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Anyone managing a craft store walks a tightrope every day. You want to make your supplies accessible enough for customers to touch, feel, and fall in love with while still protecting your inventory from damage and theft.
Your inventory ranges from delicate tissue paper to heavy pottery wheels. A customer checking out a new shade of embroidery floss might knock over a display of beads, creating a trip hazard that rolls all over the floors of your store.
You also need to keep the delicate fabrics away from the windows, which will cause them to fade, and keep toxic supplies out of reach of curious young hands.
That’s a lot to juggle.
When considering how to store craft supplies in your store, you need to have the right storage system to protect your bottom line, keep your products in mint condition, and create a positive shopping experience for your customers. But the question is… how?
In this guide, we'll walk you through practical storage solutions for both your sales floor and backroom, helping you create an environment where products stay protected, customers feel welcome to explore, and your business can thrive.
How To Store Craft Supplies in Your Retail Environment
Your storage strategy needs to accomplish two main goals: create an inviting shopping experience and protect your inventory investment. When we’re talking about craft supplies, finding that balance can be harder to strike than it sounds.
The first key is thinking about storage in two separate categories. Your backroom storage strategies will be radically different from your floor displays.
When considering your floor storage solutions, you need to ask yourself some key questions regarding every item in your craft store inventory.
Chief among them: Is this safe for customers to touch and examine?
Related Read: Craft Store Inventory Management: 6 Best Practices
The key is categorizing your supplies by three factors:
- Fragility
- Value
- Necessity for customer interaction
Get this balance right, and you'll reduce shrinkage while keeping customers happy and engaged. The following tips will help you create a storage system that protects your products without putting up walls between your customers and their next creative project.
1. Categorize Supplies by Fragility and Value
Start by sorting your inventory into three clear tiers:
- High-touch customer items include basic supplies like colored pencils, construction paper, and standard paintbrushes. This category should consist of things customers can pick up, examine, and purchase without help.
- Assisted-access items are your mid-range products: specialty papers, quality brushes, and branded tools that need some protection but should still be accessible with staff help.
- Staff-only items include your most delicate or expensive inventory, like handmade brushes, precious metals, or electronic cutting machines.
This system protects your most valuable items while keeping your store approachable.
High-touch items can live in open bins or accessible shelves, assisted-access items work well behind glass or in locked cases that customers can see through, and staff-only items belong in your backroom or behind the counter where you have complete control over access.
2. Use Clear, Secure Display Cases for Delicate Items
We briefly discussed glass display cases above, but let’s explore them further. These storage solutions offer balance, allowing you to protect your fragile supplies without hiding them away.
For items like fine detail brushes or specialty cutting blades, you’ll want to use cases with front-opening doors rather than top-loading ones. This makes it easier for staff to access items quickly during busy periods.
Choose locking mechanisms that are simple for staff but not obvious to customers. Magnetic locks or push-button releases tend to work well for stores like yours.
The key is making the security feel unobtrusive. You want to protect your inventory without creating unnecessary hassle for your customers or making them feel like you don’t trust them.
If you’ll be storing any supplies in locked cases, be sure you always have a staff member nearby so customers don’t have to look far for the help they need to access those products.
Related Read: 7 Art and Craft Store Design Ideas You Need To Try
3. Consider Height Placement
An often-overlooked but critical element of your store layout and visual merchandising is height placement.
You have a lot more vertical real estate than you may think in your store, and where you place your products can make a world of difference for your sales and product security.
Eye-level shelves (roughly four to five feet high) are perfect for your bestselling, everyday supplies that customers browse independently. This is where you want your bread-and-butter items like basic acrylic paints, standard brushes, and popular paper pads.
High shelves work beautifully for expensive or fragile items. With these shelves, customers can see them and ask questions, but curious hands (especially little ones) can't reach them.
Just remember that your staff will need to reach everything eventually, so invest in a sturdy step stool and train your team on safe reaching practices.
Lower shelves are ideal for storing sturdy supplies and materials that children can access safely, such as washable markers or construction paper.
4. Create Backroom Zones by Material Type
Let’s take a field trip to your backroom for this next tip. One of the best practices for how to store craft supplies in your backroom is to create carefully considered zones. Base your zones on material type to keep your supplies safe and in sellable condition.
Paper goods need their own dry, flat area away from any water sources. Liquids like paints and glues require contained spaces with good ventilation and spill cleanup supplies nearby.
Metals and findings should be stored in a way that prevents tangling or oxidation. If you carry fabrics, you’ll need to store them somewhere they’re protected from dust and pests.
Related Read: 5 Craft Business Inventory Management Tips for Your SMB
Organize each zone using first in, first out (FIFO) principles. Place newer inventory behind older stock so you're always selling your oldest items first.
