I'm sure any seller who's attended a craft fair or similar event can relate to this! You get yourself all prepped, set all your stall how you'd planned and - nothing!!!
It happened to me the first time I ever attended a craft fair, 15 years ago now, and I can't deny it was soul destroying. But I think you have to try and find the reasons and look for a way forward.
This doesn't happen to me very often nowadays, mostly because I usually attend Quilt Shows that are very specifically marketed, but it did happen to me a couple of weeks ago at a local event, so I decided to try and put my theory of finding the positives into practice!
Can I afford to loose the stall fee?
Very important, especially in an event you've not tried before. In this case the event cost £25 which I thought was reasonable as it also included tea and coffee!
The event was in Redcar, where my business is based, so I thought it was a good opportunity to get word out about my business as I don't have a shopfront but a studio in a council run business centre.
I decided to see the stall fee as an advertising cost! I did hand out my flyers to a few people and was able to leave some at the venue.
Did the organiser promote the event well and get good footfall?
In this case, yes. The organiser, House of Foliage did promote the event very well on their social media, and they shared and commented on posts that I added about the event too.
The footfall was excellent and the event was busy all day.
So why no sales?
Well, House of Foliage is (unsurprisingly) a plant shop and their customers totally love plants! They visit the shop to look at the plants and have coffee and cake among the plants, they don't really have much interest in sewing! But, they were very friendly and at least took a polite interest in my goods.
So although they marketed it very well, it wasn't the right customer base for me.
At least it's not that my products were rubbish!
What else could I see as positive?
Well, the venue itself was beautiful and looked stunning with all the plants, so I was able to get lots of videos and photos for my social media channels, and actually sitting among the plants all day was very relaxing. Find out more on my YouTube and Instagram accounts
Networking
I suppose this one was a big plus for me as I met up with a couple of other businesses, including Seven Stars Apparel, and this lovely female led company is making some tote bags for me, which I'm thrilled about.
I'm also hoping to be able to run some workshops with House of Foliage,as this is another part of their business and they seemed interested in that.
So it's not a complete disaster?
No, not by any means! I had a lovely enjoyable day, made some good connections and ate cake.
I don't think I'd do this event again, it just wasn't my target customer, but I'd definitely attend it as a customer find other local small businesses to support.