Examples of displays (and some new friends)...

Your booth is as much part of your design as your product.  Here's an example from Jezroc Jewelry:

The first thing I noticed from this booth, run by Matt and Jen Quanrud, was the large fountain displays that flanked both sides of their booth.  These were large spheres covered in a mosaic of beads.  In the base of the stand is more beads and a metal price tag of $650 or $750.  These are actually fountains that are just beautiful!

What this is designed for is draw.  These pieces aren't actually designed to sell at your average craft show, but shoppers see these beautiful art pieces and it draws them into the booth to see what else this artist has.  Very effective from what I saw today.

Right behind this particular fountain is a great tri-fold partition that Jen & Matt have used to showcase other works that they have done or can do.  Like a standing portfolio.  Brilliant!  This is excellent advertising for large items that they can't realistically bring with them, but could design for custom orders. 

The next photos are of their displays that were made by Matt made by using a plasma cutter and sheet metal.  Now these are equipment and materials not readily available to all of us.  But, it shows to be creative with what you do have access to.

 Not only do you need to think of design, but storage and usability.  The necklace plates on this stand detach for storage.  This is also solidly built with hooks on the table.  This display is great because:

1. the hooks keep the display stable (customers bumping the table, wind, etc)
2. brings your product up to eye level (which necklaces are you going to see first?  The ones on the table or the ones in front of your face?)
3. visually appealing and a draw from a distance.  it's memorable.

This next photo (sorry about the glare) makes the name memorable.  Remember, Matt has the tools and the capability to make this out of metal.  A well placed and professional sign will also be memorable to customers who purchase from you.

On this stand (which also tears down into pieces for storage) the have added color to their display.  This is also visually appealing.

When I met Matt & Jen, they had only been open for business for a couple of hours and had already gotten a good start on sales.  The amount of people in and out of their booth today was good to see.

Great job Jezroc Jewelry.  The card that Matt gave me has his metal works website.  You can see some of the metal work and jewelry through this site http://www.jezrocmetalworks.com/.

Another great display that I saw today was at Renee Oberlin's booth Twin Designs, Inc.  She has jeweled and beaded stainless steel serving pieces, etc.  Her display caught my attention because of the pure volume of product that she brought.  She was ready to sell.  Again, this was another vendor that, because of her display and her beautiful product, was very busy.  It took me a little bit to get the photo because of all the traffic she had. 

She made use of vertical space.  Not only on her shelves but on the wire grate (far right of photo).  She has pegs that work perfectly for her product.  The dark background of her display helps to make the color of her work really "POP". 

I didn't get a lot of time to talk to Renee due to the amount of people shopping her booth.  I trust she was having a good day today.  Check out her site at http://www.twindesignsinc.com/.

There were other booths that caught my eye for one reason or another but I think these two had some really good ideas to display their work.  I did see a lot of "don't"s today also.  That is for another post.

Brick Street Market, Zionsville, IN

As promised, I visited the Brick Street Market show in Zionsville, IN today.  It was busy!  Lots of people, good weather (at least this morning) and lots of great crafts.

Things I noticed today:

1. Jewelry is everywhere.  I don't know how they do it, but they still manage to sell even with all the competition.  I wouldn't suggest getting into this category unless you have some really unique designs.  It is also often difficult to even get in to some shows because this is the first category that gets closed due to the volume of people applying.
2. I have not yet seen a craft show set up this way.  I kind of liked it.  They had several very large tents housing nearly 20 vendors under one roof.  A little like several small craft malls at one show.
3. A lot more stuff geared toward kids.  Kids clothes, hats, art, woodworking, etc.
4. Empty spaces.  This can hurt a show.  Either it was the impending weather report of rain or some no shows, promoters should be trying to moving some booths closer together to eliminate the look of empty spaces.

I don't usually get to walk shows as a vendor and spend as much time as I did today looking at everything there.  It was good research for this blog.  This is definetely why you should walk around a few shows and get some ideas.

My next few posts are about some of the detail stuff I noticed today.

Following my own advice.....

Ok.  So a couple of days ago I suggested that you visit a show as a customer instead of a vendor.  This is important for you to see what competition is out there, how people are presenting their wares, what kind of pricing is actually selling and more.

I am taking my own advice and visiting a show in Zionsville, IN.   The Brick Street Market.  This is an important visit for our business because we are originally from Michigan and we have only done a handful of shows out of state.  I recently moved to Indiana and I am trying to get an idea of how to market our products here.

