Event Marketing for Shopify Brands: Markets and Fairs
Event marketing for a Shopify brand means selling and meeting customers in person at markets, craft fairs, food festivals and trade shows, then bringing those people back to your online store. Shopify covers the till with Shopify POS, whose basic features come with every Shopify plan at no extra cost, so stall sales land in the same admin, stock and reports as online orders. After the event comes the follow-up: a sign-up with marketing consent and a tagged link or QR code, so the people you met become online customers.
Pick the right event
Before you pay for a pitch, answer four questions:
- Who walks past? A food festival audience buys snacks and gifts; a design fair audience buys prints and home goods. Ask the organizer for last year’s visitor numbers and who they were, and visit as a shopper first if you can.
- What does it cost in total? Pitch fee, travel, display, staff time, and the stock you tie up.
- What counts as success? Write it down before the day: stall sales to cover costs, plus a number of email sign-ups.
- Can you sell online afterwards? Events near your shipping area, with visitors who could reorder online, are worth more than a one-off sale far away.
For a single weekend stall, start with one local market and one larger fair in the same season and compare them. Trade shows aimed at retailers are a wholesale channel, a different decision with different math.
Before, during and after
Two to four weeks before
- Set up Shopify POS on a phone or tablet, connect a card reader, and run test sales; our guide to POS hardware for pop-ups covers the kit. If your store is based in the EU, check the regional point-of-sale requirements Shopify links to.
- Decide what to bring: bestsellers, a few event-only items, and enough stock without emptying your online store.
- Create a landing page for event visitors with a sign-up form (the free Shopify Forms app can tag sign-ups and add a discount as an incentive) and a “welcome from the market” offer.
- Make a QR code to that page with UTM parameters, for example
?utm_source=spring-fair&utm_medium=event&utm_campaign=2027-04-spring-fair, and print it on a sign and on cards for every bag. - Tell your existing customers where you’ll be, so local ones can come by.
On the day
- Show the product in use. Let people touch, taste or try.
- Ask for the email at the moment someone is interested, not only at payment. Point them to the QR sign-up, which records their marketing consent properly.
- Put a card with the QR code in every bag.
- Note the questions people ask and which products they pick up but put down.
The week after
- Send a thank-you email to the people who signed up, within a few days, with the offer and a link to the products they saw.
- Restock online products that sold out at the stall.
- Write down the day’s numbers while you remember them.
Collect sign-ups the right way
Shopify’s guidance is to send marketing only to customers who agreed to receive it. A paper list at the stall doesn’t record that consent the way Shopify does, so use a form on your store: customers who sign up through a newsletter form or select the marketing checkbox at checkout appear as email subscribers on the Customers page. If your store is in Germany, Shopify notes that a double opt-in confirmation may be needed. Tag event sign-ups (for example spring-fair-2027) so you can build a segment and see later whether they bought.
Measure the event
Add up three numbers for each event:
| Number | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Stall sales | Shopify POS orders on the day, in your sales reports |
| Sign-ups | Customers with the event tag, or the form’s analytics |
| Online orders afterwards | Sessions and orders from the event’s UTM campaign in the Channel performance report, plus orders from tagged customers in the following months |
Divide the event’s total cost by the number of stall orders plus online orders in the next three months to compare events with each other and with your online ads. For a fuller pop-up shop, with your own space for days or weeks, see our guide to Shopify pop-up shops. Other channels are covered in the marketing and SEO hub.
Shopify facts come from the Help Center pages on selling in person and collecting customer contact information, read on October 23, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use Shopify at a market or craft fair? Shopify POS’s basic features are included in every Shopify plan at no extra cost. Sales at the stall go into the same admin, inventory and reports as your online orders.
How do I collect emails at an event? Use a sign-up form on your store, reached through a QR code at the stall, so customers agree to marketing in a way Shopify records. Tag event sign-ups so you can find them later.
How do I know if an event was worth it? Compare the total cost with stall sales plus online orders from the event’s UTM campaign and from tagged sign-ups over the next few months.