The market was due to open for the first time in 18 months on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Exhibition Park in Canberra, but owner Julie Nichols was informed by ACT Health on Wednesday night that the markets should not go ahead in the wake of the coronavirus cases in NSW.

Ms Nichols said 10,000 people had registered to attend the markets and 240 stallholders booked, some of whom had already arrived in Canberra; others who were on their way.

"Based on advice from Health, everyone's safety is what we need to guide us," Ms Nichols said.

"So we had to make the heartbreaking decision yesterday that we would postpone. Rather than cancel, we will postpone and have set a date for July 16, 17 and 18. So we will give it another go in three weeks."

The popular markets have not been held as a live event since December 2019, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Virtual markets have been held instead. The stallholders will be able to receive a refund or roll over to the markets in July.

"Yes, it's disappointing, but hopefully we can minimise the impact as much as possible," she said.

The latest postpontment has seen Ms Nichols and her team bring forward a new Handmade Australia website that will sell thousands of handmade items from across the nation.

"For the last 12 months, we've been working on a fully e-commerce website, so we're actually going to bring that forward and launch it tomorrow, so there's still a way for everybody to support people," she said.

"Rather than a virtual market, we have a rather flash-looking website that we will be launching.

"This is a full e-commerce platform, so there's 6500 products loaded on there, ready to go, all Australian made, and so it will be one of the biggest platforms of just Australian made, so people will be able to purchase directly from the stallholder themselves, but via this platform.

"The virtual markets were really just sending people to our directory and then on to stallholders' website if they had one. But this is a full e-commerce website where all the products are there and you don't have to go to other people's websites to shop.

"It allows you to shop instantly. Obviously, the stallholders pay to be on the website, but the money from the sale goes to them. Rather than go off to individual shops and purchase, you can do it all in one spot.

"We were going to roll that out in a couple of weeks so we're working ridiculously fast and will roll that out tomorrow and do lots of giveaways."

The new website will be handmadeaustralia.com.au.

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