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.