In short and in plain language
Many craft makers sell at markets. The website says when and where the next market is. It also gives the stall number.
A finished piece can be bought in the shop. If there is only one, it is gone once it is sold. Take pieces sold at the stall out of the shop that evening.
People who buy online can usually withdraw from the purchase within 14 days. Then the goods go back, and they get their money back. This does not apply to pieces made to order. The page must say so before the order.
There is a form for pieces made to measure. It asks for the type, size and date. Then you send a quote.
We build the website for your business at a fixed price. If you like, we add a small shop.
Saturday, just after four, and the Advent market in the courtyard is filling up. On the stall there are stoneware bowls, turned candle holders and three woven scarves, and the same questions keep coming: Where will you be next week? Does this bowl come in blue? Could you make me a board with our family name on it? Anyone who takes a business card looks you up at home that evening, and that is when the website decides whether the conversation at the stall turns into a purchase, an enquiry or a visit to the next market. For craft makers, the website is therefore less a shop window than an extension of the market stall: it says when and where people can find you again, shows which piece is still available and takes requests for commissions in a way that lets you turn them into a quote. This article shows how to do that with a manageable setup, and why the difference between a finished one-off piece and something made to a customer’s specification belongs on the page for legal reasons as well.
Key takeaways
- The market calendar sits on the home page and gives the date, opening hours, place and stall number for each event. After every market day, the past date comes off the list.
- Ready-made one-off pieces bought online come with a right of withdrawal and a period of 14 days (§ 355(2) BGB). It is excluded for goods made to the customer’s specification (§ 312g(2) no. 1 BGB).
- Where there is no right of withdrawal, the business has to say so before the order is placed (Art. 246a § 1(3) EGBGB). For commissioned work, the notice therefore sits on the product page or in the enquiry confirmation.
- In the shop, a one-off piece is listed with a stock of 1 and marked as a closeout, so it cannot be sold beyond the available stock (Shopware documentation). Anything sold at the stall is set to zero the same evening.
- Commissions start with an enquiry form for type, size, material and preferred date. Sales law applies to the contract (§ 650 BGB), and claims for defects usually become time-barred after two years (§ 438 BGB).
- German retail makes 18.5 per cent of its annual sales in November and December (HDE). The cut-off for commissions, the last shipping day and the market dates should therefore be on the page by early November.
The market stall does not close in the evening
Craft work is largely sold in conversation. Someone who holds a bowl, sees the glaze and hears how it was made decides differently from someone looking at a photo. Even so, a considerable share of decisions is not made at the stall but afterwards: people want to ask their partner first, measure the space at home or order at the end of the month. For them, the website is often the only way back to the business. Taking that route online is nothing unusual. Among internet users aged 16 to 74 in Germany, 85 per cent shopped online in the twelve months before the 2025 survey (Destatis).
The Advent and Christmas season amplifies this. According to its trade association, German retail makes 18.5 per cent of its annual sales in the last two months of the year (HDE). At the same time, people look more closely: in a consumer survey on the 2025 Christmas season, carried out among more than 2,000 people by the Handelsblatt Research Institute on behalf of the association, respondents planned to spend an average of 263 euros on presents, 34 euros less than the year before (HDE). For a business selling one-off pieces, that means anyone checking between two markets wants to see straight away what a piece costs, whether it is still there and when it can be collected or delivered. If any of that is missing, the business card from the stall becomes a bookmark nobody opens again.
A craft business website therefore has three jobs that a general website rarely has. It leads people to the next market, it sells pieces that exist only once, and it takes requests for commissions in a way that turns them into a quote. All three are connected: a piece sold at the stall on Saturday must not still be in the shop on Sunday, and an enquiry for a board with an engraving is handled differently from an order for a finished bowl. The following sections go through the three jobs in turn.
The market calendar: when and where to find you
The most important page in the season is a simple list: the next markets. It belongs on the home page, clearly visible above the products, not in a sub-menu people have to hunt for. German trade law describes such events as a specialist market, a generally regular, recurring and time-limited event where a large number of traders offer certain goods, and as a fair with goods of all kinds (§ 68 GewO). For the website, the main consequence is that the organiser sets the dates, opening times and pitches, and these can change until shortly before the market. The list therefore has to be easy to update.
