Faire’s Set-It-And-Forget-It Myth and Why We All Believed it
The other day my husband asked me if there is anything we can put in or on the toilet to make it so it doesn’t have to get cleaned. “Isn’t there like a thing you attach to it so it cleans itself when you flush?” he asked.
“Um, no?” I responded, laughing. “I think pretty much no matter what you do, you have to clean the toilet.”
And while it’s fun to make my husband out to be especially clueless, the reality is that we all want the “set it and forget it” system. We want there to be something we do once and get the benefits for all time. We want it in our homes and we want it in our businesses.
You want to know the crazy part? For a few years, Faire was like that.
When Faire first started, there weren’t enough buyers to make it much use. But once it hit its stride in 2017 or so… and until about 2021 or 2022, all you had to do to succeed on Faire was set up your store on the platform and… wait. It may not have been a flood of orders, and the commission has always been high, but at least it was reliable.
And I’ll be honest, over the past few years, I didn’t realize that had changed – so I kept repeating the myth that Faire was a “set it and forget it” platform. I meant both the positive side of this (that you don’t have to do a lot to keep Faire going) but also the negative side (that if it’s not working, there’s not much you can do.)
In the last year, however, I had several conversations with the Faire team that made me realize that this is a) no longer true at all and b) what exactly happened.
Here’s the deal:
In the early years of Faire, brands were primarily brought on through “invites” (email pitches from the Faire team.) Because of that, the number of brands on the platform was somewhat limited. There was less competition for buyer attention. The platform was still building its marketplace, which meant it needed sellers to stick around — and it made things easy enough that many of them did. You didn't need to obsess over your listings. You didn't need to understand the algorithm. You bring the products, they bring the buyers.
As the Faire team told us directly:
"Before 2022 or thereabouts, we used to emphasize that Faire was more of a set-it-and-forget-it platform. And that was more true before we had so much more supply."
Around 2022, Faire opened its doors more broadly to inbound brand applications — and the floodgates opened. That surge in brands changed the math of the entire marketplace. More brands meant more competition for the same pool of buyer attention. Discovery that used to happen almost automatically now required active effort. The algorithm, which had always existed, started mattering a lot more — because with many times the supply, Faire had to get much more selective about who it showed to whom. Further, Faire became clearer that buyers seek newness and freshness because, in turn, their shoppers want that too.
None of this happened overnight. It was gradual enough that many brands didn't notice the shift until they were already deep inside a different version of the platform than the one they'd signed up for (or the one they kept hearing about from the lady in the next craft market booth.)
The new reality
Today's Faire is not the Faire of 2019. Today’s Faire requires ongoing, active engagement to see success. As the Faire team put it to us:
"Any brand can see success on Faire but you must be an active participant in that happening. The more you're engaging, the better it is."
Active participation means keeping your catalog fresh and seasonally relevant. It means optimizing your titles, photos, and descriptions — not once, but regularly. It means watching your policies and performance metrics and keeping them absolutely excellent: lead times, cancellation rates, responsiveness, reviews. It means understanding that the algorithm rewards engagement, reliability, and responsiveness — and that brands who aren't consistently showing up in those ways will be seen less and less (either suddenly or gradually).
Faire now ranks brands that add new products 20% higher in the marketplace. Brands with 35 or more five-star reviews see roughly a 10% increase in conversion. Retailers filter by low minimums and free shipping as their top search criteria. Every one of these details matters in a way it simply didn't when there were fewer brands competing for the same eyes. More on how Faire works and how to work Faire here.
The old plan — upload your products, set your prices, check in occasionally — doesn't produce results anymore. But it’s not because you're doing something wrong, it’s because the platform changed.
What this means for you
If you're reading this and recognizing your own experience, here's what we want you to hear:
The set-it-and-forget-it era is over. Faire's own team has said so. The question now is whether and how you want to play the new game — and whether this particular game is worth your time, energy, and margins.
That's a question only you can answer. But you deserve to answer it with the real information, not the old story. And if nothing else, I hope it's a relief to know that the shift wasn't something you caused. It was a change that happened around you — and now that you can see it clearly, you're in a much better position to decide what comes next.
If this felt helpful or clarifying, you might be interested in Making Faire Work, our course walking you through what Faire actually is today and what it actually takes to succeed on it today.
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