Menu
What's new

Rock the Village

Thanks for the warm welcome, location updated! Any non-Okies that can correctly pronounce the town name should win a prize. :dunno::laugh2:

Now to un-hijack the thread and get back to the OT. I would love to sell some stuff at craft shows but I have a problem. I don't have any desire to attend a craft show. Our weather has been heat indexes of 110+ degrees F and I'm NOT going out there. I worked on air conditioners for 25 years and it's time to work IN the air conditioning! Has anyone tried (and/or had success) hiring someone to work a booth? I was thinking maybe a college kid (we're in a college town) that I can pay a lump sum, hourly, or commission. Having had up to 17 employees I know the normal pitfalls and challenges but was curious if anyone here has tried anything crazy like this in this trade/hobby/profession specifically.

- Robert
 
Robert, when I was in my 20s I worked for a while one summer selling silk flower arrangements at weekend flea markets and swap meets in the San Diego area. I was hired by the guy who owned the place where the arrangements were made, and he had several of us young guys doing the selling for him. He provided the product and the booth display and told us what shows to attend; we provided a van and the manpower to set up and tend the booth for the day. We were paid by commission only. He had worked out a system where each of us guys started with a set number of the various flower arrangements (small, medium, large, x-large, etc.) each weekend, and the money we returned each Monday had to match up with the missing inventory.

So yes, conceivably you could hire someone to do the selling for you. :thumb:
 
Vaughn McMillan said:
Robert, when I was in my 20s I worked for a while one summer selling silk flower arrangements at weekend flea markets and swap meets in the San Diego area. I was hired by the guy who owned the place where the arrangements were made, and he had several of us young guys doing the selling for him. He provided the product and the booth display and told us what shows to attend; we provided a van and the manpower to set up tend the booth for the day. We were paid by commission only. He had worked out a system where each of us guys started with a set number of the various flower arrangements (small, medium, large, x-large, etc.) each weekend, and the money we returned each Monday had to match up with the missing inventory.

So yes, conceivably you could hire someone to do the selling for you. :thumb:
Click to expand...

Great! I'm encouraged to give it a try! :thumb:

Carol Reed said:
No one has as much passion about your work as you do. And passion sells, especially at craft shows. Try it. You might like it.
Click to expand...

Carol, you're exactly right and that thought strolled through my head when considering the options. :) My poor engineering mind quickly countered that thought with the weather issue and also one that I encountered a lot in the HVAC business. That being, the boss/owner is usually asked to negotiate prices but not so much a third party selling. I've actually told customers that made lower offers or asked for a discount, "Excuse me, I'll have to call my boss/the owner/my business partner to get approval before I can accept anything other than the selling price." Usually there's a brief conversation before I stepped away to make the imaginary call and the customer decides their effort won't likely be successful and they really do want the product at the listed selling price. :cool:

I bet I will attend a show but can almost guarantee early spring or mid-late fall. :rofl: Hopefully though the demand for product will be high enough that I can't afford the time away from the shop for long.

- Robert
 
Robert,

My two cents would be that it may depend on the product. If every piece is unique and valuable then being there seems like it would add a lot of value. On the other hand if you're cranking out a lot of volume then outsourcing the sales somewhat may make sense. In either case you'll want to be there some of the time to keep a feel on the customers pulse and see how your sales staff is handling things.
 
Robert Johnson said:
Thanks for the warm welcome, location updated! Any non-Okies that can correctly pronounce the town name should win a prize. :dunno::laugh2: - Robert
Click to expand...

Robert,
Tahlequah sounds like a Cherokee name... In my area, if you can't pronounce Cherokee words, you can't tell any one where you live... Tellico Plains is actually a Cherokee town site and I think the original name was the same as where you are... The original word for Tellico means "Plains" in Cherokee so I actually live in "Plains Plains, TN"....:rofl::rofl: -- Over in Tellico Village, a retirement community on Tellico Lake, and about 30 miles from my house, all the neighborhoods and street names are of Indian origin... One neighborhood is Tenasi - which is the reputed word that Tennessee was derived from.