Date and opening hours
Weekday, date and the hours you will be at the stall. For markets lasting several days, list each day separately if you are not there on all of them.
Place and directions
The name of the market, the square or address and a note on parking or trains. A link to the organiser’s page saves you copying out their details.
Stall number or position
“Stall 14, opposite the fountain” helps more than any photo. People who know you from last year will find you again even in the crowd.
What you are bringing
One sentence on the day’s range, for example “mugs and bowls from the autumn firing”. It gives people a reason to visit this particular market.
Pickup at the stall
A note on whether pieces from the shop can be collected at the stall and by when an order has to come in for that.
Changes and cancellations
A fixed place for notices such as “market cancelled because of the storm”. It sits right next to the date, not in a news section.
After every market day, the date is removed or moved to a small section called “Where we have been”. A list that still shows the Advent market in January looks like an abandoned stall. If you also have a workshop with regular opening hours, keep those hours in your Google Business Profile as well and leave the market days on your own website, where there is more room for the stall number and the range. For the business card at the stall, a short link or a QR code that leads straight to the list of dates is enough, rather than one that leads to the home page.
Dates without technical effort
One-off piece, small batch, commission
On a craft business website, three kinds of goods often sit side by side on the same page, and different rules apply to each of them online. The finished one-off piece exists exactly once: the bowl from the last firing, the woven scarf with the small irregularity in the pattern that makes it special. A small batch consists of several identical pieces, for example a run of mugs with the same glaze. And a commission only comes into being once someone orders it: the board with the family name, the ring made to size, the bag in the club colours.
The distinction is not just a question of stock. For consumer contracts concluded at a distance, German law excludes the right of withdrawal for “Verträgen zur Lieferung von Waren, die nicht vorgefertigt sind und für deren Herstellung eine individuelle Auswahl oder Bestimmung durch den Verbraucher maßgeblich ist oder die eindeutig auf die persönlichen Bedürfnisse des Verbrauchers zugeschnitten sind”, that is, contracts for goods that are not ready-made and are produced to the consumer’s individual choice or specification or clearly tailored to their personal needs (§ 312g(2) no. 1 BGB). Two conditions apply at once: the piece is not finished yet, and the customer’s specification determines what it will be like. A finished bowl is ready-made, even if it is unique. A mug that someone picks from three glazes in stock is also ready-made, because the choice is made among finished pieces and does not determine how they are produced.
| Kind of goods | Example | Stock in the shop | Right of withdrawal when bought online |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-off piece, finished | Bowl from the last firing | 1, marked as closeout | Yes, 14 days (§ 355(2) BGB), starting on receipt of the goods (§ 356(2) BGB) |
| Small batch, finished | Mugs with the same glaze | Actual number of pieces | Yes, as for a one-off piece |
| Choice of finished variants | Mugs in three glazes in stock | Stock per variant | Yes, the choice concerns finished pieces |
| Commission to specification | Board with custom engraving, ring made to size | No stock, delivery time instead of availability | No (§ 312g(2) no. 1 BGB), notice required before the order |
Between these cases lies an area that the wording of the law does not settle word for word: a customer chooses a glaze for a bowl that has not been fired yet, or a monogram to be embroidered on a finished scarf. Whether that already counts as an individual specification depends on the case. If you offer such options in your shop, have the wording on the product page and in the withdrawal notice checked by a legal adviser. The law also explicitly leaves room for a voluntary arrangement: the right of withdrawal is excluded for these contracts only “soweit die Parteien nichts anderes vereinbart haben”, that is, unless the parties have agreed otherwise (§ 312g(2) BGB). So a business can offer returns for commissions too, for example if a ring does not fit, and describe exactly that on the page.
Ready-made or made to order?
What the right of withdrawal requires on the page
Selling through the website usually means concluding a distance contract. These are contracts for which both sides use only means of distance communication for negotiating and concluding them, unless the contract is not concluded within a sales system organised for distance selling (§ 312c(1) BGB). Besides the website, these means include letters, phone calls and emails (§ 312c(2) BGB). With distance contracts, consumers have a right of withdrawal (§ 312g(1) BGB).
