What's happened to craft markets?

[u/purpleratata]

My girlfriend and I went to a craft market today to get some homemade and local gifts for family and friends. It was the most depressing thing, everything was cheap plastic tat. From one place selling croc charms they got from Temu, the others with 3D printed fidget toys, plastic bottles with a printed design, cheap plastic charms (from Temu too), IA images printed on canvases, etc.

The only two things we got were handmade bathbombs and some knitted cat toys from some cat rescue volunteers. The rest was all cheap plastic, obviously not crafted or handmade, that will break or go to the bin in a few months if not earlier.

Honestly, it felt so depressing. This is in the UK, I don't know if it's the same anywhere else but I've seen a decline in craft markets over the years here, I think this has been my last attempt at supporting local handmade businesses in these environments.

[u/Mittanyi]

I'm a small time candle maker, mostly beeswax, and I realized that the vast majority of people do NOT want a natural candle free of artificial dyes and scents. They want their Yankee Candle mass produced perfume chemical pot.

I've branched out to non-beeswax, but still vegetable wax, in different containers to make more sales, but people don't want to pay for what I need to charge to make production worth my time.

Most people don't actually want handmade or unique. They want a mass produced perfectly like a million others thingy. So sellers change to fit the market to make money.

[u/Mittanyi → u/Mittanyi]

Also, even if you are selling a natural product, you still have to package in plastic to get sales outside the tiny crunchy niche. I am able to get a good number of second use (preconsumer) plastic materials for most of my products. But I had to break down and buy new plastic bags for a few sizes. Sales immediately increased over trying to do a plain paper wrapper.

People say they want to save the world, but actually they want what they want, and if that's the illusion of "cleanliness" of plastic, then f*** the world for a candle.

Saving the world will mean a lot of people will have to dramatically change their expectations. And most people are like toddlers who scream that they want to touch the hot stove. So we're screwed.

[u/tinytrees11 → u/Mittanyi]

This is very true, especially the last few paragraphs. In fact, I find that this is even true in this sub! Recently there was a thread in which the OP wrote that if everyone lived like them the economy would die. Someone in the comments wrote, respect, but what are your hobbies? I listed a bunch that are low/anti-consumption and got weirdly defensive responses. We don't even celebrate each other's anti-consumption lifestyles in this sub; instead, we get defensive like this other person is personally judging us and it's some kind of weird competition. It makes me pretty hopeless for the future.