What Your First Market Stall Is Actually For
Hannah Capocci-Hunt built Elstree Soaps through years of market stalls, expensive mistakes and one very important cheese queue. Here's what she'd tell every product founder before they pack the car.
A man was queuing for cheese. He wasn't looking at Hannah Capocci-Hunt's soap stand at all. She asked if he wanted to smell something. He came over and spent £70.
"If I'd just sat quietly," she says, "that sale never would have happened."
That one moment tells you more about markets than most prep guides do. Your first stall isn't really a sales channel. It's a place to learn who buys your product, where they're standing, and how to reach them before they walk past.
Hannah has been doing markets since the early days of Elstree Soaps, travelling across Hertfordshire and spending hundreds of pounds on pitches. What follows is what that experience actually taught her.
The expensive market isn’t always the better one
The costliest lesson Hannah learned: a well-known event does not automatically mean strong sales. After doing well at one market run by a particular events company, she signed up for their entire Christmas programme at £300 to £400 per weekend across multiple events. The results were deeply inconsistent.
At several, she was placed next to bargain bin sellers rather than in an artisan section. The audience wasn't right for her product. She was paying premium rates to be in the wrong room.
"Just because it's really expensive doesn't mean you're going to make loads of money. Do your research."
Market fees range from £20 to £80 for a smaller pitch to £300 or more for larger events. That upfront cost has to make commercial sense before you commit, and the only way to know is to investigate properly.
Hannah now visits a market before signing up wherever she can. She walks the space, checks the neighbouring stalls and asks the organiser specifically where her pitch would be. A good position in a smaller market will almost always outperform a bad one at a bigger event.
For Elstree Soaps, which uses cocoa, shea and mango butter and prices accordingly, being placed next to discounted products creates a contrast that makes her pricing feel out of place. Placement matters as much as the event itself.
reach out
Hannah doesn't sit behind her stand. She engages people passing by, asks them to smell a soap, starts a conversation. It felt uncomfortable at first. It works.
She pays close attention to how people approach. Some want to be left alone. Some want to chat. Some buy quickly; others need time. She reads the person in front of her and responds to what they actually need rather than what she assumed they would. It's how she runs her business generally.
Your first market probably won't be your best one
Hannah's early markets were as much about learning as earning. She made decisions about display, pricing and which products to bring that she'd do differently now. She spent money on events that taught her mainly what not to do.
"You just learn as you go along what works for your product. And sometimes people tell you it'll be great in a particular market, and you get there and it actually isn't. You just don't always know until you go."
What changed over time wasn't luck. It was accumulated knowledge. Hannah now knows which types of events suit Elstree Soaps, which customer profiles match her product, and which organisers run events worth her time.
The connections you can't plan for
Some of Hannah's most significant business relationships started at a stall. Her biggest stockist, a private label client at Borough Market, approached her after asking whether she made lavender soap. She assumed he'd forget about her. He didn't. That relationship now makes up a significant chunk of her wholesale income.
A shop in Scotland started stocking her products because the owner's sister had bought a bar at one of Hannah's events and loved it. Hannah had no idea that purchase had happened until the owner got in touch.
Neither came from a marketing strategy. They came from Hannah being at a stall, having a good product and being present.
Know when to pull back
Hannah used to travel up to two hours for markets. After a run of expensive, underperforming events she'd attended on someone else's recommendation, she got more selective. She started weighing each event not just against the pitch fee but against the weekend away from her family, the energy to prepare and travel, and the opportunity cost of being somewhere that wasn't right for her product.
"It has to be worth it. You learn what works for your product, for your audience, for your life. And you get better at saying no."
That selectivity didn't shrink her business. It made the markets she did attend more worthwhile, because she was choosing them deliberately.
One last thing
Markets will have bad days. Poor footfall, wrong location, slow sales, rain. None of those are signals about whether your product is good or your business has a future. They're just bad days.
The founders who build something from markets are the ones who keep showing up after the ones that don't work.
"Don't quit on a bad day."
You’ll also enjoy:
How Hannah Scaled Elstree Soaps From 25 Bars to 2,500 (read Hannah's full founder story)
How to Get Your Product Stocked by Retailers — What Buyers Actually Want