Hypothetical Questions for Sellers

[MirandaH]

I am not selling yet. I am not sure if I will or won't. I live in an area which has lots of shows all year round. It is a touristy area, so there are lots of festivals and concerts. There is one particular festival that I think that I might like to eventually try to get into. I wouldn't try to get in this year, so at the earliest, it would be 18 months before it would happen.

The show costs $450 per day for a 10 x 10 booth, however, they are expecting 125,000 people. This is a popular enough festival that I could make soaps with tags that mention the festival as souvenirs. Keeping in mind that while people will be selling crafts, this is not a craft show, but a festival celebrating something like apples and all things apples and people come from miles around to go to this festival and alcohol will be present.

If you had the money to get into this show, would you?
If so, assuming that all of the legalities and insurance are taken care of, what would be the first thing you would do/make/prepare to get ready for something of this size?
How many bars would you bring with you to a festival of this size?

There are two of these festivals that are similar, but celebrating a different thing. The second is $100 a day (10 x 15) and celebrates everything pig related and doesn't list an expected turnout, but says they will have 200 bathrooms. So far there are 11 people signed up listed for this year and one of them sells soap. Looks like they may be sold out and haven't put up all the vendors. There are 100 spaces.

Again, no idea if I will ever sell, but if I did and I was able, I would really like to get into one of these, but I am a little nervous about the number of people. My family owned a concession business, so I know what doing big events is like, but I have never done it with soap. I can't judge what kind of a percentage of people are going to buy soap at events like that, but 120,000 people would be something I would plan on needing help with. I had a formula when it was hotdogs and sno-kones. Is there a formula for this?

 

[CaraBou]

I can't speak to the business or experience end. But I'll speak anyway from the point of a niche. I would go further than just making a tag -- I would custom fit a suite of soaps to the theme. So if it's apples, you take it to things like: red & green with the obvious scents; another with seeds on the top; a Johnny (gardner's) soap; blossom soap (white with floral scent); applesauce / apple cider soap (in lieu of water), etc. If it's pigs, it's pigs (lard is just the start, but you're on your own from there. And good thing apples and pork go together!). Having a unique line, and one that fits the theme, seems a good approach in a world full of beautiful soaps for sale.

Now back to your original question... is there a formula to figure out just how much you'd need??

 

[MirandaH]

Oh my goodness! I had thought about doing different scents and trying to figure out if there was a way to make something that isn't MP that looks like an apple pie that I could slice into pieces and getting apple shaped molds and buying the baskets that people put fruit they are picking and and putting my soaps in some of those for display, but I hadn't thought about putting the seeds on the top! That sounds so cute!!

The reason I am asking about the festivals is because there isn't really much here in the way of craft shows. There are a few that are small and don't usually have a great turnout. We have festivals celebrating just about everything you could imagine, so the apple one might not be where I end up. I might not do any of them because of the cost to get in and needing to find help if I did get into one.

My main concern is if I were to be successful. If you don't bring enough product you are in a pickle. You have to be at these things to set up at 5 in the morning. The fairgrounds open at 6 at most of these places. By 6 am, all vehicles must be gone from the fairgrounds and you can't bring vehicles back on to the grounds until the festival closes (usually around 9 or 10 at night). So if you sell out and don't have someone who can run to get more product, you are stuck at an empty booth until festival closing...and they don't like you to have an empty booth. They want you to bring more than enough. Some of them charge admission and people don't want to pay to walk around empty booths. I would need to bring everything with me the first trip and also have enough for the second day, because they don't typically let you just do one day when the festival lasts multiple days. So I am curious if it would be worth it for 2 days and if it would even be possible to do such a thing. I am thinking for the second festival, it would, with it only being $100 to get in per day and there is already someone signed up that is selling soap. But for the $400+ festivals, would I be the only soaper there? And if so, I would probably need more product than if I were there with others.

For starters, if I even decide to sell, I will most likely do the flea market. It's only $11 per day and has a pretty good turnout. I don't even go anymore unless there is something I need there that I can't get elsewhere because it is so crowded it is hard to move around. But even that is probably a year or more off.

