Holiday Bazaars and Shop Update!

 A Very Interesting Weekend!!!

              This weekend was my First Holiday Bazaar, and well lets say I am chalking it up as a lesson learned. I am not giving up on Holiday bazaars but I am going to be more selective in the bazaars I choose. Lets start at the beginning, so first  when I called the man "in charge" he was very hard to get a hold of and terrible at returning phone calls. (yes I know RED flag). When we finally got in touch he really grilled me and asked a ton of questions about what I was making. I thought okay he really wants to be selective as to who is at the bazaar. He also told me that he asks what each vendor makes so there are not any duplicates. After the long phone call I thought well I have nothing to loose I will set up shop. I was excited, nervous, anxious. I didn't know how much stuff to make, or how I was going to set up my booth display. So Saturday morning came and I went to the bazaar an hour before it started and set up and got all giddy and was ready to greet customers. Slowly other vendors trickled in and were setting up there booths and as I looked around I realized. . . . . wait this is not what I had expected.  There were  4 purse ladies(you know the one who buy knockoffs and then sell them), 2 Mary Kay reps, a lady selling tons of sheets. Now don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with selling that kind of stuff I just kinda, sorta expected it to be more handmade crafts, since it was called the Holiday CRAFT Bazaar. After seeing that I really kinda thought, man this guy fooled me.  SO with all that negative I decided well I need to make this positive.  I took notes on how I would display things better.

Like making my display easy to navigate with prices marked

Making a place for me to stand behind my table so I am easy to approach and talk to.

Engaging with people as they walk by and bringing them to my table.

I also took note of  what questions I would ask when looking into a bazaar.

Do they advertised? 

What other kind of booths would be there? Handmade or not?

Asking there return rate (how many booths come back each year?) 

There is much more but that will come in another post.

      The good news is I did break even. So it didn't cost me anything but my time to be there, I even made enough to pay for the items I purchased for my display.  That was awesome.  I also met this totally awesome lady named Brooke she is the face behind SharpCouture. Her stuff is AMAZING! She also has a Facebook page. She sells totally awesome burlesque costumes and masks, totally adorable sock banks, feather earrings (she even dyes the feathers herself). EVERYTHING IS AMAZING!  Be sure to check it out and tell her I sent you!!!!

        Well with lessons learned, breaking even and meeting new people in the handmade world, it wasn't to bad of a weekend!  If you have a good or bad experience that you think the rest of us can learn from! Link up to my blog!!!
     
           Next weekend I will be at the Indie Crafters Market at Gates Home Furnishing in Grants Pass. Be sure to check it out!!



 Oh almost forgot there will be a huge shop update this evening and tomorrow!!!! So excited!!!!