How To Make A Bad Craft Show Profitable
Can a craft show still be a profitable way to sell your handmade items when the economy's down
?
When money is tight, people are understandably less willing to buy non-essential items like jewelry, ceramics, windchimes, and other handcrafts.
Unfortunately that can mean long, discouraging days for artists and crafters trying to sell their work at shows and festivals.
Try these ideas for profiting at craft shows, even when people are reluctant to buy:
1. Problem: The show is poorly attended, and even your own customers that you mailed postcards to aren't coming. Sales are dead.
Possible Solution: Take this opportunity to get good deals on some of your own shopping for upcoming gift occasions, by bartering your items in exchange for handmade goods from the show's other vendors.
Bartering is a fantastic win-win solution where each party gets a wonderful item for just their own cost of the piece they trade. This is a great way to take care of your gift shopping!
Tip: Be sure each artist bases the value of the trade on the full retail price of the items being traded.
2. Problem: Economic uncertainty - people are attending the craft show, but no one wants to spend any money.
Possible Solution: Even when finances are tight, other people still have to give gifts too.
Consider creating some low-priced "giftable" product lines that are nicely profitable for you - and putting signs next to them such as "Perfect gift for teens!" (or whatever type of person is appropriate for the item).
At one craft show where most vendors weren't selling anything at all, I made a few hundred dollars just from my $3 line of cell phone / bookbag charms. I could easily have earned even more if I'd anticipated the market for these, and had been prepared with signs and more inventory. It also would have helped if I'd made these charms the focal point of my booth instead of having them at the end of a side table.
At the show where I sold tons of these, one girl picked out more than a dozen of these charms and her mom gladly bought them. They were great inexpensive holiday gifts for the girl's friends - and a bargain for Mom.
Bonus: Sometimes people get roped in by your low-priced gifties and wind up also buying one or two higher priced items as well!
3. Problem: Craft shows are overrun with other booths selling the same category of items you are, either as the focus of their booth or as a sideline.
Possible Solution: Consider using your supplies to create some useful items that are outside of your main category of craft. For example, a jewelry artist might create beaded ceiling fan-pulls or wine bottle stoppers.
4. Problem: Prices on your raw materials have risen to much that you have to raise the prices on your finished products - just when your customers are tightening their spending.
Possible Solution: Lower your costs by designing some product lines that use more recycled and found objects, or a "trash to treasure" approach. Find ways to acquire and use raw materials that are super-cheap or even free - and devise creative, useful products from these materials.
by: Rena Klingenberg
Precision Guided Marketing Through Mailing Services Tips to Obtain probably the most Through the Operate You Place Into World wide web Marketing and advertising Product Promotion Marketing: Taking Your Products To Targeted Customers Social Media Marketing Company: Maximizing The Opportunities Presented By Social Media Platforms A Good Alternative To Finding Marketing Jobs From The Ladders Your Guide to Successful Online Marketing Job Search Marketing Magnetic Article Marketing Marketing Job Openings Article marketing dead or alive? Just evolved! Marketing Job Postings It Came From Facebook! The Social Media Marketing Challenge That Can't Be Ignored A Day In Life Of An Affiliate Marketer