Mostra Mercato di Firenze 2027: B2B kits for artisans, brand teams and retail delegations

B2B merchandising for the Mostra Mercato di Firenze

Dates

Spring crafts fair, typically late April to early May, with specific dates published by Firenze Fiera

Venue

Fortezza da Basso, Viale Filippo Strozzi, Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Organiser

Firenze Fiera, with the support of the Comune di Firenze, Regione Toscana, the Florence Chamber of Commerce and trade partners

The Mostra Mercato di Firenze — also known as the Mostra Internazionale dell’Artigianato — is the Italian fair dedicated to artistic and traditional craftsmanship that every year, in the spring window, brings to the Fortezza da Basso hundreds of Italian and international artisans, trade consortia, distribution buyers, gallery owners and Italian and foreign visitors. The event covers the arts of wood, ceramics, glass, textiles, leather, metals, jewellery and traditional crafts, and runs alongside a rich programme of workshops, exhibitions and themed paths. For the exhibiting artisans, trade consortia, brand teams and promotion agencies the volume of material to prepare is significant: stand kits, audience gadgets, gifts for accredited press, gifts for retail delegations and workshop materials.

Four audience tiers, four distinct kits

The exhibiting artisan presenting their work at the fair needs a coordinated stand kit: branded canvas shoppers, paper bags, small counter cartotech engraved with the brand, representation items in wood or ceramic. The retail or organised distribution buyer selecting productions for their chains requires a more structured kit: leather folder, bilingual agenda, catalogue folder, welcome gadget, refined labelling. The student or visitor moving between stands and attending the workshops expects a coordinated memento: canvas shopper, enamel pin, fair bookmark, coordinated small stationery. The corporate sponsor running the collateral events and reserved hospitality expects coordinated, refined materials for their guests and the press.

Production on Tuscan districts

For a merch programme around the Mostra Mercato di Firenze, our operational hub manages the full chain. We receive the artisan’s or consortium’s master artwork files (AI, EPS, PDF/X-4 with CMYK images at 300 dpi, FOGRA39 colour profile) and adapt them to the different customisation techniques: water-based screen printing on GOTS-certified organic cotton for tote bags, hot foil stamping on FSC-certified paper for programme booklets and press sheets, laser engraving on Scandicci small leather goods for buyer and delegation folders, embossing on paper for production catalogues, laser marking on Maniago stainless steel for keyrings and small accessories. The pre-production physical sample with Pantone colour map and technical sheet travels on Italian districts (Collodi wood, Santa Croce sull’Arno leather, Montelupo and Caltagirone ceramics, Empoli glass, Capannori and Fabriano paper, Ortoli natural fibres and wools) and the delivery reaches a pavilion of the Fortezza da Basso, a Florence accommodation, a staging warehouse in Scandicci or the artisan’s office, on slots agreed with the contact.

Why the Tuscan hub matters

Most artisans and consortia running a programme around the Mostra Mercato di Firenze coordinate their Italian operations from Florence, Rome, Milan or their home cities. The Tuscan hub — with consolidation warehouses in Florence, Scandicci and Prato — lets us receive graphic files with the artisan’s team, route the pre-production sample through Italian districts and dispatch the batch to the Fortezza da Basso or the delegation’s hotel on a very short window, twenty-four hours from Tuscany. For programmes that bring together an Italian artisan and a collaboration with a foreign designer we handle bilingual materials (Italian and English at minimum) and, on request, full multilingual release with translations aligned to ISO 17100. For programmes that pair the Mostra Mercato di Firenze with the Salone del Mobile in Milan or Maison & Objet in Paris we replicate the logistics across the two dates with a single operational contact.

Production, logistics and invoicing towards Florence

Before starting production we close master artwork files, quantities per artisan and per recipient, packaging and named receiving point. The final delivery address is locked against the production manager’s or the artisan’s logistics contact’s calendar: a pavilion of the Fortezza da Basso, a Florence accommodation, a staging warehouse in Scandicci or the artisan’s office. The ZTL access constraints in Florence and the restricted access of heavy vehicles condition the loading slots, which is why most teams opt for early-morning or after-20:00 deliveries, when commercial vehicles are again admitted into the central areas.

For an Italian programme routed through Tuscany deliveries are consolidated at the hub and shipped to the Fortezza da Basso or the delegation’s hotel with 24-hour windows via BRT, SDA, GLS or DHL Express Italia, by appointment for venues that require telephone notice. For programmes above 1,000 pieces we offer appointment delivery with telephone notice and, on request, on-site set-up by our staff at the artisan’s reception area or the information point. For materials requiring controlled environmental conditions (FSC-certified paper, catalogues, small leather goods) we coordinate temperature-controlled transport with specialised partners. For kits destined for international delegations we handle multilingual labelling (Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic) and tamper-evident bag packaging with bilingual packing list addressed to the recipient. For clients subject to CSRD reporting (Italian Legislative Decree 125/2024, transposing EU Directive 2022/2464) we attach a per-order sustainability sheet with Scope 3 CO₂e estimate under the GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain for the Lombardy–Tuscany route.

All Italian B2B orders are invoiced in EUR at the standard 22% VAT rate (with reduced rates of 4%, 5% and 10% applied when the product category allows it: publishing, art objects, designation-of-origin products) and routed through the Italian Revenue Agency’s Exchange System (SdI) to the recipient code or to the buyer’s certified email (PEC) address. Corp-Merch.IT is an Italian VAT-registered entity, listed in VIES for intra–EU transactions, and handles reverse charge, split payment and self-invoicing for public administration in line with current Italian legislation.

Frequently asked questions