To start the implementation I already knew where I wanted to sell in person thanks to the research and where to sell online, so to start with I needed to book the table at the Heart of the Country Christmas Fair, this was initially an email to the one listed on the site stating I was interested, they then sent back a sheet which needed filling in which stated who we were, what we were selling, and what sort of space we would want. We filled in the sheet making sure they knew three of us intended to hold the stall and that we were selling art prints, and that an undercover space would be preferred. Eventually they came back to us saying that there was only outdoor spaces available and with the price of £30 for the whole weekend, which would be £10 each not considering public liability which we had to buy.
We got in and had the space booked which mean we now had to work on public liability. We eventually ended up going with event insurance which was the cheapest out of the insurance companies and easiest to use, it ended up costing us an extra £33 taking the price to £20 each. For Etsy I decided not to upload any listings until after the fair so I would know what numbers to put up and not have any problems with the two sales clashing.
Heart of the Country Christmas Fair
Leading up to the day of set up I had managed to borrow the family pop-up gazebo while Paige would be bringing the table for our set up, Tasha due to cross booking could not make the Saturday and so only came on the Sunday which did mean an increase in cost for the stall of £5, which did push my budget a little over expected but nothing to major.
Church Fair
I hadn’t intended to do another stall but with the failure of the last one I diced it would be worth a shot, especially since it was nearby and a fair I had attended many times myself and knew it had good footfall as well as having the right visiting demographic. I set up a small stall on one table with boxes to prop up the pictures similar to the display at the previous stall. Overall the stall was a great success; I managed to make £86.50 on the stall which goes a long way to help paying of the cost of manufacture and with the stall itself only costing £5 also meant for a greater gross profit. I believe the reason for this success is a mixture of things, firstly it was inside and warm with a cheery Christmassy atmosphere which I think was a huge step up from the previous stall, the demographic at the event was also spot on for my target market. It was also after the events of black Friday and payday which could have also had an impact on sales. And just like with the previous one it also gave me a lot of experience in working with people and the stall which I can use in the future as I continue to sell the rest of my stock. Overall the experience proved to be very successful both through experience and though business and is something I can definitely look to do again in the future.
Etsy
Another huge phase of implementation is Etsy, this gave my online presence to the product and made it readily accessible. The first stage of this was to photography the products so that they looked presentable enough to post to the internet, especially since having good looking products and professional photos go a long way to helping a listing.
Heart of the Country Christmas Fair
Leading up to the day of set up I had managed to borrow the family pop-up gazebo while Paige would be bringing the table for our set up, Tasha due to cross booking could not make the Saturday and so only came on the Sunday which did mean an increase in cost for the stall of £5, which did push my budget a little over expected but nothing to major.
We arrived at 9am on the Saturday morning and where set up in time for 10am when the village opened, the stall looked presentable but it was bit empty with the position being on a corner set up and us only having one table, in hindsight we should have placed the table diagonally across the tent to make it more approachable and more full looking as it did look empty compared to the other stalls and was far out of the way to any of other stalls too. The next day we had Tashas stall which helped to make it more inviting looking and that was the weekend. Overall the weekend was not successful; I did not make my money back on the cost of the stall. There are a few reasons why I believe it wasn’t successful; the main reason is that there was very little foot fall on the weekend. This could have been caused by multiple problems, from the event not being advertised properly by the organiser to the weekend being immediately after Black. The weather could have also played a role as it was particularly cold that weekend which might have affected footfall but could have also affected interest in the stall as it was outside surrounded by warm shops. The placement of the stall could have also an issue as it was in an odd position away from any other stalls leaving it a bit alienated. Other venders also claimed the drop in sales and footfall could have been because of pay-day timing as it was the was the end of the financial month which can quite often effect peoples buying habits. However while the sales might have not been as good as predicated I did learn a lot from the experience, from what makes a better display to how to talk and communicate with customers better. I also learnt more about choosing an event and what to look out for to help make better more successful decisions in the future; so while the sales might have been a failure it wasn’t a fruitless experience.
