Earlier this month, I had my first in-person event selling crochet. I had been to a lot of in-person craft and vendor events previously, but only as a seller a few times and never selling crochet. I had a bit of knowledge about what it would be like, but I still learned a lot from my first event. I know a lot of people are interested in selling offline so I wanted to share some takeaways from my first in-person event selling crochet.
Table of Contents
Be Prepared for More Compliments than Sales
One of the first things that became very apparent to me was that you’ll get a lot more compliments than sales. I had a feeling this would be the case; I’ve seen quite a few people actually complain about it in the past. It seems some people get irritated because people will comment about how cute or nice their items are, but won’t actually spend their money to buy any of it.
While I can understand this perspective, I’d encourage you to try to take a more positive perspective on it. The fact that they take some of their time to look at what you’ve made and tell you how much they like it is still a positive thing! I soak it up every time someone compliments my creations.
The way I look at it is… People only have a limited amount of money they can spend. Although it may be easier said than done, try not to take it too personally if they say they like your work but aren’t buying anything.
Make What You Can Without Pushing Yourself Too Much
As I was preparing for my first in-person event selling my work, I saw a lot of advice from many different people saying to bring as much stock as you can. So once I had confirmed that I was attending the event, I spent weeks trying to make as many items as I could (without losing quality, of course). Going into the event, I still felt like I didn’t have enough made.
I do wish there were a few things I’d had time to make to add to my table, but I’m happy with what I had. I had plenty for people to choose from, including a variety of different types of items at different price points. At a certain point I had to accept that I’m only one person and since everything I was selling was 100% handmade by me, there’s only so much that I could’ve made. Sure, I could’ve kept trying to push myself to make more and more, but it wouldn’t have benefitted me or my sales to run myself into the ground.
Don’t Underestimate Your Creativity and Uniqueness
I hang out in a lot of online crochet spaces. I’m in several crochet Facebook groups and I follow a lot of crocheters on Instagram and Threads as well. These spaces tend to have a particular pattern or two that go “viral” every few months. You’ll see a lot of people sharing what they’ve made. For the past few months, there have been a lot of people sharing the “loaf cats” that they were making and those who were selling them said they were quite popular.
I love making the little loaf cats but I was worried about making too many of them. I felt like other crochet sellers would have them and I wanted to have different products than they did. Well, despite there being 3 or 4 crochet tables, I was the only one with loaf cats and they were by far my most popular item. I received tons of comments about how cute they were and sold about 2/3rds of my stock. In retrospect, I wish I had made more of them and made more color varieties! I think I probably would have sold even more if I had.
So don’t be afraid to make things you enjoy making! Even if you feel like what you’re making isn’t super unique, you never know what other people will or won’t have. Just because you see something a lot online, it doesn’t mean other people do. After all, the internet is huge and no one can come even close to occupying every corner of it. Even if there had been other people selling them, everyone has their own style and brings their own unique twist to their creations, even when making the same items.
These are my top 3 takeaways from my first in-person event selling my crochet items. I’m looking forward to doing more in-person events in the future and learning from each one. What are some of the top things you’ve learned from doing in-person events and markets?
