How Much Inventory to Bring to a Craft Fair (Calculator)

To work out how much inventory to bring to a craft fair, estimate how many people will buy from you (the visitors the organizer expects, times the share who'll stop at your table, times the share of those who buy), multiply by how many items a buyer takes, and split that across your products by how they usually sell. Then bring extra: about half again of anything that keeps, and only a little extra of anything that doesn't. After the fair, write down what sold and when anything ran out, because your own numbers beat any rule of thumb from the second fair on. Below is a fair worked through, what happened, and a free calculator.

The short version

• Buyers = visitors × share who stop × share who buy. Items = buyers × items per buyer.
• Split by product using your own sales mix, then nudge it for a fair: gifts and small treats do better than at the shop.
• Bring 1.5× of what keeps (it comes home and sells next week) and about 1.1× of what doesn't.
• Never run out of your best seller before lunch. A sold-out sign is a sale you'll never count.
• Put enough on the table to look plentiful; keep the rest in bins underneath.
• Afterwards, log brought, sold, left and the time anything sold out. Next fair starts from that.
• TaroStack moves stock to the stall and back and counts it with no signal. More below.

Step 1: estimate your buyers

Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, has a table at a one-day holiday craft fair. The organizer expects 3,000 visitors over six hours. The rest are guesses for a first fair, and they're labelled as guesses:

If you've done fairs before, replace the guesses with your own: your card reader's transaction count divided by the fair's attendance gives you buyers per visitor, and the items sold divided by the transactions gives you items per buyer. A tally counter in your apron pocket for people who stop is the cheapest market research there is.

Step 2: split it by what sells

The shares come from the shop's sales, nudged for a holiday fair: more gift boxes than the shop sells, fewer big bags.

Step 3: add a buffer that matches the shelf life

Chips that don't sell go back on the shop shelf on Monday, so carrying extra costs nothing but space in the car, and running out costs real sales. Cookies that don't sell are a loss, so only 3 extra boxes, $10.20 of cost at risk, and the plan for them is a lower price in the last hour; anything still left goes in the waste log with its reason. Fair fees, the float and the drive all come out of that $1,472, which is worth knowing before you book the next one.

Step 4: pack it like a shop

The table should look full all day; a picked-over table sells less than a full one. So put enough of each product out to look plentiful, a dozen bags of each size, and keep the rest in labelled bins underneath, restocked between rushes. Bring the price signs, change for cash, and a card reader that can take payments without signal (in a parking lot that's not a given; Square for a home bakery covers how its offline mode works). And pack the oldest stock first: the bags with the nearest best-by date are the ones to sell this weekend, as in FEFO vs FIFO.

Step 5: write down what happened

The most valuable ten minutes of the day are the ones at the end, before the bins go back in the car:

Read it carefully. The 3 oz bags sold out at 1:40 with more than two hours to go, so 51 wasn't what they could have sold; it's only what was there. Next time bring more, maybe 75. The gift boxes sold half what was hoped for, which at $30 is the biggest miss on the sheet, so next time bring 20. Overall the fair sold 153 items against 135 expected: the guesses were low, and now there's a real number for the next fair. A two-day fair gets the same treatment at the end of day one, with the reserve in the car for the morning.

Get the calculator

Download the craft fair inventory calculator. It has the buyer estimate, the product split, the buffer by shelf life, the expected sales and what's at risk, and the after-fair log that becomes next time's starting point. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, it prints, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Buyers     =visitors * share who stop * share who buy
Expected   =ROUND(items you'll sell * product share, 0)
Bring      =ROUNDUP(expected * buffer, 0)

Where this stops working

The calculator plans one fair. The stock lives in three places: the kitchen, the shop and the car. The 81 bags taken to the fair come out of the shop's count, 20 come back, and unless someone writes all of that down, the shop's numbers are wrong by Monday. With fairs most weekends in December, the stock that went out, came back and got mixed with fresh bags from a different lot is where counts stop matching, and where the bags with the nearest best-by date end up at the back of the shelf.

How TaroStack does it

In TaroStack, a market stall is a site, like the kitchen or the shop. Moving the fair's stock out is a transfer, so the shop's count drops the moment the bins leave, and the stock shows as in transit until it's at the stall. What comes home is a transfer back. Counting works on a phone with no signal, at the stall or in a parking lot, and sends itself when you're back in range. Lots go with every bag, oldest date first, so the fair sells the bags that should go first, and what comes home goes back into the lot it left in.

And because every sale and every count is recorded against the products, next fair's numbers aren't a guess: your own sales history fills the forecast, and stock sitting in the wrong place shows up before it expires.

Lots, expiry and offline counting are on every plan, from $49 a month. Starter is one site; Standard, at $99, takes up to three, so the kitchen, the shop and the stall each have their own stock, and adds the forecasting. The first 30 days are free. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

How much inventory should I bring to my first craft fair?

Estimate buyers from the expected attendance. With nothing else to go on, guess that 1 in 10 visitors stop and 1 in 4 of those buy, then multiply by a couple of items each. Bring half again of anything that keeps, and a little extra of anything that doesn't. Then replace those guesses with your own numbers.

What sells best at craft fairs?

Small, giftable things at an easy price, and whatever you can sample. Your own sales split is the best guide; nudge it toward gifts for a holiday fair.

Is it better to run out or have too much at a craft fair?

For anything that keeps, too much is better: it goes home and sells next week. For perishables, bring only a little extra and plan a last-hour price for what's left.

How many items should be on the table at a craft fair?

Enough of each product to look plentiful, often a dozen or so, with the rest in bins underneath. Restock between rushes so the table never looks picked over.