Last week I shared the link of part one on how to prep for a
craft show that I wrote for Etsy Dallas. As promised, I wanted to delve in a
little deeper into some of these topics for you to really create a
comprehensive resource for newcomers. We were once new too, and have pictures
of the hot mess we were at our first show to prove it! Thanks to other seasoned
crafters we found our way and now can happily pay that advice forward.
Make Enough
Product
First and
foremost you need product – and plenty of it. You should aim to still have a
relatively full display toward the end of the show. If your booth looks empty,
you might get passed by. Depending on your price points, you should expect to
sell 1/4 to 1/3 of the inventory you bring. The best way to be prepared is to
make a production schedule and try to stick to it. Then bring everything to the
show, even if you aren't sure you will sell it.
There are many formulas for how
to arrive at how much to make and bring to a craft show and I will cover more
of them here. Some things to keep in mind for this is what kind of product you
sell, your price points, and how much it takes to fill your display table.
Since a lot of these formulas are in terms of dollars you will need to convert
that to units based on what you make. We make soap, and at an average retail of
$4-$5 to make $100 I would need to sell at least 20 bars. But if you sell $50
necklaces, you only need to sell two to make that same $100 and most likely
will not need to make nearly as much inventory in units to cover your sales.
The next thing to consider is
how much it takes to fill your display table or booth. You want your display to
still look full at the end of the show (between 75-80% full at least). If your
booth looks too empty shoppers may pass you up thinking that you have sold out
of everything and you can miss a lot of sales this way. For example,
for our soap, it takes approx 200 bars of soap to fill our table, so if
based on the formulas below I expect to sell 250 bars, I need to make about 450
in total. Never. Look. Empty.
Here are a few formulas that
you can use to give you an idea of how much you should make. I will use the
same soap (at $5, 200 for display) and necklace (at $50, 50 for display) for
these examples.
Option 1: 7x-10x your booth fee
With 10x the booth fee being
your high side target, and 7x what you will more realistically sell.
Booth Fee $100
10x$100=$1000
for $5 soap that is 200 bars to
sell + 200 bars for display=400 total
for $50 jewelry that is 20 to
sell + 50 to display=70 total
7x$100=$700
for $5 soap that is 140 bars to
sell + 200 bars for display=340 total
for $50 jewelry that is 14 to
sell + 50 to display=64 total
Option 2: % of attendance
If the show you are doing gives
you an annual attendance rate (assuming they are an established show) you can
use this number as a guideline to multiply by your average transaction. The
lower the price point the higher the rate. For under $10 a 3% rate of purchases
per attendees is good-that is 1 of every 100 people. For higher price points
this rate may be 1% or less if your price point is really high.
Show attendance=2000
3%*2000=60 shoppers
1%*2000=20 shoppers
60 shoppers*avg soap purchase
(3 bars or $12)=180 bars ($720) + 200 display=380 bars
20 shoppers*avg jewelry
purchase $50=20 necklaces ($1000) + 50 display=70 necklaces
Option 3: 1/4-1/3 total
inventory sales
As we stated before expect to
sell between 14 (25%) and 1/3 (33%) of what you bring. This approach is kind of
a backwards approach to what you will sell. We have found you sell between
25-33% of the merch you bring. Want to sell $1000? Then you need to bring at
least $3000 in inventory ($1000/0.33) which is 600 bars of soap at 33% (200 for
display + 400 to sell).
Keep in mind that the cheaper
the booth fee the lower the attendance usually is. It costs time, money, and
effort to bring people into a show, so if the fee is low and there isn't an
estimated attendance expect a low number and base inventory off of that.
Also consider the type of
audience that is being targeted for the event. Does the target audience for the
show match up to your target customer in terms of the type of product you are
selling and your price points? Are you selling fine art for $400 at a show
targeted to college age audience? It may not go over well.
Always remember at the bare minimum you should sell enough to cover your booth fee + the time you would pay your self for the hours you worked at the show x 2.
A lot of this comes from
experience so it is important to keep track of how much you brought and how
much you sell, in dollars and units (and by item type) if possible. The more
detailed information you have the better you can use that information to help
you prepare next time!
