What I Consider to be a Good Market as a Market Vendor.

When I first started doing markets in 2021, I had no expectations (hello, covid!) I did do tons of research on market displays beforehand because I hate seeming like a newbie. I don't know what happened in my childhood, but I hate feeling incompetent and I rarely used to want people to know that I know nothing.

(Faiza Anam of Anam Creations at her first market in Parkdale Hall in 2021)

I've grown up since😅 but that mentality of not wanting to be incompetent also made me a more capable person. I learned how to do things on my own for once and I did so many markets at one point (almost every single weekend in 2022-2023). This experience helped me learn quite quickly what I love to see in a market/market organizer and what I don't.

GREEN FLAGS

• Repeat vendors who love doing their markets 
• Has some sort of entertainment at the market for guests (music, activation stations, performances)
• Decorates the venue for the event instead of an empty hall
• Themed events with thought put into it (e.g. halloween market with tarot readings, spooky treats and a spooky dj)
• Market fee matches the outcome (low fees I dont expect huge turnouts, but anything over $125 I expect turnout to be a priority)
• They do actual marketing of the event!! (Not just Instagram paid ads, but flyers in the area should be visible, posting on facebook groups and discord chats, highlighting vendors and their items- this includes markets who ensure vendors do marketing too and make it a part of the contract, we all need to pitch in and share what we will bring to attract customers)
• Their follower count isn't fake and I ensure they have thousands of followers! You see that followers are regularly engaging with their content in some format. Lots of followers (+engagement) shows that people will actually notice when there is a new event.
• Organizers don't use favoritism and fairly select vendors while being transparent. I rather an organizer select new vendors each time and give us all a chance to participate. This is also why sometimes if I know a market does an event every month, I apply every other month, or randomly, so I can ensure I am selected and also so I only do the themed events that resonate with my work.
• Vetted vendors to ensure they are respectful, exclude AI and make sure there is NO oversaturation (no need for 5 jewelry vendors in ONE event!!)
• Food and drinks at the event- brings in customers and shows you care about keeping vendors fueled.
• Organizers who actually treat their vendors well because we are your customers FIRST. Without vendors your event would be dead (sorry if that is harsh but I think even you would agree). Please don't forget that you need us because we can easily sell online and anywhere else. 
• Their events happen once in a while versus frequently

RED FLAGS

• Organizers who do not react well to feedback. If I tell you I feel you are employing favoritism to select vendors, your response probably shouldn't be that I am "inappropriate and incorrect" (yes an organizer told me this and I never did their markets again!)
• No decor in the venue shows lack of care for the overall event (one event I did in Hamilton, she promised a drink bar and all this stuff only for us to show up and see an empty venue with racist customers -hell barely any customers and no drink bar or promised activations👎🏽)
• No form of entertainment for the guests (no drag show? No music or live DJ? No performances? No food? Its a no. People dont just wanna shop, they want an experience)
• No marketing done or lacks sufficient marketing. You cant just make a post a week or 2 before the event and call it a day. You need to be promoting your event for 3 weeks straight and in different forums.
• Oversaturation of vendors (too many of one type of item- there is no reason to have so many jewelry vendors..select 1 from each category for example: 1 metal jeweler, 1 polymer clay jeweler, 1 3D printer/acrylic jeweler and swap them out every market. You can apply this formula to artists and clothing makers too)
• TOO MANY MARKETS EVERY MONTH. I can't stress this one enough. Events that happen couple times a year garner way more profit for us than events that happen every damn weekend. If your guests know you will be there EVERY weekend or EVERY month, why would they come everytime? This causes more loss for vendors, leaving them confused as to why some events do SO WELL while others don't. And if you must host every month, stick to ONE event per month and make it a fun theme. I promise you will see how much this changes turnout.
• Markets held at community centres, malls, churches and inaccessible locations. If the venue is drab and difficult to get to by transit, it is NOT a good choice for a market. These events barely bring anyone in and usually families with kids so if your stuff doesn't do well with families, I would stay away. Mall markets are usually bad because people rather shop in "real stores" but a "limited time only" mall popup may do better.
• AI or MLM vendors allowed is a no no for me. Especially as someone who prides themselves in making their own art and jewelry.
• Predatory organizers- if a male organizer tries to flirt with you, run. It isn't flattery or useful, it can lead to issues long term.
• No refunds or cancellations (even on rainy days 👎🏽) any organizer that fails to understand that life is hard and sometimes people just can't make it to things is an intolerant organizer. Especially if people have illness or disability or personal issues. Ask for a non refundable deposit as a buffer that's fine, but no refunds at all or no cancellations is toxic. You can't force people to do a market in the rain when you know people will barely show up, that is wrong.
• Barely any BIPOC vendors or customers at their events. Something is wrong there and it's upto you (the organizer) to correct this. 
• Markets in smaller cities because I never feel safe as a south asian queer woman there. I always feel a)stared at b)ignored completely. Even Hamilton made me feel this way which is why I avoided Hamilton Pride even, the profits didn't add up and the event itself was stressful because anyone who was placed by the lake had displays falling over constantly due to the winds.
• STACKT MARKET- sorry but I have never made profits at Stackt. It was always a loss and only once did I break even. People come to stackt for the dance parties, food and to chill. They don't come to shop unless you are in one of those shipping containers. And even then shop owners in those containers end up leaving eventually due to lack of traffic. The turnout (for me) has always been bad. At your own risk.
• Over 50 vendors is way too many. I avoid cons because it is overstimulating and people rarely buy at these events unless you sell cosplay stuff or comic/anime related stuff. And even then profits aren't great when you have over 100 vendors🤷🏽♀️
• Organizers who keep ZERO metrics. I would like to see organizers who have someone by the door to use a clicker to count how many people enter your markets. I only saw this done at one market in Toronto.

