Earlier this year, we announced new tools and online events with the purpose of bringing the Faire community together to connect in the absence of traditional trade shows. Today, we’re excited to share the details of our first online trade show event to kick off the holiday buying season: Faire Summer Market, coming to Faire.com this August 26-27.

The cancellation and postponement of trade shows across the country have created a significant need for both brands and retailers to find an alternative to the 2020 buying holiday season. According to our July survey data, half of retailers and brands report that trade show cancellations have interrupted their business plans this year, with 70% of retailers and brands cancelling all business related travel. Faire Summer Market is designed to solve some of the immediate challenges related to in-person events by providing a safe and meaningful start to the holiday season while enriching the marketplace year-round with new powerful buying tools. 

By combining simple-to-use tech with a new way to connect with other brands and retailers, this event will help empower retailers and brands to continue to run a thriving business during a particularly challenging holiday season.

Introducing interactive livestreams

Interactive video shopping has been rapidly adopted across several direct-to-consumer platforms, and now Faire is bringing video shopping to wholesale. Our livestreaming experience is built to emphasize interactivity, engagement, and reach, helping retailers and brands connect the way they would during a typical trade show. Through livestreaming, a brand can demo products, showcase new colors and textures in more detail, or share merchandising ideas, all while answering live questions from retailers viewing the stream. 

During the two-day event, more than 25 brands from a diverse set of categories including TeaDrops, S’well, Twisted Wares, 1818 Farms, and Larissa Loden Jewelry will showcase their lines through livestreaming, accessible to all retailers on the platform.A full schedule of the Faire Summer Market livestreaming program will be released in early August, and we will continue to bring livestreaming to more brands later this year.

Trade shows are really about people being able to experience your brand. With livestreaming, we’re going to be able to reach many more people at a much lower cost.

Missy Livingston, founder and CEO of Twisted Wares

Show specials and improved commission on promotions

To celebrate the event and further support the community during this critical holiday buying season, Faire will be matching promotions made during Faire Summer Market, helping brands offer deeper discounts to retailers, for free. 

Additionally, we have launched two new promotion models designed to give brands more opportunities to sell to new and existing retailers: 

• Combined promotions: Brands can now offer combined promotions (e.g. 5% off plus free shipping)
• Tiered promotions: Retailers who buy more can now save more (e.g. 5% off orders $200, 10% off orders over $40)

We understand that the cost of running a promotion can be steep and make it difficult for independent brands to compete. In our ongoing effort to level the playing field for our customers, we have made an improvement to our commission policy. Moving forward, all commission on promotions will be applied to the discounted price rather than the original price.

Tools for retailers to plan ahead

Retailers use a combination of strategies when sourcing products for their shops — from browsing and bookmarking on social platforms to researching consumer trends. Ahead of Faire Summer Market, we will be releasing new tools that streamline these strategies and provide more insight around performance data:

• Following brands and boards: Retailers can now follow brands to stay up to date on new merchandise, plus they can favorite products and save them to specific boards for future buying
• Data-informed shopping: Retailers will gain access to consumer bestsellers by geography, store type, and more, powered by Faire’s POS network
• Personal shop planner: Select retailers with Square POS integration will have the opportunity to access a reorder flow that accounts for inventory counts so they never run out of their best sellers, as well as dashboard showcasing their store performance

Retailers across the platform have already started taking advantage of these tools, with nearly 500,000 saved products and over 25,000 boards created within just a few weeks. We’re excited to continue to bring even more insight and efficiency to the buying experience on Faire.

How to participate

There’s never been a better time to shop the best deals of the season on Faire. Thousands of brands across several categories, including NaturalAnnie Essentials, Pals Socks, Happy Spritz, and Walker Noble Studios, have already set exclusive promotions on their merchandise for the two-day event, and will benefit from concentrated exposure to Faire’s network of retailers.

Faire has shown us that they’re really committed to supporting our business, so when the opportunity presented itself it was never a question of whether we were going to participate in Faire Summer Market. It’s a much smaller investment because we’re able to do it from home, and create more of a one-to-one experience.

Courtenay Schick, Wholesale and Customer Service Lead at TeaDrops