 

[AtraGarden]

Go ahead without thinking if your target audience will be in those festivals. There is a formula for this but you are the one who could create!

List your expenses( Rent, insurance, labor, etc) then calculate how many soaps you should sell to breakeven.

Breakeven + 1 bar is your profit.

 

[MirandaH]

Go ahead without thinking if your target audience will be in those festivals. There is a formula for this but you are the one who could create!

List your expenses( Rent, insurance, labor, etc) then calculate how many soaps you should sell to breakeven.

Breakeven + 1 bar is your profit.

Target market is another issue I have been thinking about. I have been to the two festivals I listed above the apple one would probably be more my target market than the pig one, but there is a soaper already signed up for the pig one, which helps me to think that I might have some target market people there, but another soaper being there might hurt me.

I plan on going to as many of these festivals this year as possible, as a customer, to scope them out, see how many people, how many soapers, what kind of traffic they are getting, how many people are buying, etc. I am a so scared of falling on my face with this and honesty, feel a little forced and pushed by my husband to make this work. He makes a very decent living, and we have 5 kids so he doesn't want me to work, but knows I will not feel right contributing nothing. Because I am always so scared of failure I try to work out every detail in advance, so that is why I am asking so early. I just wish there were more small events here, instead of all these big things, to get started with. That flea market sells lots of similar things, and has stores that are like minded with the natural ingredients, and they have 44 permanent shops as well as the $11 tables and all of the stores seem to do well. Most go on to open stores of their own. I just feel that taking things as slow as possible and researching every avenue is the way to go before trying any of the shows and I don't want to be stuck with no soap, sitting in an empty booth if it does work out.

 

[AtraGarden]

Target market is another issue I have been thinking about. I have been to the two festivals I listed above the apple one would probably be more my target market than the pig one, but there is a soaper already signed up for the pig one, which helps me to think that I might have some target market people there, but another soaper being there might hurt me.

I plan on going to as many of these festivals this year as possible, as a customer, to scope them out, see how many people, how many soapers, what kind of traffic they are getting, how many people are buying, etc. I am a so scared of falling on my face with this and honesty, feel a little forced and pushed by my husband to make this work. He makes a very decent living, and we have 5 kids so he doesn't want me to work, but knows I will not feel right contributing nothing. Because I am always so scared of failure I try to work out every detail in advance, so that is why I am asking so early. I just wish there were more small events here, instead of all these big things, to get started with. That flea market sells lots of similar things, and has stores that are like minded with the natural ingredients, and they have 44 permanent shops as well as the $11 tables and all of the stores seem to do well. Most go on to open stores of their own. I just feel that taking things as slow as possible and researching every avenue is the way to go before trying any of the shows and I don't want to be stuck with no soap, sitting in an empty booth if it does work out.

There is a free service provided by SBA called SCORE. I used it when I used to live in US and it is great. You should sign up and get help in organizing and executing your ideas. Good luck to you and I hope everything will workout.

 

[MirandaH]

There is a free service provided by SBA called SCORE. I used it when I used to live in US and it is great. You should sign up and get help in organizing and executing your ideas. Good luck to you and I hope everything will workout.

Thank you!! I will certainly check that out!

 

[100%Natural]

I personally would not pay the $450 entry fee per day for a show. If I had big ticket items on my table then I would consider it, but when your soap is $6.00 per bar that's a lot of soap to sell.

Another thing to think about is whether it is indoors or outdoors. If it's outdoors then you're dependent on weather. Will they refund your fees is it's pouring rain? Anytime it rains I have to pack up and head home in order to save my inventory from ruin.

You can always contact other vendors that are signed up and ask if they are return vendors or if it's their first year. If there aren't many return vendors then that would raise a red flag for me.

 

[MirandaH]

I personally would not pay the $450 entry fee per day for a show. If I had big ticket items on my table then I would consider it, but when your soap is $6.00 per bar that's a lot of soap to sell.

Another thing to think about is whether it is indoors or outdoors. If it's outdoors then you're dependent on weather. Will they refund your fees is it's pouring rain? Anytime it rains I have to pack up and head home in order to save my inventory from ruin.