This is what I came up with off the top of my head. I will add more if I think of them but I hope this list gives you (vendors and organizers) an idea of what to look for and what events really bring in traffic.

As a small business owner who actually wants to make this my full time income one day, participating in profitable markets is so key to our growth! I always encourage vendors to try events out for themselves or visit them first to get an idea for if your items would do well there. At the end of the day these are my personal opinions, some people will agree while others disagree. So do your research, use your best judgement and take the leap if you haven't already!

And if you are an organizer, I hope you take this time to evaluate your events. Get friendly with Sheets or Excel and keep track of your metrics and vendor & customer feedback. Use a clicker to count attendees at every event, keep track of holidays and which events did well for most vendors and which events flopped for most vendors. This will help you figure out a yearly schedule for when you SHOULD do markets and when you should AVOID them. You can also see hey did I decorate this venue for this event? What level of marketing did I do? Which vendors did I select? By keeping track of all of this in Excel you will see exactly what to do to improve your markets and help your vendors thrive.

(Anam Creations Summer Tent setup)

My setup has changed a lot since 2021, and so has my outlook on small businesses and the Ontario market scene. I want vendors to not be slighted, I want vendors to feel heard and respected. I want organizers to also make money for putting in the work, but if you don't put in the work, you have no business charging over $50-75/vendor. I know many organizers like to blame venue costs, but just know we have no issue paying you more IF we see the effort and traffic. But if we dont, it isn't worth it. 

Let me share an example. I did a christmas market in 2025 that usually does so well according to other vendors. I have also done this organizers markets since 2022 and used to do well there until they oversaturated with jewelry vendors and started making their markets too frequent and expensive. For this 2025 winter market the organizer chose to host it 5 weekends in a row....and charge $400/weekend😱 I even took out a cash money loan to do it thinking oh yea I am gonna kill it. What happened? I broke even. I didn't even make profit, every dollar went to my cash money loan. And to be fair I had done cash money loans in the past because I actually made profit so it made fiscal sense at the time. But was this specific expensive event worth it? No. Barely anyone showed opening weekend because they knew they had 4 more weekends to come through.

 But the one event of theirs where I did make great profits? Their once a year Asian market. Yup ONCE A YEAR. and those events that I do that happen once a year are my BEST profit days of all time. So what does that tell you? Exclusive events garner more traffic and more sales.

Organizers don't do this because now their full time jobs have become taking our money to host mediocre events even when they know every weekend or every month's traffic won't be consistent. They KNOW this and still choose to screw us over. They just seem to want our $$ and that is why I have drastically reduced the markets I do. It just isn't worth it anymore and when I can pay $60/month on Shopify and make $400-900/month from ONE DROP... do markets even make sense for my business unless it's a huge event that I know 100% brings in traffic? No. They don't.

I hope organizers in Toronto wake up and remember why they started doing markets in the first place: for community, connection and uplifting small business owners so we can actually thrive financially in a system that tries to prevent artists from success of any kind.

And if you ever want to chat to collab on a market so we can make a kickass event, reach out!

Thank you for reading, let's make the Toronto market scene fun again!