final two November 2012 craft shows

I had my final two November craft fairs on Saturday, November 10 and Sunday, November 18. As I've already written a couple craft fair posts this fall, I decided to wait and post about both shows together. Interestingly enough they were respectively my best and worst shows in terms of sales for the fall season so you get something of a comparison here.

This was the November 10 show. I have gotten really comfortable with my 2012 open square layout.

After my back to back November 3 and 4 shows during which I sold only a handful of button magnets, I had a wake up call that I needed to change something. During 2010 and 2011, they had their own display. When I started making glass magnets, I put them on the same display. I didn't think much of it, but it has definitely affected the button magnet sales. So I revamped part of my display for these two shows.

I've been planning to package my glass and bottle cap magnets like this forever and finally got around to putting some packages together and put them in their own display. I still have smaller sets as well in close proximity, as you can see here. A lot of people don't get that these are magnets when they are in sets as opposed to on the dry erase board display. I need to create some better signage for magnets my 2013 shows. With that aside, people still liked the packages, and I have sold a handful of the small and large sets.

In past years, I have had a much fuller button display and did again for the 18th show. This is what I had this weekend. I sold all but 15 or so of this selection.

My small items have done well this year, and I restocked pins and rings for this show. Most of what you see here sold during the day so I did some major restocking before the 18th.

In order to give the magnets packages their own display, I rearranged some of my jewelry. I am deeply conflicted about how much higher end jewelry I want to display for my 2013 shows. I don't want to cheapen my entire display and not showcase some of my jewelry making skills, but the bottom line is that I sell a very small amount of pieces at shows that are $35 or more. I don't see that changing any time soon. I think that it would be more beneficial to expand and showcase some of my less expensive ($10-$25) lines. I'd appreciate thoughts on this.

I have done this show the past two years and was excited to be back again. As I previously mentioned, it was my best show to date for the fall. We had steady traffic all but the final hour of the show, and I had a handful of people give me positive feedback about items the items that they purchased from me last year. All of the revamping for small items paid off and most of them did well at this show. I sold a decent number of larger items, too.

Having such a good show put me in high spirits for my November 18 show.

For those who wonder why my banner photos are never in the same arrangement, thanks to Velcro dots, they are removable. I simply take off the photos before I roll up my banner after each show. I don't have a set arrangement so it constantly changes.

My new friend Steve also vended at this show. At the last minute we were able to talk our way into neighboring booths.

Ironically enough, the other show that we had vended together at this fall was also one of our worst. It is always nice to have good company at shows, but it is especially nice when sales are terrible. The short of this show was that it was primarily filled with older clientele shopping from older clientele. A couple other 20 and 30 something vendors came over to us during the show to commiserate.

Meanwhile, since we didn't have a lot of sales, particularly in the afternoon, we had more time than usual for taking pictures.

It's been frustrating to have such a mixed bag of shows this year, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'm still very new to the Milwaukee scene. I have had some good shows that will be worth repeating next year and can add recommendations from fellow vendors. Hopefully each year I can keep taking it up another notch.

The other mixed blessing of not having a lot of sales is that I'm already well stocked for my final 2012 show, which will be in early December. I am looking forward to not spending time gluing lots of small ticket items during this holiday week.

How have your November shows been going?

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second fall show follow up

I had my second fall show this past weekend.

Never mind the fact that my poor number sign is a little crooked.  If you're thinking that this looks familiar, it definitely does.  I used almost the exact same set up for my first show this fall.  It worked very well so I didn't feel the need to make any major adjustments.

One thing that I did add in my business card holder on the end there is social media information cards.  This was a last minute idea that I actually completed the morning of the show.  They have my Facebook, Twitter, and blog URLs as well as my Etsy site.  We'll see if I get any new followers from it, but a handful of people did take them.  I'd like to make/print more sophisticated ones in the future.  These worked in a pinch, though.  The business world keeps stressing how social media is overtaking everything else online, which certainly seems to be true, so I figured why not promote it more at my shows.

I changed my "feature" display area to Christmas for this show.  I sold a few pairs of holiday earrings.  I think that I'll continue to do that in the future for holiday shows.  It got a lot of attention.  I was also pleased with how the cork board went again.  I think that I could even add another one for my 2012 shows.  I could do a separate one for pins, but I like having the mix so I would probably add another one with the same format (earrings in the middle, pins around the edges).  Any thoughts on this?  Also, I have to add that as always, Edi's earring cards got a lot of comments!

I did make a switch with my middle display.  Last time I put the charm bracelets in front and the $20-$25 beaded bracelets in the back.  People love to look at the charm bracelets and talk about the buttons, but they don't buy many of them, and they really don't look at the beaded bracelets as much.  So I switched it and ended up selling at least 3 $20 beaded bracelets and got a custom order for another one.  I will continue to do this in the future.  People did still look at the button bracelets when they were in the back.

I added one more T-bar display.  Michael's had a 30% off jewelry display sale last month so I picked it up then.  People will always look through the $10-$25 bracelets, but the vertical displays really draw them into the higher end pieces.  I get the most comments (though not the most sales) on the dagger and leaf bracelets.  At some point, I might elevate one or more T-bars or necklace displays on some sort of little shelves/blocks, but I'm not planning to add more displays for my next set of shows.

I did this show last year and did decently.  I wanted to do this show again for a number of reasons that don't have to do with sales like the organization, amount of help, and the fact that it supports the school's special education department.  So it was a big plus that I also sold a lot more this year.  I had steady traffic and sales all day.  I think the largest reason is because it was simply a smaller show.  Last year there were 150 vendors and over 50 of them were selling jewelry.  This year there were only 75 vendors with about 12 of those selling jewelry.  Both the vendors and buyers seemed really happy with this change.  I didn't have products that were at all like the products of the people around me on all sides, which helped all of us.  I also think that I did better because of my improved display and variety in products.  People have responded well to the button magnets and tacks as well as my new jewelry lines.

The other biggest perk of this show was the networking.  Several people remembered me from last year.  I'm really excited to build my local following in Milwaukee.  One person recommended a museum whose gift shop offers jewelry that I should contact about getting my work there.  I got to connect with several vendors who are on Etsy.  (Check out the shop that was to my left, too.  Her displays were awesome.  Isn't her work neat, too?)  I got a big potential offer through the show as well.  Nothing is finalized yet, but if it does go through, I will have more details about that soon.

Thanks to this show, these lovely pieces now have new homes.

 

 

The fall button bracelet has been so popular and is very easy to recreate so it is still available in my shop right here as a made to order listing.

I included this post in Erika's It's a Wrap - Link Party 11/21.