Q&A with Faire's Customer Marketing Lead: Market Prep, Visibility & Conversion
Since we launched our course, Making Faire Work, it’s been fantastic to hear your a-has, your progress… and your remaining questions.
So, equipped with those questions (and my own), I sat down with Sara Becker, the Customer Marketing Lead at Faire, to get the inside scoop on what's really working for brands right now, especially heading into a Faire Market.
What came out of that conversation was a mix of reminders about things you already know you should be doing (but maybe haven't fully done) and a few things that might surprise you.
Our full video interview is inside of Making Faire Work — but here are the takeaways I most wanted you to have.
How to Prepare for Faire Markets (with the biggest bang for your buck!)
If Faire Market is new to you, it's a 4-day virtual buying event running this July 20–23, with Insider early access starting July 20 (for more on what they are and if they’re worth it, check this out). To participate, all you need to do is set a market promotion in your brand portal. It can be worth the effort, too – Faire reports the last Faire Market generated over 136,000 new brand-retailer relationships.
Some actionable ways to prep for the upcoming market:
Get the basics right first – great titles, descriptions, and images are the foundation of everything else. And if you’re able to make your descriptions seasonally relevant, that will help a lot with search visibility
Set up a tiered promotion — Faire matches up to 5% of whatever discount a brand offers, so even the minimum 5% gets matched
Tell your community that you're participating — a quick email and social post letting your leads and stockists know you're in the market (with your discount tier) gives them a reason to shop you specifically during those 4 days, instead of just discovering you in Faire's directory
Be available and responsive during market days as if you were manning a physical booth
And a heads up: If you want to be included in Faire's Market directory when it goes live to retailers, brands need their market promotion set by June 28, and new-to-Faire brands need their catalog submitted by June 24 to be ready in time. (Full event details here.)
Simple Ways to Increase Faire Sales That Work Year-Round
Put your Faire Direct link everywhere — website, email signature, social, campaigns. This does more than drive direct orders; it feeds the algorithm data about which retailers respond to your brand, which helps Faire surface you to similar retailers. (Note – this does not fit with every brand’s strategy for wholesale. If it doesn’t, don’t do it! But it’s good to note that it will help, if it is a fit.)
Collections are a simple, low-lift tool worth setting up — Faire says 1 in 5 retailers purchase through them, and they help shoppers navigate large catalogs.
Refresh your catalog for seasons even without new products — repositioning descriptions and collections signals freshness and shows up under "brand updates" for retailers who have followed you, added you to cart, or have purchased from you.
Faire Shop Conversion Troubleshooting
If you're getting impressions but not sales, the gap to conversion is likely MOQs or imagery (ie do you have enough close ups, include packaging, lifestyle etc?)
If you’re getting sales (a good conversion rate), but lower impressions, you can work on your titles and descriptions (making sure they’re seasonally relevant)... or you can consider promoted listings.
The Long Game
It's never too late to turn things around — consistent engagement and freshness can shift performance even after years of inactivity
Faire rewards iteration, not a "set it and forget it" approach
Strong shop basics (like titles and descriptions) make every paid tool (promoted listings, etc.) work better.
The through-line in everything the Faire team shared is that the platform is built to reward brands that treat it as an ongoing practice rather than a setup task. That's the official line from Faire, and it happens to be one I agree with — the brands I've seen do well on the platform are the ones who treat their shop like a living thing, not a launch-and-leave project. The basics aren't a one-time checkbox; they're the thing you come back to, refine, and build on. And the good news is that most of what matters doesn't cost anything extra… it just requires attention.
If you want to go deeper on any of this — including the full conversation with Sara, plus everything else it takes to build a Faire presence that actually performs (without losing your sanity in the process) – that's exactly what we cover in Making Faire Work.
4 Things About Faire Most Makers Get Wrong
Get your free guide & discover:
🔓 What Faire actually requires to succeed (and what most sellers never find out)
🔓 The real limits of the platform — before they cost you time and money
🔓 Exactly how to decide if Faire is worth it for your specific business