During my mother's 20+ years in OK, married to an Okie, Tehlequah is one of the towns she must have missed... she lived in Tulsa, Oolegah, Muskogee, Enid, Bartlesville, Midwest City, Oklahoma City, Hennessy, Waukomis, Barnett and probably a dozen others I don't remember. :D:D

Welcome to the forum and don't worry about the heat at a show... that's what tents and shades are for. If you can get power at the show, a fan always helps. I do a market every Saturday in downtown Knoxville and as long as I have a little breeze, I can handle the heat okay... when winter comes and the icy weather arrives, that when I have trouble... I don't do cold very well.
 
Last edited:
Chuck Ellis said:
Robert,
Tahlequah sounds like a Cherokee name...
Click to expand...

Bingo! :-D Tahlequah is the capital city of the Cherokee Nation. ;-)

Chuck Ellis said:
During my mother's 20+ years in OK, married to an Okie, Tehlequah is one of the towns she must have missed... she lived in Tulsa, Oolegah, Muskogee, Enid, Bartlesville, Midwest City, Oklahoma City, Hennessy, Waukomis, Barnett and probably a dozen others I don't remember. :D:D

Welcome to the forum and don't worry about the heat at a show... that's what tents and shades are for. If you can get power at the show, a fan always helps. I do a market every Saturday in downtown Knoxville and as long as I have a little breeze, I can handle the heat okay... when winter comes and the icy weather arrives, that when I have trouble... I don't do cold very well.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much! I've been to almost every one of those towns, I'm only about 30 miles from Muskogee. (another Indian tribe) I'm a Chickasaw Indian citizen from western Oklahoma but these eastern IT (Indian Territory for those of you with coastal persuasions) Indians don't seem to mind my infiltration. :rofl:
11057760_10153648499115278_4036126890230626132_n.jpg
 
Although I have not been much of a contributor to my own thread, I have been following it and taking note. So much good and constructive information. Thanks to all! I've not been able to put every suggestion into practice, but we did make several changes this past week that several of you mentioned.

First, we rearranged the tables to pushed the product out to the front and one exposed side. We hid the boxes behind a colorful skirt. (In my defense, we had intended to hide the boxes, something several of you mentioned, last wee but wind gusts of nearly 20 mph made set up and flimsy plastic skirts a bit difficult.) we also added lighting and spent more time out in the thoroughfare. This all worked very well and I would have to say that the level of interaction with passers-by was up by 20 fold!

My DIL had 8 sales compared to onl 1 the previous week. I had no sales but was able to show my portfolio to 5 people all of whom took my business card. I figured if I charged $.25 for every "you do beautiful work" I could probably make back the cost of the booth by the end of the season!

I'm taking this week off because of another commitment but using the time to go back to the shop and see what I can come up with that might spur sales a bit.

Thanks again for all the great advice!

01ce88e1ba343fe330c8dd75d5292a25.jpg

895385e9b0a85acc2c8ba81e50bfce19.jpg

e4aec72a5a84708b18bc625c11e19315.jpg

fb380157a2f21bed26f1c551075f80e7.jpg
 
Glad to hear its improving! I do like the new booth layout better as well.

As an experiment you might try adding an apparently absurdly high priced item (say 5-10x the other items) that is similar but differentiated (fancier from the pieces downstream of it and first in the flow of traffic.

Alternatively (going the other direction) try reducing the number of fancy boards actually on display to say 2 and price them accordingly, and add in a small stack (3-4) of plane (but nice) boards next to them at somewhat lower price (50-75%).

The reason I'm thinking this might help is the "you do beautiful work", which means they like the work, but are perceiving it as to luxurious. Adding another reference point to help them define the upper end will make the other products seems more accessible (its not just price, price is just a cue).
 
Ryan,
I think I have a good mix of prices, but you are likely correct and there is room for improvement. The stickley clock is $295, the other clock is $189. Edge grain boards are $30' end grain $39. Both bargains, I think. I also have the raised dog dish at $85, the framed prints at $89' the painted message boards at $29, and some bud vases at $29. All in all a good mix, I thought. How low a price item do I need at the low end? Is $295 at the high end too low?
 
Last edited:
The revised booth looks a lot better to me, Rennie. :thumb: Well done!

