Tuesday, May 31, 2011

A Great Article on What You Can Get Out of a Craft Show

Extravaganza Craft Productions passed along a link to an article on their blog about craft shows.  They're not just for selling crafts.  They're for testing a product, finding out who your customer is and building up your business.  Although we all know this in the back of our minds, it's a good read and helpful to be reminded of what we can accomplish at a craft show.  I know I have people come back to my table year after year at some of the shows I do.  I've always given them my business card and I know some of their names, but I've never started an email list.  I'm not going to be doing any shows again until fall, but I plan on putting out a sign up sheet for people to write their email on and then I'm going to occasionally send out a  notice about new items, shows I'm in, etc.  

The link to the article is http://extravaganzacrafts.com/Blogs/?p=159.   Hopefully you'll find it useful too.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Craft Show Was a Bust

Well, the craft show was not well attended.  Maybe 2 dozen people walked through the door.  Could be a combination of odd time of year for a craft show, location and the first nice day for weeks.  I only sold one item.  And I did something I've never done before--I left early.  I just couldn't justify sitting there for another hour when no one was coming.  Many others left well before me.  I felt bad about leaving, but it just was not a good use of my time to sit there.  Has anyone else ever left a craft show early?

So now I'm updating my on-line shops.  It's amazing how time consuming that is.  I was having trouble with pictures on Artfire which really slowed me down.  I want to update my current items that are listed and then I have some new ones to list.  I'm adding a clearance section on my Artfire store http://www.artfire.com/users/BrendasCraftStore and putting the winter items in it.  Even though the temperature was in the 30s last night, I'm still hoping for spring so I'm going to put the winter stuff on clearance.  It's a good time to stock up for next year though!  You can't beat the prices!

Next up might be some shawls and I saw a pattern for a cute little graduation bear.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Craft Show This Weekend

For all you Minnesotans, I'm going to be in a craft show on Saturday, May 7, at the VFW in Forest Lake, MN.  I think there will be many interesting crafters there, so please stop by and shop.

As I think is always the case, I don't feel like I have enough inventory or all the things I'd like to have offered for sale, but I think I have some items that will make good Mother's Day gifts.  I hope shoppers agree.  It's going to be a long day though--the sale goes form 10 am to 7 pm.  A rather odd time.  Most shows are 9-3, 9-4, etc.  So we'll see how this goes.  I've never done one in the northern suburbs and this is a first time promoter, so things might not go so smoothly.  I hope shoppers show up because there's nothing worse than to sit there all day with no business.

After the show, I intend to put my efforts into a quick little custom order I have and then I have a very LONG list of things I want to try.  I want to do American Girl doll clothes, socks, a lot of new dishcloths, headbands, childrens' things, toys, and so on and so on.  I just need more hours in the day!