Church Fair
I hadn’t intended to do another stall but with the failure of the last one I diced it would be worth a shot, especially since it was nearby and a fair I had attended many times myself and knew it had good footfall as well as having the right visiting demographic. I set up a small stall on one table with boxes to prop up the pictures similar to the display at the previous stall. Overall the stall was a great success; I managed to make £86.50 on the stall which goes a long way to help paying of the cost of manufacture and with the stall itself only costing £5 also meant for a greater gross profit. I believe the reason for this success is a mixture of things, firstly it was inside and warm with a cheery Christmassy atmosphere which I think was a huge step up from the previous stall, the demographic at the event was also spot on for my target market. It was also after the events of black Friday and payday which could have also had an impact on sales. And just like with the previous one it also gave me a lot of experience in working with people and the stall which I can use in the future as I continue to sell the rest of my stock. Overall the experience proved to be very successful both through experience and though business and is something I can definitely look to do again in the future.
Etsy
Another huge phase of implementation is Etsy, this gave my online presence to the product and made it readily accessible. The first stage of this was to photography the products so that they looked presentable enough to post to the internet, especially since having good looking products and professional photos go a long way to helping a listing.
I ended up setting up a little scene to show the artworks in to help bring back some of the Victorian vibes that were missing from the pieces and best help advertise them. Next was designing the listings, the first thing I wanted to do was add free shipping and put up the cost of the item by about £1.50 to make up for it, this is a very common method in places like Etsy as people are more likely to buy a more expensive product then a cheaper on which equals out in shipping cost as it doesn’t feel like a hidden cost being added on to the price. After that I was very careful to name the listing in order to get maximum search engine optimisation by using the post popular describing words for the listing in order to get the most attention through the search engine. After this I listed all of them for a price of £3.00 which added on to the cost of the stalls does take the budget over by about £10 but it’s not that much considering the whole budget. After words to help send traffic to the sight I also promoted it though my Instagram page by featuring it in related posts and advertising it in the story feature.
Overall though I did not sell anything but as I have previously mentioned it takes time to build up and grow a shop so even though I am taking this venture I highly doubted that I would sell anything. The listings however will also remain up and with more things being added to the shop combined with the Instagram promo means it will steadily grow and so will the traffic which will hopefully result in sales in the future. In terms of success while I didn’t sell anything but that is what I expected, and there where positive results such as my views and visits almost doubling every time I made an Instagram post including it, it was also successful in that it got a number of shop and item favourites which provide a good base to continue to grow from which will hopefully bring in future sales. The knowledge and experience I have learnt have also made this venture successful as it has allowed me to see where I could have improved and where I was doing well, for instance I learnt that the product photos worked for well for my prints but could have been improved for some of the other items to help better show them off. I also learnt a bit about advertising through instagram and what worked verse what didn’t which is also something I can use in the future and continue to learn more about. Overall while I didn’t sell anything I still consider it a success as I had predicted that I wouldn’t sell anything and the all-round experience and knowledge have been rewarding in their own right.
The Results
Adding up everything I made over the ventures as well as taking of the cost of set up including the small overspend I overall ended up making £151.50, meaning that if you take away the £149 production and sales fees I made a gross profit of £2.50.
Independent
Selling
The
last step of my implementation came from selling through friends, family, and
previous customers; while this was a small step it did reap rewards as I made £50
through this putting my endeavour into profit. It was successful as it helped
to show work to people who are interested in my work but aren’t involved in
social media or any of the events I held stalls and so bringing in new audience
to my work. It also worked to help develop more of my face to face customer communication skills and overall making it very successful to the project.
The Results
Adding up everything I made over the ventures as well as taking of the cost of set up including the small overspend I overall ended up making £151.50, meaning that if you take away the £149 production and sales fees I made a gross profit of £2.50.
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