Here at the Handmade Canberra Market, the passion for supporting Australian designers and producers and connecting those people with customers who actively support products made in Australia, is at the core of everything we do. Julie Nichols, Founder and Owner of the market, believes that the benefits of shopping handmade and looking for an Australian Made Product is that you know you are going to get something that is very unique, very well made and made with love and a lot of passion.
Handmade Canberra has been going since 2008 and as our market is a proud retail supporter of the Australian Made Campaign, you can guarantee that everything at our market is Australian made. When we first started the market that was what was going to set Handmade Canberra apart, that it was specifically for makers of products, and so it was really important to us to have a market that then represented those people.
The market can fit 250 stallholders at any one time, so imagine being a designer or producer and being able to connect with 20,000 people on any given weekend, and being able to tell your story. People love that and they love buying those gifts or doing that shopping and knowing that they get the story behind the product itself. Meeting the person who made it as well, that’s really unique and you don’t get that in many situations at all.
The Handmade team are really quite proud of the fact that they can bring such a diverse range of Australian Made products to Canberra. It is like Australia and Australian makers coming together. Stallholders come to the market from as far away as Cairns, Adelaide and Melbourne and so part of what the Handmade Canberra Market team do, other than putting the market on, is building that community and connecting people who want to support small business, and who want to buy Australian made, with those people who make those products.
When you come to the Handmade Canberra Market, you’re supporting the farmers and the makers, and you’re supporting those real grass root, mum and dad type businesses, so events like this are quite important in that it gives the opportunity for those small businesses to have somewhere to sell, but also the opportunity for a lot of customers to be able to connect with the people who are making those products. You can’t get that elsewhere. Building those stories and building that community, that’s what’s it’s all about for us.
If you are interested in hearing more about the Handmade Canberra Market and why we support makers with Australian Made Products, the video below made in conjunction with the Australian Made Campaign as part of Australian Made Week will give you more of a glimpse into why we do what we do.
If you are an Australian designer or producer wanting to get involved with our community, we suggest reading through the available information on the Sell With Us page to see if Handmade Canberra would be a good fit for you and your business. If you are a customer who is looking to support Australian designers and producers, you might like to view our Australian Made Directory, which showcases over 500 makers that are part of the Handmade Canberra Market.