You should also be sure to label shelves clearly with both product names and dates received. This system prevents dead stock from hiding in corners and helps you identify slow-moving items before they become a problem.
Your future self will thank you when you're not dealing with dried-out paint or yellowed paper six months later.
5. Protect Paper Products From Moisture and Light
Paper is delicate, and protecting it properly can mean the difference between profitable sales and costly write-offs.
Front- and back-of-house, you’ll need to store your paper products in cool, dry areas away from windows and heat sources.
Direct sunlight will fade colors and make white paper yellow over time. High humidity can cause warping, while low humidity makes paper brittle.
If you're in a humid climate, invest in dehumidifiers for your storage areas. For your most expensive papers, consider climate-controlled storage similar to what art museums use.
It might seem like overkill, but when you're selling $20 sheets of handmade paper, proper storage pays for itself quickly.
For valuable specialty papers, consider storing them flat in acid-free boxes or portfolios. Vertical storage works well for everyday cardstock and copy paper, but even here, you need to consider overcrowding.
Stuffing too much paper into a single display may result in creases, making the paper unsellable.
Related Read: Managing a Craft Store: 7 Tips & Tools
6. Secure Liquid Supplies With Proper Containment
Next, let’s discuss your liquid supplies. These craft supplies require extra attention because a spill will not only make the liquid product unsellable but also damage your surrounding inventory and create a safety hazard.
It’s best practice to store all liquids in secondary containment. Plastic tubs or trays under shelves of paint bottles can contain minor spills before they spread.
Next, consider temperature control, both in your backroom and on the selling floor.
Paints and glues can separate or become unusable if they freeze, while excessive heat can cause containers to expand and leak. Keep these items in temperature-stable areas of your store, away from heating vents and exterior walls.
You’ll also want to ensure good ventilation in storage areas, especially for solvent-based products. If you stock a lot of spray paints or strong adhesives, consider installing exhaust fans.
7. Use Modular Storage Systems
Craft retail is seasonal, so you need your storage systems to be flexible enough to change as needed throughout the year. Our best tip here is to invest in modular shelving systems.
These solutions have adjustable heights and removable dividers that let you adapt quickly, allowing you to reconfigure your storage systems easily to accommodate whatever the flavor of the month is in your inventory.
Whether you’re just opening a new store or updating your storage solutions, you’ll want to invest in shelving that can grow with your business.
- Wire shelving systems are reasonably cheap and endlessly reconfigurable.
- Clear plastic bins stack and let you see what’s inside without having to open them.
- Rolling carts can move between your sales floor and backroom as needed.
The goal is to create a storage system that works for your current inventory while remaining flexible enough to handle new product lines or seasonal changes without requiring a complete overhaul.
8. Label Everything With Clear, Customer-Friendly Signage
Labeling is critical to storing craft supplies efficiently. When you nail your labeling processes, your customers can find what they need, and your staff stays organized more easily.
Use clear, readable fonts and include both product names and prices. You may also consider using color-coding to keep things extra clear and easy to scan at a glance. Try blue labels for paper products, red for paints, and green for tools.
This visual system helps customers navigate your store more easily without help and makes restocking faster for your team.
If your budget allows for digital price tags, these are a great option to keep your store labels up to date and professional.
Find a point of sale system with digital price tag integration and never worry about running around your store with a marker and price tag stickers to re-label your shelves when you’re running a sale.
Related Read: 7 Ways To Improve Checkout Processes for Craft Stores
9. Install Proper Lighting
You might not immediately think of lighting when considering how to store craft supplies, but your in-store lighting is critical for keeping products in tip-top shape and helping customers have a great experience in your store.
UV rays from fluorescent lights can fade fabrics and papers over time, so consider LED alternatives that produce less harmful light. LEDs also generate less heat, which protects temperature-sensitive items like wax crayons or heat-sensitive adhesives.
Good lighting makes colors appear true to life, which is crucial when customers are choosing paints or coordinating papers. You may also want to install adjustable track lighting to highlight featured products or seasonal displays.
How To Store Craft Supplies in Retail
Running a successful craft store means finding a sweet spot between keeping your inventory accessible to customers and protecting it from damage or theft.
When you get your craft storage strategy right, you’ll see the benefits across your processes. You’ll have less shrinkage, happier customers, and better inventory turnover rates.
But implementing these strategies and tips without the right tools will be next to impossible.
To get the most out of your storage processes, you need an inventory management and point of sale tool that tracks everything automatically, giving you a full view of what you have, where it’s located, and when it’s time to restock.
Ready to simplify your craft store operations and take the stress out of inventory management? Rain POS is designed specifically for craft retailers like you, with features that make tracking supplies simple and sales smooth.
Build and price your ideal point of sale solution to see how Rain POS can transform your craft store's storage and inventory management.
