My First Soap Craft Show: Tips for yours

This past weekend I participated in a Fall Festival. I wanted to share my experience with you and give you some tips of things I learned:

While this was my first time selling soap at an outdoor craft fair, it was not my first rodeo necessarily. Several years ago I used to sell costume jewelry at craft fairs so I was familiar with the process itself. I think it was that experience that has prevented me from selling soap at craft shows until now.

THE GOOD

• GETTING READY. I had packed and gotten read most of the things I would need, a couple of days before the event. This was very different to my previous experience with jewelry. Perhaps because with jewelry, I always felt I needed to make more, even if I had a lot of inventory already. So, sometimes, even the night before the event, I would be making a few more earrings, staying up late doing so. Whereas with soap, I could only bring the soaps that were cured, no last minute making of anything.
• LOCATION. It was very close to where I live, so my husband was able to come with me and helped set up. I sent him home after, but later he came back with breakfast, and then he came back for lunch and to help me break down. He was the best, but it would not have been feasible if the event was far away!
• ORGANIZERS: The organizers did a great job to try to draw a crowd. There was music, events for the kids, a fire truck, help with tent set up, free cold water for the vendors… I had no complaints there. But I am not sure how much advertising they did, besides the banners I saw the week of the event.
• I sold enough to make my booth fee and a little bit more, but not enough to tempt me to do this particular event again.
• I got to hear peoples’ compliments on how pretty the soap is, which is always good. It was followed by: “But I could never use this, it is too pretty”. I would reply with: “Well, most people buy it to give as gifts”, or “Yes, I use it anyway,” Because I make soap as a means of artistic expression more than as a means to make money, I will continue to make pretty soap, it is what makes me the happiest. But I may make a couple of plain soaps to offer as an option, and perhaps at a lower price, if I decide to pursue this further.

THE BAD

• CROWD ATTENDANCE: While the organizers did a great job having those amenities, there were not enough people in attendance despite it. Initially I thought there were people, as people came to my booth, I talked to a few, but they would then leave without buying anything. Later I learned most of these people were actually other vendors, which I expected them to visit early after set up, but then I found out they came later since it was slow. One of them came to talk to me and told me that last year the event had more attendance, and that they did better then, it was a cloudy day she recalled. I did not go around the other booths though, because there is a hoarder in me that would tempt me to spend more money than what I made.
• SHORT DAY: The event was from 9 to 2. Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one had, I was looking forward to 2 p.m. so I could get out of that heat. I was keeping hydrated, but I could tell I had a tan and a fever blister on my lip when I came home. (And I had a tent and stayed under its shade!) On the other hand, I did most of my sales when the event was almost done. (Those vendors came back to do their purchases then). So maybe a full day event would have been best. I remember attending this event last year when it was closing too. My husband and I were coming back home from running errands, saw the tents and stopped. Everyone was packing by then so we didn’t see much. Interestingly, we both remember it stunk! Literally, the food truck was draining their waste water and the whole place stunk! Smells are memorable, whether good or bad!

THE UGLY

• THE WEATHER: It was SOOOOO HOTTTTT!!!! When I saw the advertising banners for this show (which prompted me to sign up) it was only 5 days ahead of the event. I looked at the forecast, and partially cloudy weather was predicted. It is the end of September, so I thought it would be ok. Wrong! It was sunny! and humid! and hot! and we had some sporadic breeze, but it was still miserable. I live in the South, what else can I say? lol

In short, I was not expecting much from the show, because it is my way of preparing for disappointment. (I may be a pessimistic), and I decided if I had a loss, I would count it as paying for a lesson on the art of selling. I am not a good sales person, I hate attempting to sell anything that I have made. But I have experience doing guerrilla marketing for others, so I forced my self to speak. I would let people look and see, and if they look like they were leaving, I would approach and tell them one of my short speeches. One was greeting them and just explaining where the men fragranced soaps were, where the ones with essential oils where, etc. Other times I approached them early, and told them what the difference between commercial soap and handmade soap was. Most seemed to know that already. Then I told them to feel free to browse and pick up the bars and let me know if they needed help, and went back to the chair.

After a while though, when the heat got to me, I felt I would just let them browse in peace, and just kept quiet. When my husband came, he took a more direct approach, he would hand people bars and ask them to smell it. Later he told me that I needed to hand out the scents that someone might like, and those are the ones he handed over, and they did like it it and buy it! So perhaps I need to work on that. Discerning what someone might like and hand it to them, or perhaps asking them directly if they prefer florals, citrics, etc. There is more to learn, and I suggest reading more tips from soap making forums or groups; for now, I leave you with my own tips for preparing for a craft show.

