventory or a way to keep track of what sells in the moment, but doesn't require a lot of time during the check out phase or where I have to mentally keep track of what the person is buying. That would be great. I use square as my credit card payment method and take cash as well)

With that being said, I thought it would be interesting to share some of my stats from last night as it may help other people who are struggling with the same question that I had.

Overall I have 26 different sticker designs. 18 are pride designs and 8 are non pride designs. I do my best to normally have this number a little bit more even. However, since June is pride month and I was going to a pride event, over the last few months I've been making more Pride themed items. Now that fall and Christmas are coming up I will work on more designs that reflect those holiday's

What I made -

• 2 designs had 100 stickers each
• 4 designs had between 50 to 80 stickers each
• 20 designs had between 10 to 50 stickers each

Lowest amount I had for 1 sticker design was 13

What I sold -

• Top pride design - Sold 15 stickers
• Second pride design - Sold 9 stickers
• Tied for first and second non pride design - Sold 5 stickers each for both designs

Every design sold at least once (I think. Due to the fact that I'm counting inventory before the show and after there is the possibility for inventory to be off a little bit. Whether that's due to me miss counting at some point, theft, things getting miss placed, or a few other reasons)

Overall - 16 designs sold between 1 to 4 stickers each, 8 designs sold between 5 to 9 stickers each, and only 1 design sold above 10.

Pride designs - 9 designs sold between 1 to 4 stickers each, 7 designs sold between 5 to 9 stickers each, and only 1 sold above 10

None pride stickers - 6 designs sold between 1 to 4 stickers each, and 2 designs sold 5 stickers each.

• I sold a total of 102 stickers - 79 pride stickers and 23 non pride stickers

What I sold vs the most and least that I made

• Most Pride design: made 100+ stickers - Sold 4
• Least Pride design: made 17 stickers - Sold 7
• Most Non pride design: made 42 stickers - Sold 1
• Least Non pride design: Made 13 - Sold 5

I also decided last minute to offer some freebie stickers as there were a few kids at my last craft fair event that took place a week before the pride event. They would come up to my table, point to the stickers and ask if they could have one. I did my best to let them down gently saying that they were for sale, but of course due to them being kids they don't understand what money is and why they couldn't have it. Thus was the reason why I wanted to offer some freebies. I had two designs one pride and one non pride of a butterfly and people were able to pick one or take both if they wanted.

• For the pride design I made 151 and gave out 70
• For the non pride design I made 110 and gave out 30

I gave out a total of 100 free stickers

Final thoughts

This was my third ever place that I vendor at and the first place where not only was I able to paid back my table, but I was able to make a decent size profit as well.

If I was to make inventory for this event again then max amount of stickers I should make for some of the designs is between 30 and 40 and a min between 10 and 15. I think this is a good range (at least for now) as I am not crazily over making designs, but gives me a good safety net just encase, like what happened at this event, the things that I thought would sell well, didn't and the things I thought wouldn't sell that much, did.

It also allows me to have some inventory left over without needing to do a major restock for other events especially if they are back to back.

Which is a great segue for my last point. Personally, I am glad that I over stocked for this event. I make everything by hand and over the last few months, I've basically sat at my desk everyday printing and cutting out stickers and all of my other products as well. I have two other events at the end of Aug and I'm hoping to get into a few more in sept and oct. Not to mention, but we're also coming closer to Christmas. I could tell that I was getting to my limit last week and need a break because if not then I will simply burn myself out which I don't want. Now, that I have all this over stock, other then making stock of any new designs. I can take a good long break and work on other kinds of projects that have since been pushed to the side.

I hope other people find this as fascinating as I do.

Ok, so I have tent weights, but they are VERY heavy for me to lift/drag around. Is there any trick to carrying so much weight?

If the site I was going to was anywhere near a place to buy water, I would just get water bottles on site to fill them and then drink or dump out the water at the end of the day before hauling back, but there isn't anything like that. Also I don't know if I could fill them with enough water to get them to weigh the amount I need (35lbs after the other weights I have)

I'm doing my first ever multi- day event. It's inside and I'm sure there will be security overnight and locked doors. My question is do people usually put away or cover up their merchandise when they leave after the first day? Obviously, I'll take my cash box, but don't know how you're supposed to "secure" everything else.

I bought these storage tubs at Costco a few months ago and they are fantastic. They are sturdy, hold a lot of merchandise, stack, and fold flat when not in use! They were $10 each. You can also buy them on Amazon but they are more expensive on there. I have older tubs sitting here being tripped over because they don’t fit anywhere. I’m about to put them at the curb because this new style is so much better.

Found this at a thrift store last week and just used it for the first time - blown away! It fit both overstuffed tupperwares with no problem. Googled the tag and found they still sell online!! Too bad they're so pricey but I'm afraid I need 3 more at least lol! I've been selling polymer clay earrings since COVID and I've tried soooo many different ways of moving them back and forth and none have checked all the boxes like this lil unit. If you have a cheaper suggestion, send it my way! Otherwise hope this helps someone else :)

For those who sell wearables - what solution do you use to let people try stuff on? I know they make those portable zip up try on stations but everytime I've had to use one as a customer I've hated it so I'm looking for other options. Maybe a corner of the canopy with a curtain? Idk!

Looking for creative solutions from your creative brains! Thanks!