You can always contact other vendors that are signed up and ask if they are return vendors or if it's their first year. If there aren't many return vendors then that would raise a red flag for me.

Oh, I had't even considered weather! I have been looking and thinking I would wait one more year longer than I had planned and then consider getting in to one because there are literally hundreds of them in the area during the Summer, but in Winter there are about 5 each weekend, but they are ALL outside. This is a community on the water and there are lots of big parks and tourist attractions and outdoor concerts, etc. It's all about being outside here. The weather has to be extraordinarily bad (like a hurricane) for them to close and event or postpone it. I have been to many festivals in the rain with the hot dog business.

What about the $100 show?? Would you risk the 100 for a 10 x 15 booth at an even that will have 200 bathrooms? I haven't been to this festival in about 10 years but last time I went it was super crowded. Assume that the money is not refunded for weather unless the even is outright cancelled, which is unlikely.

 

[100%Natural]

I personally started at really small markets and shows to test for sales before I entered any expensive shows. The $100 fee is much more reasonable for a soap vendor. I would check to see how many other soapers are signed up for that one as well. There very well could be more than 1.

When there is competition, placement within the vending space is important to know as well. I recently did a 4 day show where I was competing against 7 other soapers who were more local than I was. There were 170 vendors at that show. Unfortunately I was the last soap booth customers came upon so we didn't do as well as we could have. I can't even count how many times I heard "I wish I had come across your booth sooner." And of course they had competitors bags in their hands. Lesson learned there!

I also ask the organizers for a list of vendors in my category and then start researching their products. Once I figure out why my stuff is different from theirs, I adjust my sales pitch accordingly. Without bashing them of course. The particular show I mentioned above I was the only one that didn't use Palm products so that was a big selling feature for me.

Any show you enter is a gamble especially if it's outdoors. It's just a matter of whether you want to roll big dice or little dice.

 

[paillo]

I agree that $900 - gasp - is a really steep fee for relatively small-ticket items like soap, B&B. I'd attend it, look around, talk with other soapmakers about the event, and think about it the following year if it looks worth it. Definitely I'd start with a $100 show, the one you mentioned sounds good. And if you do get weathered out, hey, you haven't lost a lot.

The last poster makes a good point in researching your competitors' products and adjusting yours accordingly. I did my first really big show over the holidays, and know that for next year I'm going to bring mostly products that you won't find in most soapers' booths. I would have sold out of all my unusual products if only I'd known to bring more of them and fewer of the more typical ones. Lesson learned!

 

[MirandaH]

I personally started at really small markets and shows to test for sales before I entered any expensive shows. The $100 fee is much more reasonable for a soap vendor. I would check to see how many other soapers are signed up for that one as well. There very well could be more than 1.

When there is competition, placement within the vending space is important to know as well. I recently did a 4 day show where I was competing against 7 other soapers who were more local than I was. There were 170 vendors at that show. Unfortunately I was the last soap booth customers came upon so we didn't do as well as we could have. I can't even count how many times I heard "I wish I had come across your booth sooner." And of course they had competitors bags in their hands. Lesson learned there!

I also ask the organizers for a list of vendors in my category and then start researching their products. Once I figure out why my stuff is different from theirs, I adjust my sales pitch accordingly. Without bashing them of course. The particular show I mentioned above I was the only one that didn't use Palm products so that was a big selling feature for me.

Any show you enter is a gamble especially if it's outdoors. It's just a matter of whether you want to roll big dice or little dice.

Great food for thought. The $100 one is the one that already has another soaper signed up for this year (I am not trying to get into any of the festivals this year) and there is a map of the grounds and where the other soapers booth will be located. I was looking at the map the other day and thinking somewhere away from other soapers, but sort of in the middle. That way, they might already pass one and be thinking it over, and then see mine afterwards.

I am figuring it will take me at least a year to know what my soaps are going to do and perfect a recipe that many people like. Then I am figuring during that year, start working on packaging and logo and finding out what I need to do to get legal and insured and then start that process and get a site built, which I should be able to do on my own since that was my minor in college. Then just start small at the flea market and go from there. I just wish there were smaller dice to roll around here other than just this one flea market. Lots to think about.

