Displaying your Market Stall

Getting the right feel for your market stall is paramount. Customers like to feel visually quenched when they look at your stand and if your layout is interesting they will stay longer and hopefully buy something.

I spent a lot of time at the last Northside Makers taking in the techniques and hardware that people had used to display their market stock.

Miss Pepperberry uses rustic wooden boxes to display their fabric covered journals.

Behind the stall, the bottom box is reversed and used as the "admin" centre for this stall.

Another stall, Two Cheese Please, also has an admin centre behind their stall.

She uses stainless kitchen cupboard stands covered in felt for her display.

An additional level is created by some hard card covered by felt sitting on jars of buttons.

I find the appearance of DVD and CD stands quite funny, scattered throughout the market being used to display all sorts of things. The first grand stand is one that Miss Pepperberry uses to show her passport covers.

Another stall uses a CD stand to hold cards.

Mrs Beckinsale uses a letter stand to hold her gift cards.

I've got lots of other snaps of strategies that people use for displays, but perhaps another day! Have you posted any cool display tips on your market stall??

Market Countdown

February's Northside Makers Market snuck up on me so fast, in the last week I found myself in a bit if a tizz trying to keep my head above water ...

via Northside Makers Flickr

A while back I published a post called Top 10 hints for markets. You can be well organised on the day, but unless there are customers, your stock is not going to move one inch!!

The busier the market is, the better buzz it has. So what can you do?

Advertise far and wide

Yes, the market organisers should be responsible for some of this (some would argue most), but you need to do your part in building excitement about your business and the market. After all you want people to attend the market to look at your products not anyone elses!

• You can email your friends and tell them. Encourage your friends to forward the email onto their friends.
  
• Use Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools to let people know what is happening ... if you don't have a Facebook Fan page then you should!
  
• Build anticipation by showing parts of or hints about a new product range. For example Dear Fii does this so well with her gorgeous photography.
  
• Make sure your neighbours/friends/relatives know about the market. They will get a buzz out of seeing your stuff.
  

Build Loyality

I have this one gorgeous customer that comes to every market and she generally brings a different friend each time to say hello.

So what can you do to build loyalty?

• Do your blog readers get a discount if they mention your blog?
• Have you emailed past customers and offered them an incentive for turning up?
• Are you showcasing new products or services?
• Ask yourself, how can I get my repeat customers to return to my market stall?

In addition to actually making things for the market stall, there are SO many other things that you can do to build excitement and your customer base. Curlypops ran a great competition a while back called SuperPops. That got everyone revved up and they wanted to see what she was making at her next stall.

Given that I felt so out of control before my next market, here is my count down list for the next Northside Makers Market in March. I work better with lists and it is easier to delegate if you know what you need to to!

via Northside Makers Flickr

4 weeks outbound

• Send out facebook invites to friends. Let them know what you are doing!
• Decide on whether you are going to have a new product range so that you have enough time to make and blog about it in snippets to build excitement!
• Hand out fliers to your neighbours, get them to help. Ask them to take in pamphlets to work and put them up on the social noticeboards.
• Do you have enough business cards and pamphlets for the next market stall? Get these organised now.

3 weeks outbound

• Hint at the new products you will have at your market.
• What new materials are you using?Are you showcasing or working on a new design?
• Send out press release if you are launching a new product.
• Has your favourite cafe got a poster of the next market you are at?
• Make sure you go EVERYWHERE with pamphlets so that you can tell EVERYONE!
• What forums do you frequent. Have you posted your market details on these forums?

2 weeks outbound

• Make sure you have a big blog post about the market, and if the organisers have listed the stall holders then plug them as well. The more buzz the more customers.
• Email out past customers (if you are able to) and let them know that you have new products or a special offer for them.
• Advertise Blog specials for the market, 10% for regular readers with a code word! A free item with a larger item purchased.
• Do you catch public transport? Leave a few pamphlets on the tram or train!

1 week outbound

Most of your personal advertising should be done by now. The market organisers are probably going at it hard (this comment from personal experience), but any pamphlets to friends should be done by this time so that they have time to distribute them. People generally need time to plan their weekends.