8 PREPARATION TIPS TO SELL AT A CRAFT SHOW

• Go to bed early the night before. It makes such a difference in your mood and attitude the next day.
• Leave your outfit ready. Wear comfortable shoes, and a comfortable but nice outfit. While we should not judge others by their appearance, we do. In the last few weeks, I have been given the up and down look a few times, so I have grown aware of others sizing me up. (Most recently at this event, when I came looking for the organizer, two ladies at the front desk did this to me!) I am not sure if everyone who does this is aware at the time of how obvious they are or not. Regardless, I have learned that the image we project is important. And while I am personally a t-shirt and jeans kind of person, I chose a dressier top for this event. Remember, it is important to present your brand at its best, and you are your brand ambassador. I normally do not wear make up, and I knew I would be sweating it off if I did, however, I applied eyeliner, waterproof mascara and long wear lipstick. If nothing else, it gave me a boost of confidence. I selected a pair of long earrings to finish the deal.
• Have a check out station. (I used the back of my display table since I did not have a lot of product. It was hidden by the display boxes.) I had bags, receipts, boxes, wrapping paper and my debit card receiver there.
• Practice display set up at home. It will help you know what to do once over there. Per some advice I read in a fb group, I displayed my soaps by colors, all the blues on one side, the brown ones next, etc.
• If you can, pack ahead, and keep it simple.
• Be there on time for set up. It is so much better than rushing to get everything displayed before the show starts.
• Plan on rearranging your front soaps during the show if they are not selling. Perhaps that fragrance is not a winner, give a chance to the soaps in the back.
• Make a list of EVERY thing you will need. And double check it as you are loading your car and before you leave.

What to bring

This will be different for you depending on your product and set up, but this was my check list in case you are curious. I tried to keep it as simple and practical as possible.

• Soaps
• Bath bombs (My first two sales were of pink bath bombs)
• Basket for clearance soaps (These were my old soaps, priced at a low price, most of them unscented, I did not sell any of them!)
• Gift Boxes (I was offering free gift sets, I used collapsible/foldable boxes)
• Pre -cut Bubble wrap (I use it to pack my soaps with delicate embeds. and also to pack purchases of those soaps.)
• Business cards (I did not bring any because I did not have them, but a couple people asked for it) I gave them a handout with my contact information though.
• Canopy or Tent. (if outdoors)
• Cash for change
• Chair (I brought the same chair I use for face painting, it is a tall director’s chair)
• Chevron paper bags (to bag purchases)
• Debit card taker (I have both a paypal one and a Squareup for chip cards)
• Dolly / Hand truck. I ended up not needing it for this event, but I have one of these, it is compact but it works for my set up.
• Pen
• Sharpie (in case I need to make an impromptu sign)
• Plastic bags (for larger/heavier sales)
• Receipts
• Ribbon (for the gift boxes)
• Scale (I was selling some soaps by weight at the beginning)
• Scissors
• Small table for check out
• Soap dough (I was going to keep busy working with soap dough, but I decided against it, I decided to think I would be too busy selling to do any of that)
• Stretch cords (to secured tent to concrete blocks)
• 4 Half concrete blocks or sand bags (if outdoors, for the tent)
• Table
• Table cover (I use crushed velvet fabric, because it is stretchy and will not need ironing, however, I will add another fabric on top that I can wash easily as crushed velvet can only be hand washed)
• Table risers (I used bed risers like these)
• Shipping tape and gift tape
• Tissue paper (I wrap each soap sold in tissue paper before putting it in a bag)
• Snacks
• Cold water (and or partially frozen water)
• Sun block (I learned this after the fact)
• Banner (I do not have one yet though)
• Coffee beans in nice small bowl. (To help customers reset their sense of smell)
• Clamps (to fasten the table cover to the table)

Choosing the Right Craft Show to participate in

Events that are well attended and established (their 3rd or 10th year, for example) tend to draw a larger shopping crowd than new ones. If the event information does not say it, you can ask if this is their first event or not.

Is the event advertised as a shopping event primarily? What I noticed in this event, was that the families that attended with younger kids, did not even walk to the craft booths, they stayed in the kids section primarily. The ones with older kids did come by, and a couple of times, it was the kids that made the sale (because they wanted a bath bomb). I have seen larger sales made though, when women come by with friends, vs with children.

Is the event sold out? I am well aware that Fall and Winter events sell out fast, and most are booked by the Spring. Perhaps the fact that this show still had spaces this late in the game should have given me a clue. However, I do not regret attending, as it allowed me to practice set up and packing, and customer interaction.

If outdoors, have they asked every vendor to secure their tent? Besides me, only two other booths had secured their canopies with weights. This made me think that perhaps the show has not been run often enough to have encountered bad weather. And it worried me. Because more often than not, the unsecured tents will go flying with strong winds and damage someone else’s product or property.

Are they limiting vendors by category? You want them to, even if this excludes you, if a venue is large enough, they may have several soap makers, but should place them away from each other. In this event, there was going to be another soap maker, but they either cancelled or did not show up, and that definitely helped.

Do you have any tips you would like to share? I would love to hear them! Here is a picture and video of my set up:

View this post on Instagram

Selling impromptu at a FallMarket, my first one with soaps!

A post shared by Glenda M (@beautifulsoapsbyglenda) on Sep 28, 2019 at 7:26am PDT

When I went back home, I only wished I could call sister Helen and tell her about this event. She was the person who pressed me on to start selling my soap, after I gave her some and she shared it with her nurse and friends. Is there a phone number to Heaven???