Indiana is a totally different market than we are used to.  In Michigan there were craft shows everywhere, every weekend.  With that many craft shows every weekend, it was sometimes hard to gauge how many shoppers would actually come.  In Indiana, so far, craft shows are fewer and farther between.

My next post will be a report on how the show was.  Hope for no rain......

Visit Your Local Craft Show

Have you visited a craft show?  How about your local farmer's market?

This is extremely important!  I still try to visit craft shows, not as a vendor, but as a shopper.  It's a different perspective than being a vendor.  The people there will talk to you differently, too.  If they see you as a shopper, they will try to sell to you and make their product look like it's the best thing out there.  When you talk to them as a vendor, they will tell you how cheaply they made their stuff.  Two totally different worlds.

Kinda veered away from the point.  The point to visiting your local show is to see how others display their wares.  What kind of displays do they have?  Are they making use of vertical space?  Is their display attractive or too busy?

Back to our candle discussion.  When we started with our candles we bought several different jar styles.  Bulb jars, Metro jars, Apothecary jars, etc.  We set up a 6 foot folding table with a nice solid black table cloth to "make the colors pop!"  Problem was, everyone that came into our booth to look couldn't see the different jar styles or the colors.  They were looking straight down at the labels on the top of the jars. 

Solution (and what turned out to be a no brainer):  We cut some small pvc (about 1 1/2in in diameter) and raised the table 6-8in.  Suddenly our jars were visable!  And we started to get more sales.  How simple.  Then we took it one step further and started using displays that brought our candles up to different levels.  Then we moved on to getting shelves which brought our product up to eye level.  Then our sales were even better. 

Now, I know what you are thinking;  "Holy crap, I can't afford to do all that right now!"  I know that.  We couldn't either.  That's why our transformation was slow from raising the table, to using different displays, to getting actual shelving units.  

Don't think you have to have everything right now.  You will be broke before you start.  This is just to get you thinking about your plan.  Visit your local show and see what others are doing.  Even find the promoter of the show or the Market Manager and ask them costs and booth size.  This will all help you prepare. 

What's your craft?

Have you even thought about what you could make?  What would sell?  How much is it going to cost you to make your item?  How much would you sell it for?  Does your price cover your costs?

These are things we didn't think much about when we started.  We started with soy candles and had an idea of what we could sell them for.  Then we realized that we had to do cost analysis.  I know that the the word analysis can scare you.  It did me, too.  But if you don't break everything down, you could be selling yourself short.

You can't go to Michael's or JoAnn's or even Hobby Lobby and expect to buy all of your materials at retail and expect to make a profit.  These places are great for when you are doing projects for you or projects with your kids.  These are excellent places to get ideas.  But, you need to do the research.

With the internet, research is soooooo much easier!  Find wholesalers when ever you can.  You may have to buy in larger quantities, but when you look at the gains you can make by mass producing and selling your item, it will be worth it.

Back to the candles as an example.  For one candle we needed a jar, wax, color, a wick, and two labels (our business label and a warning label).  Go to a retail store and you will spend $8-$10 dollars getting all of these items.  How much do you think your customers will spend on one candle?  More than $10 each?  Not likely.  Then, you aren't even accounting for the time you have spent making the candle or the supplies you needed to make the candle.

We started with a company based out of California.  What we learned in the long run was that the shipping alone was killing us.  To have all of this material sent to us, even in bulk wholesale quantities, was killing our profit margin.  With a little more research, we found wax in Michigan (and Indiana) and that cut our shipping costs by more than half! 

RESEARCH!

Take the time to do your research.  Once you do that, you are one step closer to being ready to sell.

Questions?  Send them to me!

So you want to be a crafter........

So, you want to be a crafter. 

Where do you start?  How do you find shows?  What shows are good?  Do you have everything you need?  What crafts sell?  Do you even have a craft? 

These are all excellent questions.  Do I have all the answers?  No.  But I am a crafter and have been for six years.  When we started, there was no information out there to help us get started.  So, we have learned from our own trial and error.  I honestly wouldn't want to put too many people through the same trials and tribulations.

That's what I am going to help you with.  I have some pretty good ideas about how to get started and talking with some of the newer vendors, I am getting some good questions that should be passed on to everyone trying to get a start in crafting.

I would love your questions!  Please check back often for new topics.