No matter at what level you sell your items for; when participating in a craft fair; it’s always a good idea to have a few items in the say $1 – 10 range – folks may not always have enough money to buy your better stuff, quite often children are given a few dollars of their own to spend, and people are always looking for some little thing to bring home to friends and family or give as small gifts.
The trick with your lower-cost items is to make sure they are not a major loss leader. WalMart and others can afford to take a loss on certain products to get customers into their stores; but, the idea with having a few cheapies on the table is to give children something to look at while their parents look at your more expensive items or to allow folks with smaller budgets to still enjoy a piece of your artistic expression.
Remember, I’m not talking about that piece that should be sold for a lot more; I’m talking about those items that can be made fairly quickly and often use supplies that you have left over from your bigger projects.
Having a few cheapies in your booth does three things – gives you a product line that can be replenished in your hotel room between days of the show, gets people and children a bit more likely to approach your booth, and allows for some quick profits.
Temptation Leaders
A good method to use when offering your “temptation leader”? (sounds so much better than loss leader), is to scatter some of them in between some of your higher priced items. In their search for the right color or size, you almost force potential customers to consider your premium items. Many of the best sales I’ve witnessed at shows were started with a temptation leader bringing the customer further into the booth. Remember, if your temptation leader is very much a children’s item, consider small and possibly sticky fingers and their limited reach when you place them with your other items.
Temptation Leaders Create a Sales Force
A fringe benefit to temptation leaders for children is that these items rarely remain hidden away in a bag. Children often wear or carry their new treasure and can quickly become a walking, talking billboard for your booth. You know you’ve said it, “Oh, that’s where they got that from, let’s see what else they have…”?
Why didn’t I buy that?
The most important thing to always do with your temptation leaders is to always, always, always attach your card or tag with your contact information. That customer who only spent $5 on your temptation items, but was really interested in that $200 item; may reconsider and later regret not having bought your unique whatever. With your contact information in hand – they can easily change their mind, contact you and have you ship it to them (which may have been why they hesitated buying in the first place).
There’s more…
Next time I’ll talk about how paying attention to what you customer wants can turn into your biggest money-maker.