by Shasta McLaughlin
The Extravaganza Craft Productions
copyright 2010

?How can you make your booth stand out at jewelry shows?

1. Specialize in something!

Artisans can specialize in:

* gold or silver jewelry
* vintage pieces
* bridal jewelry
* jewelry from natural gemstone, precious or semi-precious stones
* Western, outdoor, rugged, or nature jewelry
* Silverware jewelry
* Pieces inspired by any race or nationality
* Beaded jewelry
* remake antique jewelry

Your pieces can be inspired by a place such as all your pieces having the colors of the Grand Canyon or your favorite mountain scene. They might be inspired by your favorite city, or even by an industrial building.

The key in specializing is to choose a large group of people with similar tastes in handcrafted jewelry and design jewelry specifically for them.

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What does Real Estate have to do with selling arts and crafts?

The way I see it your art or craft show booth is kind of like trying to sell a house. If you try to sell an empty house people can’t see in their minds what the house will look like when it’s all finished, painted, furnished, and decorated. You will also have a hard time trying to sell a house that is full of clutter, people can only imagine that the rest of the house hasn’t been taken care of well. They will see that the house will be too much work and cost too much money.

Your art or craft show booth is like selling your house. The booth will help your customers imagine using the product they have purchased from you. You have to do the imagining for them. How?

First you need to think about your product, who is it designed for, how and where will it be used? The answers to these questions should affect the theme and design of your booth.

Is what you’re selling for boys, girls, men or women? Is it for children, preteens, teens, young adults, or mature adults? Don’t present children’s items in an adult setting or adult item’s in a child like setting. Use colors that appeal to the ages you’re selling to. What ideas and themes appeal to them?

For instance fancy jewelry for teens might be presented as if at a prom, towel racks might be presented as in a high class hotel bathroom, and clothing needs to be presented as if it were in a fancy closet but also as outfits on the person.

When you created your product you had a vision of how people would use it, your booth is your opportunity to present them with that picture.

Stage your booth just like you would a home that you were trying to sell. Imagine yourself as a customer walking into your booth. Critique and criticize as if you were the customer, ask friends and family to do the same. Ask for them to point out things that are distracting, look odd, and especially anything they feel is not safe.

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In almost any store where you shop, you will be asked at check-out for your name or telephone number, or if you have a store card. Most people comply and whip out that card, because it entitles them to sale prices or special discounts. The requested information or the card keeps track of customer purchases, and the information is automatically entered into the store’s database. The collected data is used to determine and implement more productive marketing strategies.

Use your jewelry software to create an account for each customer. Along with the usual name, address and phone number, enter the following information:

· E-mail addresses
· Product purchased
· Purchase price
· Services, including repairs and appraisals
· Purchases of warranties and insurance
· Style preferences
· Special requests for items of information

With the jewelry software, you can assess relevant market conditions and sales data to determine your marketing strategies. You will see what items sell well, and which don’t. This will help you determine what inventory should be increased or decreased. The average price of items being sold tells you in what price range customers are most likely to make a purchase. Whether you make you own jewelry or purchase your stock, some items will have higher rates of return or need for repairs. If you make your jewelry and reports show that a certain brand or type of clasp or crimping bead breaks quite often, you will know to change to a more reliable brand. The same applies to brands or styles of ready-made jewelry.

Set specific goals for you business. For instance, you may want to increase the percentage of sales for a certain item, or phase out a product that doesn’t sell well to make room for a new line. Use the jewelry software to help you determine where to apply the correct strategies for attaining your business goals. As you become more experienced in using the software, you will be able to determine where to increase product investments and view your available assets, such as liquid assets, cash flow, equity and inventory. You may find jewelry software such a valuable tool that you’ll wonder how your business ever got along without it!

Gary Capps is the general manager of Beading-Software.com.  Contact us through our website http://www.beading-software.com for tips on jewelry making and setting up your own home jewelry business.

Craft Marketer

A big Thank You to James Dillehay.

Shasta McLaughlin
The Extravaganza Craft Productions
www.extravaganzacrafts.com

I was reading a post by Carla of Cobweb Corner and it got me thinking how she got her prospects (people in her craft show booth) into the buying mood making them buying customers.

Read her post here:
Jewelry Shows – There’s Something about a Sale

The internet marketing gurus I’ve been studying suggest creating a loss leader (a product you lose money on in the beginning to get people buying). They often offer a free product to gain the trust of the prospect and charge shipping on the product because if the customer would pay for shipping they are a qualified buyer.

The thing I didn’t see in her post was after she had her craft show prospects in the buying mood, what she did then.

The thing I’m learning as I study marketing is always offer an upsell or a downsell when a customer is making a purchase.

When you have a customer making a purchase always offer them a complimentary product (meaning a product similar in style or nature to the one they are already purchasing) as an upsell. You can even offer a product that is twice the price of the original one they are buying. Keep offering additional upsells as long as they keep saying yes.

When they say no, offer them a down sell. A down sell can be another lower priced product, a discount on the whole set, or a payment plan.

Tell me what you offer as an upsell or downsell.

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• have completed their academic/professional training,

• have been out of school for one year or more, and

• have not had a solo artist exhibition in a commercial gallery or museum.

Submitted work must have been unsupervised if from an academic setting.
Jurors for the 2009 competition are: Ursula Neuman, jewelry curator at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Gail Hufjay, long-standing member of AJF and a collector of contemporary jewelry; and Masumi Kataoka, jewelry artist and recipient of the AJF’s 2008 Award.
Information is available on the AJF website.
More information about the award may be found on the AJF website, www.artjewelryforum.org.  Applications may be submitted at www.callforentry.org.
The winner of this year’s competition and $5,000 cash award will be announced at SOFA Chicago November 6-9, where the artist’s work will be exhibited at an AJF member gallery.

Application deadline is June 14, 2009

http://www.rings-things.com/craft_business_tips.htm

A big Thank You to Rings & Things.

Shasta McLaughlin
The Extravaganza Craft Productions
www.extravaganzacrafts.com

I came across a new resource today.  I know that many of you come here looking for photos of art and craft show booth displays to gain inspiration for your own show booths.

Today I found out that Flickr has very many art and craft show booth pictures.  I saved several of them to my favorites to share with you.  You can view them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/37771513@N02/favorites/.

Many more pictures of art and craft show booths as well as the merchandise being sold were copyrighted so I haven’t included them.

Keywords you can use to search for more great pictures are:

• handmade
• arts market
• arts & crafts
• holiday craft show
• holiday
• art
• art show
• craft show
• farmer’s market
• market
• craft
• indie craft fair

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