Regarding prices, I think you've got a pretty good spread. IMO you're well-covered at the high end by the clocks (which I think are fairly priced), and although your low end is a good value and very fairly priced, you might entice a few more customers with some items at the $20 (or lower) price point.
 
Vaughn McMillan said:
The revised booth looks a lot better to me, Rennie. :thumb: Well done!

Regarding prices, I think you've got a pretty good spread. IMO you're well-covered at the high end by the clocks (which I think are fairly priced), and although your low end is a good value and very fairly priced, you might entice a few more customers with some items at the $20 (or lower) price point.
Click to expand...

I agree with everything Vaughn said here. Having higher end pieces is always a good idea. One sale of a clock is the same as 10+ bud vases, but having items under $20 creates a way to have impulse buys by customers...those can add up quick too! :thumb:
 
Rennie Heuer said:
Ryan,
I think I have a good mix of prices, but you are likely correct and there is room for improvement. The stickley clock is $295, the other clock is $189. Edge grain boards are $30' end grain $39. Both bargains, I think. I also have the raised dog dish at $85, the framed prints at $89' the painted message boards at $29, and some bud vases at $29. All in all a good mix, I thought. How low a price item do I need at the low end? Is $295 at the high end too low?
Click to expand...

Where high and low are is pretty region and customer base dependent, hence the "experiment" part of my comment :D. My guess based on your location (region and sales location) is that you're bumping the upper end for most of the products for where you are. Your prices certainly seem fair given the quality product, its getting the consumer to understand that that's the challenge :D

I'd agree that the boards are a bargain, the problem may be that there is nothing to make the customer understand that they are a bargain. A lot of the anchoring psychology (and I'm not an expert at this, I just read to much stuff to try to figure out how I'm fooling myself :rofl:) seems to work better when there are two similar items with disparate prices which makes the other item either appear to be an attractive "premium" item or the other as a "bargain" item (companies do this to pull consumer up or down brands all the time) depending on who the consumer is.

The cutting boards are an easy one to differentiate which is why I was picking on them, I'm betting you could bump the prices on those up to say $45-50 and put a $15 set of coasters and a $20-30 simpler cutting board next to the ones you have and probably sell more of both the low end and the high end.

Basically the problem is that people don't really have a frame of reference for what a cutting board like that _should_ cost, so they're comparing it to a $10-20 walmart special. By providing two contrasting pieces you've provided them with a place to think from. "Hey if that one is $50, this other one is still pretty nice and a comparative bargain at $25", sometimes this is followed by "and we should get aunt Gretta a gift but we don't want to appear to cheap lets get her the nice one" (since you've already gotten them into the buying mood) or "Well! I'm a special high end consumer and I deserve the nicer one".

Its similar to the reasons that most of the fast food chains have salads on the menu, its because people can think to themselves "I don't feel bad about buying here because I can get a salad" and then when they pull up to the drive through they order a double cheeseburger with fries but still felt good about it because they considered ordering a salad.

I'm also not saying that you should drop the prices on any of your existing products (they seem quite fair for what they are), simply that you may benefit from more price variety within items that allow the users to (subconsciously) compare and utilize a few other marketing tricks to get folks more in the mood.
 
Week 3 for manning my booth. I am without Kelly this week so not sharing a table with jewelry. Gave me an opportunity to put some larger pieces out front. Everything is mine except the writing desk which is a rehab that Jan did. This is dedication! It is just under 100° here today and don't give me that stuff to dry heat! Dry perhaps, but it is still dog gone hot!
6251b38ec207da460056e17f61b92d71.jpg

b552b7dee40cdbefa64f9226a97efc11.jpg

64038f94bb3db4c504b863a06435b6fc.jpg
 
100 degrees?

I know some people who live in it, might go out to a craft fair in that heat, but I doubt its some place most want to be.

that heat alone would be a sale killer.

Its a tough sell, selling handmade products, even though it sounds like your prices are not expensive, people have a hard time parting with a buck these days.
Impulse shopping at craft fairs, gotta be tough, especially in 100 degree temps.

The booth looks better, more organized without the boxes, I wonder how or what you have to do to get people to reach into their wallets.

Not an easy task, no way.

I have zero experience with craft fairs, flea markets yes, not craft fairs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top