Craft Show Ideas For Your Handmade Business

by lindakl

These craft show ideas focus on things you can do to enhance your customers’ shopping experience with you. A major reason why people like to shop from a handmade business is the unique, customized products and services. Make your crafty business known for your phenomenal customer care and personal touches such as the ones below that encourage customers to spread the word about you.

Make your customers happy they shopped at your booth with these craft show ideas:

1) Useful product packaging:

When deciding how to package your handmade wares, consider providing appealing, re-usable containers with your business name and contact info on them.

There are all kinds of environmentally friendly boxes, bags, and other containers that your customers can use for other purposes after they get your handmade product home. And they’ll be reminded of your business each time they use them!

Some of the most successful crafters put as much thought into their product packaging as they put into the rest of their craft show ideas.

My customers have always appreciated my complimentary velvet jewelry pouches. Many of my clients use them as travel jewelry pouches – so they’re reminded of my business every time they travel.

2) Surprise freebie:

This is one of the most fun craft show ideas. Keep interesting free items right at your checkout station, so you can toss one in with each customer’s purchase. It’s a fun little surprise for them to discover when they get home.

Good choices for this include any small treasures from your particular art form, small crystals or polished stones, business-size cards printed with empowering sayings or haiku poetry, etc.

3) Keeping your customers’ kids occupied:

Come up with a few craft show ideas for keeping kids busy (and out of your display) while their parents shop in your booth.

Have something that children can play with safely at your booth, enabling their adults to have a wonderfully uninterrupted shopping experience. For example, you might put out a few enticing containers filled with scraps and odds and ends of your supplies. Or have some type of hands-on creative toy.

In my booth I provide a temptingly cool “treasure chest” filled with a variety of tumbled gemstones, plus a couple of sturdy plastic cups. I ask older kids to find the prettiest rock in the treasure chest – which means they usually take a good long time sorting through the entire of the contents of the chest! Then I let them keep the stone they chose as prettiest – which always results in delighted smiles.

Younger children enjoy a long session of filling the plastic cups to the brim with the tumbled stones, and pouring them back out into the chest.

And the grownups focus on shopping in my booth at their leisure, while their young folks are kept happily busy!

4) Encourage shoppers to customize their purchases:

There’s a growing trend of customers wanting to “co-create” the items they buy, to suit their purchases to their own tastes or needs.

Come up with some craft show ideas that provide a few simple options your customers can choose from – colors, sizes, shapes, materials, etc. For instance, my customers love to “build their own necklace” by selecting their choice of pendant, and the type of cord or chain they prefer to hang it on.

And don’t forget that people love to have items personalized for them! Come up with ways to include options for customers to have their name, initials, monogram, meaningful personal imagery, etc. inscribed on your items, for an additional fee.

These craft show ideas are easy to tie into nearly any booth theme or handmade product line. Enjoy using them to enhance your customers’ shopping experience!