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cottage industry

Selling Clothing at Farmers' Market

Rachel Lindsay

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I am looking for y'all's good ideas on booth design.

I'd like to start selling hand-made clothes at our Farmers' Market this summer. I don't have a small tent yet, but I do have just one foldable table so far. I would be there for about three hours once a week. Part of it (maybe one table) would need to be a workstation to sew some on-site, the rest of the booth can be sales and display.

Ideas?

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Anne Miller

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Are you going to have the clothes on hangers on a rack?

If not you might spend a lot of time folding clothes.

Having some clothes on a dress form or a mannequin might be good to draw folks to your booth.

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John F Dean

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I would develop a plan for dealing with the overly fussy customer. The wrong person can eat up hours of your time and still not be satisfied.

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R Scott

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What is your budget?
What is your transport vehicle? (Compact car, mini van, etc)
What specifically are you trying to display? (Shirts, pants, skirts, full dresses, etc)

You can hang hangers from the frame of a pop up tent.
You can get storage boxes that stack on their side to make a set of shelves. You can leave the folded clothes in them and stack them in the car.

Find the most comfortable folding chair you can for yourself.
Get a really good battery powered fan, all the cordless tool brands have them now.

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R Scott

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A big wooden drying rack works well and has a real homestead vibe, something like this

https://homestead-store.com/products/homesteader-drying-rack?variant=269349002

Jennie Little

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I did flea markets with a fellow who sold long dresses and jeans. He had made himself a rack of plastic plumbing bits in an upside down "U" shape. The parts that went into the ground were cut at an angle so he could push them in. They were also pretty short, and had an open female end so he could add the cross bar that connected them, etc. The display worked. If he needed it to be stronger, he had a way of adding "feet" to it as well. The dresses were folded in boxes, hangers in another box, and the plumbing bits which were the rack went atop everything else in his car, broken down into small assemblies or straight pieces. Looked like a mess and it wouldn't work, until you saw him erect it ... once. It was amazing.

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May Lotito

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Clothing can be quite personal. How about stuffs like scrunchies or fabric bags? They are easy to make and have just one size.

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Tyrone Pierce

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That sounds like a great setup! You could use a simple clothing rack or even a sturdy broomstick between two crates to hang your pieces. A colorful tablecloth and a small sign with your brand name can make the table pop. For your sewing area, maybe bring a small folding chair and a cute basket for your tools—keeps it tidy and inviting.

Rachel Lindsay

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All those ideas about different racks are so good! I will have to get at least one rack. I certainly do not want to fold forever, as I did, in my youth, as an employee in clothing emporia. I saw one photo online of someone with a back to a tent. They rigged up ropes somehow and could hang stuff behind them. I would love to figure that way out, too.

For right now, I am going to start with making just skirts, in both women's and girls' sizes. I am hoping to be able to construct 95% of them beforehand, and then custom-finish the pieces as the customers shop for their strawberries.

Is $50 a good price for a display mannequin? I found one today, supposedly marked down, at a chain craft store. It happens to have exactly my petite waist size, so I could display my own skirts I've already made.

Cris Fellows

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Mannequin essential. Whenever we sold clothes, the ones on the mannequins were always the first to go, then we would redress it and boom, another sale.

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Donna Lynn

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Racks are great for keeping things neat and organized by size, but except for the end pieces, it's hard to really see what is being offered.

My mom always taped our outgrown outfits to the basement walls when she had basement sales, so people could see each item clearly and completely. She usually sold everything. I've used racks and tables at sales, but never had the same results.

I know solid walls and tents are completely different, but if you could figure out a way to display each skirt so customers can see the entire front, preferably from outside your booth, I think that would help your sales enormously. Using wooden hangers whose "hooks" twist to different angles could help if you hang skirts from your tent's framing. A few custom-bent wire (or custom-designed wood dowel) hangers could be made long enough and wide enough to spread out skirts near the bottom to show off their fullness and design/fabric. You could even make them adjustable if you wanted to get fancy, for skirts of different sizes/circumferences.

Sounds like a fun undertaking, best of luck! Hopefully word of mouth will bring new customers to your booth through the summer.

Kim Wills

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May Lotito wrote:Clothing can be quite personal. How about stuffs like scrunchies or fabric bags? They are easy to make and have just one size.

This is a really great idea, because people will walk by who either:
1 - don't wear skirts
2 - wear skirts but don't like your skirts
3 - can't afford a skirt

But small items like scrunchies or things $10 and under can be purchased by many people on a whim, and even kids might ask, "mommy, buy me a scrunchie!" and the mother will think, "thank goodness there's something affordable I can buy her at this event", or the kid can use their own money.

Also, maybe you can whip a bunch of things like:
- tissue box cover
- coin purse
- cutlery pouch for bringing your own flatware with a packed lunch or in the car
- bookmarks
- covers for heating pads (make the sacks you can microwave, they're easy, and they can choose their cover)

I've tried to sell many different things at events and having 1-2 cheap items is almost essential; especially if you're putting out money for your table. If no one buys a skirt in that 3 hours, at least maybe you can make your table money back, or gas money.

Oh... when you get a tent: If you've never used one before, come up with a system of weighing it down against wind. Little stakes won't do anything. Many people put a rope on each leg from the top down to the ground and tie something heavy to it like jugs with handles, full of sand, or dumbbell weights, or whatever.

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James Bradford

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another idea is that some clothes might sell better on consignment at trendy mom n pop shop where they might have changing rooms and such.

I 3rd the idea of having small less expensive stuff available for you booth. Or, have your larger items available on an online store, and show them at the farmers market.

i'm 3 years in on selling at farmer's market (plants), and many disappointing Saturdays along with some good ones. Finally, I'm building a customer base. So, be patient and pace yourself.

last thing ... variety. lots of in-expensive things plus some pricey high quality items too. knitted hats

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Dian Green

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I had some altered jackets as part of my stuff, when I was still doing shows.

While I didn't have the space for a full mirror, I did have an old iPad I used for reading and to run my credit card unit at the time. By using the front camera, you can use it as a mirror and that helped close a few sales.

I also agree on smaller things. Even cute, rustic xmas/Halloween ornaments can work, especially for tourists.

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May Lotito

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So Sew Easy website has many free patterns for clothing and crafts. Sometimes different things can be made with the same fabric and arranging the patterns together will make more efficient use of fabric. Maybe the customers will buy a skirt and a matching bucket hat as well!

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Rachel Lindsay

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Thank you again for all this input! I just LOVE talking to Permie-folks.

So far, one way of making one kind of garment is all that I know how to make, but I intend to learn more. If I am able to finish them to custom sizes in a few minutes while the customer waits, I think that will be notable--and I am hoping that fact will cause word to spread.

I do think it is wise, as has been mentioned, to display objects at full-view, if possible. That makes sense, and it's also probably the hard part, ha!

andi scharf

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if you get an ez-up...even a cheap used one....yes, they give you shade and are great for hanging things on the bars...right at eye sight!

I have used bungee cords to hang clothes on in lieu of a clothe line, or camping...super cheap, different sizes. We used to do banners for kids sports teams... two pieces of rebar hammered in to the ground, and 3 cheap pvc pipes.... one up from each rebar, two corner connectors and one pvc pipe across the top... you can't hang a bunch of weight on that, but if you are only starting with a handful... 10-15 skirts....that would hold. and breaks down for transport.

And I love that you can sit there and custom size them! That's a great idea! I hope you will check back in after a few markets and let us know what you end up doing and how it's going! Best of luck!

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