The period is 14 days (§ 355(2) BGB), and when goods are bought it only starts once the customer has received them (§ 356(2) no. 1 a BGB). It also does not start before the customer has been properly informed about the right of withdrawal (§ 356(3) BGB); without that information, the right expires at the latest twelve months and 14 days after the regular start of the period (§ 356(4) BGB). After a withdrawal, what has been received must be returned within 14 days at the latest (§ 357(1) BGB). The customer only bears the direct cost of returning the goods if the business has told them so beforehand (§ 357(5) BGB). For fragile ceramics or a large turned piece, it is worth thinking about these costs in advance.
This year a new duty was added that affects small shops too. For distance contracts concluded via an online interface, a withdrawal function has to be available, clearly labelled “Vertrag widerrufen” (withdraw from contract) or with an equivalent unambiguous wording (§ 356a(1) BGB). After the withdrawal, the customer promptly receives an acknowledgement of receipt that includes, among other things, the date and time it was received (§ 356a(4) BGB). The underlying EU directive applies from 19 June 2026 (EU Directive 2023/2673). For a shop selling finished one-off pieces, this function is part of the basic setup.
The counterpart applies to commissions. If the customer has no right of withdrawal under § 312g(2) no. 1 BGB, the business has to inform them that they cannot withdraw their declaration (Art. 246a § 1(3) EGBGB). This information belongs before the order, on the product page or in the confirmation of the enquiry, and not only in the terms and conditions. Conversely, the exclusion must not be declared across the board for everything handmade: untrue or misleading statements about consumers’ rights make a commercial practice misleading (§ 5(2) no. 7 UWG). A sentence such as “Handmade goods are excluded from withdrawal” under every product is therefore wrong for finished one-off pieces.
Market stall or website: where the contract is made
Commissions: the enquiry first, then the quote
Commissioned pieces rarely fit into a shopping basket. A ring needs the size, a board needs the engraving in the right lettering, a wooden lamp needs the height of the table it is meant to hang over. The usual route is therefore an enquiry form which, after a follow-up question, turns into a quote. How few fields a good enquiry needs is described in Contact form: more inquiries with fewer fields. For made-to-measure work, a few more details are still needed:
- Type of piece, from a short choice such as ring, board, bowl or other
- Measurements or size, with a sentence on how to measure at home
- Material or colour, where there is a choice
- Text for an engraving or lettering, with a note on spelling
- Preferred date, with the cut-off for Christmas right next to it
- A photo or sketch as an optional attachment
- Name and a way to reply with the quote, by email or phone
Sales law applies to a contract for a piece that still has to be made (§ 650(1) BGB). The same rights in respect of defects therefore apply to a commission as to a finished piece, and the claims normally become time-barred after two years (§ 438(1) no. 3 BGB). The quote should therefore not only state the price and completion date but describe the piece precisely enough that both sides know later what was agreed: measurements, material, text of the engraving, collection or delivery. If a commission is agreed exclusively by email or phone, the special rules for orders in electronic commerce, including the order button, do not apply (§ 312j(5) BGB). The general information on the total price, delivery costs and the date by which the piece will be delivered is still required for a distance contract (Art. 246a § 1 EGBGB), as is the notice that there is no right of withdrawal.
A clear cut-off date helps in the Advent season. If a board with an engraving takes you several working days and you spend the weekends at markets, count backwards and put the date above the form: “Enquiries for Christmas by …”. After that, the form stays open with a note that new orders will be finished in the new year. That saves disappointment and phone calls, and it turns a late enquiry into an order for January instead of a refusal. If you would rather not write the text for the form, notices and product pages yourself, we can take that on as website copywriting.
You sell a one-off piece exactly once. The website has to show whether it is still there, and it has to be honest about what works differently for a piece made to order.
The small shop: a stock of 1 and honest details
A shop pays off if you want to sell finished pieces online on a regular basis. Above all, the software has to be able to take a piece off sale once it is sold. In the online shop package we work with the open-source Shopware Community Edition. There, a product can be marked as a closeout, and it then cannot be sold beyond the available stock (Shopware documentation). A one-off piece therefore gets a stock of 1 and the closeout setting; after the first order it can no longer be ordered. For commissions sold through the shop, there is a delivery time instead, which states roughly how long it takes for the piece to reach the customer.
