One of the most important things a vendor can bring to an arts and crafts show is an adequate cash bank.

Unless you will be accepting plastic exclusively or giving your wares away you will probably need some cash to make change.

For what ever reason some people can not seem to get this straight or they are new and have not yet learned the method behind the madness so we will try to offer some guidance.

First of all people, for the most part carry plastic or $20.00 bills.  This is because they have made it to the atm or they have not.  If they make it to the atm they get the money in $20.00 bills.  If they did not they will want to use plastic or a check.  Be prepared to take as many forms as you can to avoid losing sales.  If there is an atm on site, as is the case at many large shows, the customers will be paying with Andrew Jackson.

Now if you are selling items for $5 or under or between $10 and $15 you probably need lots of change.  At least an equal amounts of Lincons and Hamiltons.  It’s because every time you sell a $5 item you will be giving back $15 and at last check they were not printing $15 bills.

Not to mention people who do not round prices up to the even dollar.  I can not understand this and we would never ever consider taking change with us to the show.  If we are very busy we do not have time to make change, it leaves chances for mistakes, its heavy and it uses up money that could be used for paper money.  We always include the tax and round the amount up to the next highest dollar.

Yes, some customers will have exact change but never count on it.  And don’t count on your neighbor having change.  This weekend and 2 weeks ago we had people hit us up for change.  The galling part was that one was a wine vendor, not the guy who sold the wine but a lackey sent to sell on commission and the other was a character who posed with customers for photos.  Not that’s a discipline that takes a number of minutes to master.  In both cases we helped them out but only because we brought more that enough change for ourselves.

Cash is very handy for surprises when away from home.  Once we set off with our cash in hand and more cash in the bank to be used to pay the motel bill when we arrived.  Unfortunately our bank did not post the deposit on the day we left and the lady at the motel was not going to let us stay with out payment for the room in advance because the debit card was declined.

Thank goodness we had an ample supply of change that we used to pay the motel bill for the first day.  Next day we drew from the atm and broke the $20’s around the area (not at the show).

And remember that the best plans sometime have hitches so if you have the change and someone needs help remember that the table could be turned the next time.