 

[MirandaH]

I agree that $900 - gasp - is a really steep fee for relatively small-ticket items like soap, B&B. I'd attend it, look around, talk with other soapmakers about the event, and think about it the following year if it looks worth it. Definitely I'd start with a $100 show, the one you mentioned sounds good. And if you do get weathered out, hey, you haven't lost a lot.

The last poster makes a good point in researching your competitors' products and adjusting yours accordingly. I did my first really big show over the holidays, and know that for next year I'm going to bring mostly products that you won't find in most soapers' booths. I would have sold out of all my unusual products if only I'd known to bring more of them and fewer of the more typical ones. Lesson learned!

You should see what it costs to get into some of the other ones. One event is four days long and is normally huge. And by huge, I mean 300,000 - 350,000 people in attendance on average, but they want $1000 a day + 15 percent of sales after tax. And last year, there was a hurricane coming that week and only 155,000 people attended. And 61% of those people were from out of town. Just about everything here is like that. Small shows and festivals don't happen because people think, why bother, when people can go to the big festivals for free too. The $100 one has an attendance fee of $5. The one I talked about above is free and open to the public. The wine festival and beer festivals have $20 - $35 admission fees, but still get nearly 20,000 people each and are only one day. Things are just very different here from most of the things I see people post about where they live.

 

[paillo]

Aha, I bet you're in the Virginia Beach area. I looked at getting into a couple of those festivals, and was blown away by the entry fees. Guessing they don't allow booth sharing, but it might be worth asking, and if it's allowed, see if they'll pair you up with a complementary but not competing vendor. I've asked about sharing a few, it's been allowed, and I've been pleasantly surprised, especially paying only half the fee. At a few other festivals, I've been allowed to share a booth (we got a larger one) with an alpaca farm. Her fibers and fiber products help sell my felted soaps, and the soap scents draw people to see her gorgeous stuff. Orrrrr... heh heh, wanna share a booth with a fellow soap maker?

 

[MirandaH]

Aha, I bet you're in the Virginia Beach area. I looked at getting into a couple of those festivals, and was blown away by the entry fees. Guessing they don't allow booth sharing, but it might be worth asking, and if it's allowed, see if they'll pair you up with a complementary but not competing vendor. I've asked about sharing a few, it's been allowed, and I've been pleasantly surprised, especially paying only half the fee. At a few other festivals, I've been allowed to share a booth (we got a larger one) with an alpaca farm. Her fibers and fiber products help sell my felted soaps, and the soap scents draw people to see her gorgeous stuff. Orrrrr... heh heh, wanna share a booth with a fellow soap maker?

I most certainly am. I live in Norfolk, actually. And sharing would be something I would be interested in looking into. I am still friends with a lot of food vendors that were my "competition" at various festivals that we went to and always found it easier to be friendly with competition, as opposed to anything otherwise. Some other vendors can be sneaky! That's just not me. The whole reasoning behind my thinking was a $900 show, how much are you going to spend on materials? Depends on the size of the show, but say you have $1800 in materials and labor (I know that sounds huge, but I still haven't calculated how much my soap even costs, so I don't have any idea what I would charge or how much that would make, but I would imagine a lot. I'm also used to shelling out the money to supply food to 10,000 people where I am the only food vendor) That's a total of $2700. Certainly you can make 1000 bars with $1800 including labor, right? Again, I know this ain't hot dogs and I only have experience in that. But if you sold your bars for $6 each, you would need to sell 451 bars to make a profit. How hard could it be to sell 451 bars to 120,000 people?? But the weather scares me. But split between two people, that's only 226 each. I may be totally way off base here, but it would seem that you have some trouble on your hands if you can't catch the eye of 226 people and talk them into 1 bar each out of 120,000 people. But I do admit my ignorance in all of this and this is all helping me in my research, so I appreciate anyone who can tell me any ways that my thinking is flawed, since most of you have a lot more experience than I.

 

[MirandaH]

Also, I have lived here my entire life. My family are all crafters. My stepdad did shows and had a permanent store in the flea market for years, so I know the turnout of the few smaller craft shows and I know the long term goal needs to be these festivals. I just don't know if it would be worth it yet and plan on spending a lot of time taking notes at the various festivals over the next year or two. Just trying to think of all of the pitfalls in advance.

