If you sell your handcrafted jewelry at shows, fairs, or festivals, it may be a target for thieves. You should know how prevent shoplifters from stealing your jewelry right out of your booth.

I don’t mean to imply that shoplifting is rampant at every show, or that you can’t trust your customers. But it’s an unfortunate fact that jewelry is an increasingly frequent target for theft. It’s attractive, relatively small, easy to slip away with, and has a high perceived value.

After an onyx and opalite bracelet was shoplifted from my booth, I decided to learn how I could prevent my jewelry from “evaporating” at shows.

I discovered that you can greatly reduce your risk of becoming a victim of shoplifting in your jewelry booth – simply by being aware of how jewelry thieves operate, and learning a few simple prevention measures.

Tactics of Experienced Jewelry Shoplifters

Awareness of how thieves operate can help you keep your jewelry safe. Here are common shoplifting ploys used by thieves at art and craft shows:

1) Some thieves work in pairs. One thief poses as an interested customer, distracting you by pretending they want to purchase jewelry, while the other thief unobtrusively slips some jewelry into a pocket, tote bag, shopping bag, or purse.

2) A shoplifter working alone pretends to browse your displays, and the moment you’re distracted, he or she easily brushes jewelry that’s displayed near the table-edge right into an open bag, purse, or baggy pocket that’s just below the table level.

3) A thief sets a personal item (such as a purse, shopping bag, or jacket) on your jewelry table while pretending to shop. When the thief picks up her personal item, she neatly lifts some of your jewelry along with it.

4) Experienced jewelry thieves know the most vulnerable times for an artist at a show, and wait for an opportune moment to take advantage of your situation during these critical times:

- While you’re setting up and taking down your booth, especially if you’re dealing with a tent or anything else that requires a significant amount of time and attention away from your jewelry.

- When your booth is crowded.

- While you’re loading and unloading your vehicle.

- When you take a bathroom break.

Awareness is your best defense against shoplifters. Once you have an understanding of how these thieves operate, you can determine the most vulnerable areas of your booth and how to safeguard them. With a bit of reorganizing, you can easily set up a profitable jewelry booth that discourages shoplifting.

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Learn 8 effective ways to protect your jewelry booth from shoplifting in Rena Klingenberg’s ebook, Ultimate Guide to Your Profitable Jewelry Booth – You’ll also learn every success secret and strategy Rena has discovered for selling handcrafted jewelry at shows.

Do you sell more jewelry by placing a visible price tag on each piece, or by leaving the price a mystery until the customer inquires about it?

Some jewelry artists prefer to leave prices off their jewelry, so customers will have to ask about pieces that interest them – thereby giving the jeweler the opening to establish a relationship with the customer and sell the piece.

Others feel that customers will assume jewelry without price tags must be too expensive, and that they’ll leave your booth without ever asking how much that beautiful bracelet costs.

When I’m shopping, I personally am one of the customers who are too shy to ask about the prices on items that don’t have visible price tags. Artists of all kinds of handcrafts have lost sales to me because I didn’t see any price tags and didn’t feel comfortable asking about their prices.

I put visible price tags on all my jewelry. I usually work my booth alone, and the more information I make accessible to my customers, the greater my chance of making sales to them.

Sometimes I’m in a swarm of customers asking questions and making purchases, and someone on the fringes wondering whether they can afford a particular pair of earrings wouldn’t bother to wait to find out while I’m closing other sales and packaging other customers’ jewelry.

But with visible pricing, customers know immediately whether they can afford the piece, so I won’t lose their business to another jewelry vendor if they’d like to purchase it.

Also, this way I don’t have to try to remember my prices for each piece! I’m not a numbers-oriented person, and I do best if I make the numbers-work as simple as possible for myself.

If you’re undecided on this issue, you may want to run a test at your next show by pricing half your items and leaving price tags off the other half. See which method seems to bring you the most sales!

What kind of price labels do you use?

For putting prices on all my jewelry, I buy the smallest-size removable stickers from local office supply stores. I write the prices on these stickers with a fine-point Sharpie marker, and stick them on a bottom corner of the front my jewelry hang tags and earring cards. Then when I sell a piece of jewelry, I can easily peel off the removable price sticker as I package the piece.

Or if I’m displaying a group of items that are all priced the same, I omit the individual stickers and put up a small sign in a picture frame stating something like “Gemstone Bead Earrings – $16”.

It’s best to use a form of price labeling that’s difficult for someone to remove and switch around when you’re not looking. Some jewelers prefer to use “sharkskin” tags (barbell-shaped stickers that fold around a bracelet or necklace with the large ends adhered together), while others print the pricing directly on their jewelry cards and hang tags.

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Find hundreds of tips for selling your handcrafted jewelry like crazy at shows, fairs, and festivals in Rena Klingenberg’s step-by-step guide, “Ultimate Guide to Your Profitable Jewelry Booth”

If you sell your art or crafts at shows, fairs, and festivals, you can increase your profits by focusing on selling at juried shows. Although juried shows are harder to be accepted into, and the booth fees and other expenses tend to be higher, they are often much more profitable for artists than the shows that are less expensive and easier to get into.

Some juried shows have strict requirements about how your booth is set up and what you can sell – which, although this can feel limiting, can also help “keep the riff-raff out” and maintain a high quality show.

The appeal of being in juried shows is that they are generally run well, with a good mix of higher caliber vendors, and they tend to attract a larger crowd – often bigger-spending shoppers who like to purchase quality handcrafted items. (Our favorite kind of customers!)

Although a juried show’s restrictions and higher fees may be more challenging for the vendors, many artists and crafters find that the more profitable returns make it worth jumping through all the hoops to get accepted and participate.

What Makes a Show “Juried”?

A juried show is one where your acceptance is based on the approval of a “jury” that screens the applications and slides, looking for quality vendors and products.

Some juries consist only of the show promoter and a staff member or two. Others consist of an elaborately selected group of art educators, artists, art patrons, or gallery owners.

The jury usually accepts only a limited number of artists from each medium to the show, so your art or crafts (and application package) are competing against those of other artists in your medium.

That’s why careful attention to your application and professional-quality slides are vital if you want to get into juried shows – particularly if you’re in a relatively crowded medium like jewelry.

Applying for Juried Shows

To apply for a juried show, request an application package from the show promoter. Read everything very carefully before filling anything out, and follow the application requirements to the letter.

Along with your application package, send in your jury fee and application fee (sometimes they’re combined as one fee, and sometimes they’re separate).

If you wind up not being accepted into a juried show, you rarely receive a refund for your jury fee; it’s paid to the jury members to compensate them for their time and expertise. You may or may not be refunded for your accompanying show application fee, depending on the show’s refund policy. It’s important to be aware of the particular show’s refund policies before applying, to be sure you know what to expect if you’re not accepted.

If you aren’t accepted into a juried show the first time you apply, don’t lose heart or give up. Just keep working toward making your crafts more unique and well-made, your displays more professional, and your slides truly outstanding.

Apply again the next time the show puts out a call for artists. As your work evolves and the board of jurors changes, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to be accepted to future editions of the show.

If you want any of your application materials (such as your slides) returned to you after the jurying process, include a self-addressed, stamped envelope attached to a politely written request to have them sent back to you.

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Learn how to find good shows for selling your work, plus hundreds of other success secrets for selling your jewelry and other handcrafts at shows, in Rena Klingenberg’s ebook, Ultimate Guide to Your Profitable Jewelry Booth .