The gap that the shop cannot close on its own is the market stall. A piece sold at the stall on Saturday still shows a stock of 1 in the shop until someone changes it. The simplest rule: after every market day, the one-off pieces that were sold are set to zero in the shop that same evening. If you do a lot of markets, take the pieces that go to the stall out of the shop beforehand and put them back afterwards if they did not sell. Both take a few minutes and prevent the most unpleasant message of the season: that a piece someone has paid for is already gone.
Then there are the details every shop needs. Anyone offering goods to consumers states total prices (§ 3(1) PAngV) and, for distance sales, states whether delivery, shipping or other costs are added (§ 6(1) PAngV). The order button is labelled “zahlungspflichtig bestellen” (order with obligation to pay) or with a correspondingly unambiguous wording (§ 312j(3) BGB). The mandatory information also includes a reference to the statutory warranty rights for goods with their minimum duration of two years, using the harmonised notice set out in Annex I to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1960 (Art. 246a § 1 EGBGB). The underlying EU directive applies from 27 September 2026 (EU Directive 2024/825). An overview of the other duties of a small shop is given in the guide Starting a small online shop. If you sell as a small business without charging VAT, the article Small business threshold exceeded: website prices from 2027 explains what happens to your prices once you pass the threshold.
The product description carries responsibility as well. A commercial practice is misleading if it contains untrue or deceptive information about essential characteristics such as the method of production or the commercial origin (§ 5(2) no. 1 UWG). “Handmade” therefore only goes on pieces that are made in your own workshop; bought-in blanks or accessories are named as such. Good photos show the piece as it will arrive: from several sides, with an object for scale and, for glazes and wood, with a note that every piece differs. Measurements, material and care instructions go underneath as text. If you use other people’s pictures, for example from a market organiser, clear the rights first; what matters there is covered in Using website images legally.
Before, during and after the market season
Because a large part of the year is decided in a few weeks, a fixed routine helps. The retail association puts the share of annual sales made in November and December at 18.5 per cent for retail as a whole (HDE); how large the share is in your own business is shown by last year’s figures. The following plan spreads the work on the website so that only a few minutes per market day are left for the high season.
- October: enter the organisers’ confirmations, create dates with stall numbers as soon as they are fixed, and photograph new pieces.
- Early November: set the cut-off for commissions and put it above the enquiry form; describe pickup at the stall as an option.
- From the first market: after every market day, set sold one-off pieces to zero and remove the past date.
- Mid-December: add a note on the last shipping day and, if you offer them, on gift vouchers for last-minute buyers.
- Between Christmas and New Year: clear the list of dates, add a line saying “Spring dates coming soon” and answer open enquiries.
- January: review which pieces sold online and which markets brought enquiries, as the basis for the next season.
Gift vouchers are a good addition for craft businesses because they get round the one-off problem: what is given is the choice, not a particular piece. How to sell them online and what to watch out for on the tax side is explained in Sell gift vouchers online. If you would rather hand over the website work during the season, add ongoing maintenance; dates and stock are then entered after your message, and you can stay at the stall.
Gallery, website or shop: the right scope
Not every business needs a shop straight away. For many, a single well-structured page is enough at first: who you are and what you make, the next markets, a gallery of pieces that are available in this or a similar form, and an enquiry form for requests. The starter website is designed for exactly this scope, as a one-page site with a contact form and a set-up Google Business Profile. When a single page is enough and when several pay off is covered in One page or several pages.
If you want to sell online regularly, choose the online shop package based on Shopware Community Edition: products with stock and closeout, payment methods, shipping and legal texts including the withdrawal notice and the model withdrawal form. In between there is a multi-page website with its own pages for the workshop, for courses or for commissions; the packages show how the levels differ. In every case, the general information duties apply to the legal notice, meaning name, address and details that allow quick electronic contact (§ 5(1) DDG); what that includes in detail is summarised in Website imprint: required legal notice details.
The next step
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