• Make sure you have pamphlets for your NEXT market for your stall.
• Do you have any discount coupons for customers that purchase large items?
  
• Send out a reminder to your Facebook/Livejournal/Blogging friends
• Reminders on any forums that you frequent.
• More blog posts about your stock and the market. Tips for where to park the car? Cafe's to visit before and after? Help people make an event of it!

*phew* exhausted!

The very likelihood of me actually following a plan is remote, but I find if I write it down, there is a higher likelihood that I will pick up on about 50% of these tips and hints. Hope that you have found this list helpful!

Black Market Madness

I really should have taken more pictures, but I was kept busy for most of the day. When I wasn't tending the stall, I was chatting, drinking or grooving to the band that played.

The Black Market on Sunday was fabulous. Unlike other markets, this is actually a really big garage sale on someones double block in Northcote.

So it has a different feel to other markets. Sausage Sizzles, a Band and more importantly beer. Slap Cosmetics came along and shared a stall with me, but I didn't get any pictures of the lovely Nikki and her wares.

I had been fretting for days as to how to display my new fridge magnets and then I found myself thinking of a martini and voila ... cocktail shaker to the rescue!

I had a good day and there were lots of other crafty peeps, including the Melbourne Alternative Crafters. My fabric journal covers sold well, people liking the fact that you could exchange the insides for a diary if you wanted to. Probably a bit early for peoploe buying diaries, I am also glad that I made them a standard size.

On my stall I had a family of softies from Little Cooties keeping me company and people loved them! The lovely Angelica was there, or "Jelli" as Tori calls her from Jellibat with her delightful creations. Angelica is a Northside chick.

Angelia

Duncan from DunxWerx was there with his leather bits and pieces. Head over to his facebook page and give him feedback on what he is doing.

Duncan

But the best thing about the day was coming home to some home made chicken noodle soup, made by the hubby .. we are all down with the snots and coughs at the moment, so this hit the spot.

Sisters Market

The panic always kicks in the weekend before a market. Will I have enough stock? Have I filled in all the gaps from the last market? Do I have the energy? Is my stuff good enough?

Next weekend I have my first stall at the Sisters Market in Brunswick Town Hall on the 1st of August. Many of my fellow crafters have done this market time and time again, but alas, this is my first go! So nervous, I am!

So come along ... take a peep at my stall ... give me feedback ... bring me food ... but most of all, enjoy the market and all the craftiness it has to offer. Finki Handmade will be there, along with Lauren Williams, Rabbit and the Duck and Printspace. Hopefully I will see you there?

Margaret's 10 tips and hints for Markets

A friend recently asked me for advice with her first market. Although I have only done a few of them, I thought I would try my hand at a Top 10 list (no particular order). I just posted this list on Dust Team for others to read as well ... so any comments would be useful!

1. Make sure you have plenty of business cards and postcards to write on for people and always take down names to follow-up, if they walk away with your card chances are they will look but not purchase.
2. A clip board to collect names and emails is a good idea.
3. Have a receipt book with ABN just in case someone asks.
4. Organise for friends to come in and give you 20 minute breaks for lunch etc. It might be nice to be a martyr and work all day but you will be pooped by the end of it.
5. Develop a brag book/portfolio of the work that you have done and the direction you are going in.
6. Don't talk wholesale prices at a retail event, if a shop is interested in your stuff follow-up by going to their shop and seeing if your product fits in.
7. Never say "I didn't get time to make that", rather " I have all sold out!" sounds better!
8. Have a few sheets of gift wrap, I know it is a little thing, but that customer will return if you go the extra mile.
9. Make sure your blog is up to date so that when people follow-up on your business card they are coming across a well developed blog with content in it.
10. Have fun! Laugh, enjoy yourself!

NB. There is no mention of stock levels. Take as much as you can!
And if you want me to make you a custom money belt for your market debut, let me know!!

Other articles that I have found that have pearls of wisdom:

• Operating a Successful Market Stall
• Market Wisdom @ mypoppet