 

[shunt2011]

I've done a couple large outdoor shows. One is 3 hours from home but they have 200+ vendors and it runs Sat & Sun. It's 95.00 for the entire weekend rain or shine. I do extremely well and there are 5 other soapers there. I've done as much at 15-20 times my fee. I do another one that's 3.5 hours away and it's a smaller event with about 85 vendors and I'm the only CP soaper and I do well there too and once again it's 95.00 for the weekend. If I want to do shows locally they are way too expensive for my blood and run between 250-700 for a weekend with over 100+ vendors. I just don't know that I would even make my fee little lone a profit at those costs.

 

[dixiedragon]

I'm not a seller, but one thing I would consider is trying to find a partner to share the booth with. That way you have a person to help you, and more product without you having to invest a huge amount of $.

Just an anecdote: My mom and I had a booth at a flea market one year, selling soap, lotion, lipbalm, etc. My mom's friend wanted to share our booth. She made hand-painted Christmas themed fireplace covers. We're in Alabama, a) not many people have fireplaces and b) those few who do have them often use them during the Christmas season! But we split the booth fee with her. Well, Friend's Mom and Dad show up to the flea market with a whole bunch of junk they want to put out at our table. We put a few things out, like some handmade scarves (not quality scarves, but those stringy scarves that are mostly ribbon and fluff). Other things like an old VCR and some old bags of roasted peanuts we refused to put out. Friend's Mom and Dad were a bit put out by that. No point to this story, except people are odd.

 

[MirandaH]

I've done a couple large outdoor shows. One is 3 hours from home but they have 200+ vendors and it runs Sat & Sun. It's 95.00 for the entire weekend rain or shine. I do extremely well and there are 5 other soapers there. I've done as much at 15-20 times my fee. I do another one that's 3.5 hours away and it's a smaller event with about 85 vendors and I'm the only CP soaper and I do well there too and once again it's 95.00 for the weekend. If I want to do shows locally they are way too expensive for my blood and run between 250-700 for a weekend with over 100+ vendors. I just don't know that I would even make my fee little lone a profit at those costs.

Thank you! This is great feedback. There are lots of things that are closer to the $100 and I would probably limit myself to around that number and not go any bigger unless I was really doing well, however I still run into the issue of how much product to bring. Even some of the $100 ones have 100,000+ people in attendance and I wonder if it is even feasible to bring that much product in the first place. Unlike hauling canned sodas, I wouldn't feel comfortable with my soaps in the back in a trailer, exposed to the elements. Even in plastic snap top totes. But I also don't want to bring so much that I am hauling a ton back home either. At this point, it's all just a matter of trying to get other people's thoughts and experiences because unless I am willing to travel quite a distance, there are no middle ground events. It is tiny or HUGE and not a whole lot in between to figure out how to work your way up. And it would be so convenient to run down to the fairgrounds that are 6 blocks from my house and set up and then come home quickly when it's over. Coming home from events that were far off was exhausting after cooking all day and serving people and then breaking down and then once home putting everything away.

 

[MirandaH]

I'm not a seller, but one thing I would consider is trying to find a partner to share the booth with. That way you have a person to help you, and more product without you having to invest a huge amount of $.

Just an anecdote: My mom and I had a booth at a flea market one year, selling soap, lotion, lipbalm, etc. My mom's friend wanted to share our booth. She made hand-painted Christmas themed fireplace covers. We're in Alabama, a) not many people have fireplaces and b) those few who do have them often use them during the Christmas season! But we split the booth fee with her. Well, Friend's Mom and Dad show up to the flea market with a whole bunch of junk they want to put out at our table. We put a few things out, like some handmade scarves (not quality scarves, but those stringy scarves that are mostly ribbon and fluff). Other things like an old VCR and some old bags of roasted peanuts we refused to put out. Friend's Mom and Dad were a bit put out by that. No point to this story, except people are odd.

Wowza! :shock: I would much rather share my booth with a fellow soaper than someone trying to turn it into their own personal yard sale. Geez!