Craft Fair Customer Said Prices Too High? The Oak Board

2026-10-28

11:20 on a Saturday, school hall

The hall smells of floor polish and burnt coffee. Your table has a green cloth, a hand-lettered sign and nine oak chopping boards in a row. Each one has been sanded until it feels like warm bread.

A woman picks up the biggest one. She turns it over, finds the small paper tag and raises her eyebrows.

"Oh. For a chopping board?" She laughs, not unkindly. "I could get one at the garden centre for a tenner."

She puts it back, squares it with the others and drifts to the candle stall. Everything is polite and friendly, and you feel the heat climb your neck.

Let's call you Tomas. He's made up, but you might know him.

The thought that arrives a second late

You smile and say something like "It's all oak, made in my garage." It comes out smaller than you meant.

Then the thought arrives, the one you never say out loud at the stall: Is she right?

You are not sure the price is too high. You are not sure it's too low either. That is the uncomfortable part. You picked the number weeks ago at the kitchen table, with a pencil and a feeling. It seemed fair and it seemed brave, and you have never looked at it again.

Now a stranger's raised eyebrow is doing the job a clear picture should be doing.

Two voices on one stall

For the next hour two voices argue behind your smile.

The first says: She's right. Who pays this much? Drop it by a few pounds. Better to sell than to stand here.

The second says: You spent three Sundays on those boards. The wood wasn't cheap. The fair charged you for the table. You drove forty minutes to get here.

Neither voice has a number to hold on to, so neither wins. By lunchtime you have quietly crossed out one tag and written a lower price over it. You tell yourself it's a "fair special". You know it isn't.

A man buys that board. He's lovely and he says it will go on his daughter's kitchen island. You wrap it in brown paper and feel a small sinking at the same moment as the small lift. Did you just make a sale, or did you just pay him to take it?

You honestly can't tell. That's what stays with you.

The drive home

Packing up is slow. The cash tin is lighter than you hoped and heavier than you feared. On the drive home the radio is on, but you aren't listening.

You think about the makers who always seem sure of themselves. You wonder whether they have some instinct you missed. You suspect they don't. Most likely they just know something about their own work that you've been guessing at.

There's a quiet cost to guessing. You carry the doubt into every fair and every message from a customer who says "is there any discount?" You haven't done anything wrong. You simply can't answer calmly, because the answer has never been written down anywhere you can see it.

What changes when you can see it

Here is the turning point, and it isn't dramatic. It's the moment you realise the question "am I underpricing?" doesn't have to be a feeling. It can be a page you open.

You can look at one board and see what it really costs you: the wood, the finish, the platform fee when it sells online, the table at the fair. You can see what is left once those are paid. You can see whether the number on the tag is paying you for your Sundays or only for your materials.

Sometimes that page says the price is fine and the customer simply wanted a garden-centre board. That's a relief in itself. You can let her walk away without a flinch, because she was never your customer.

Sometimes it says the price is too low. That's a relief too, in a different way. It's far better to find out in October at your own table than to keep selling at a loss and resent the thing you love.

Either way, you stop negotiating with yourself.

A different Saturday

Picture the next fair. Same hall, same polish and coffee smell. A woman picks up the big board, sees the tag and says, "Hmm, that's a lot for a chopping board."

You don't rush to explain. You smile and say, "It's solid oak, made by me, and it'll outlast most things in your kitchen." You say it once, kindly, and you mean it. You aren't defending a guess any more, because you know your number.

She may buy it or she may not. Your shoulders stay where they are either way.

That evening you don't sit in the car doing sums in your head. You open the sheet, add the day's market sales next to the online ones, and see how the week actually went. It takes a few minutes. Then you put the kettle on, and the evening is yours.

If you recognised yourself

Maybe you've stood at that table, watching a tag get turned over and put back. If so, it may help to have one calm place where cost, fees and profit sit next to each other for every product, with a suggested price and your market and online sales together.

Price Your Handmade Work Right – Cost, Fees & Profit Calculator is an Excel workbook made for exactly that. It organises your numbers. It doesn't replace a tax professional, and the pricing decisions stay yours. There's a 30-day money-back promise: if it doesn't help, you get a full refund, no questions.

Your work isn't the problem. You may just need to see it clearly once.

An illustrative story, written with AI assistance.