Shrink Wrappers, how do you provide samples at craft shows?

[Carl]

We shrink wrap our soaps and we are planning a local craft fair/flea market next month.

We want to display 1 unwrapped sample bar for each variety that we offer.

Anybody have any suggestions?

You can't put it in front of the wrapped bars because then it's covering the label of the wrapped bars. It looks kinda awkward if you put it along side.

 

[Misschief]

I keep one unwrapped bar of each variety as a sample.

 

[Carl]

I keep one unwrapped bar of each variety as a sample.

View attachment 43576

Nice set up.

Thanks

 

[Carl]

Use something to elevate your wrapped bars then lay down your testers, try vice versa if that works better.

Hopefully @Misschief doesn't mind me borrowing her idea since we're several thousand miles away from each other!

 

[Lefty]

I don't shrink wrap, but I do a similar setup to @Misschief as well. My soaps are all packaged in boxes, so I stack 3, with a fourth standing up on top (somewhat like my profile pic) and place an unwrapped bar in front on a square coaster so people can see the design and smell the fragrance.

 

[Misschief]

If you're getting holes, you're too close to your soap. If you have wrinkly spots, you need to heat that area a little more. Keep your heat gun moving and, as already said, don't get too close. I always use the low setting on my heat gun. Depending on where the hole is, it isn't always a bad thing. There are times, I will make a small hole on purpose, as a sniff spot (especially on something like shower steamers).

 

[maxine289]

I clip the end off one corner of the shrink wrap bag (see top right of bag). When I shrink wrap, the clipped end becomes a smell hole for each bar, so I don't have to worry about sample bars.

 

[jcandleattic]

You can't put it in front of the wrapped bars because then it's covering the label of the wrapped bars. It looks kinda awkward if you put it along side.

I put my unwrapped bar in front of my wrapped bars and have never had a problem. The colors and scents draw them in, and when they pick the bar up to smell it they can then see the label on the wrapped bars.

Not a great pic but here's a pic of one of my displays. You can see I have an unwrapped bar in front of my wrapped bars. By the end of my selling season I am usually almost completely sold out.


ETA: Not as nice a set-up as @Misschief 's but it works for me, and get's the job done.

 

[cmzaha]

The size I cut my bars will leave me with 2 end slices. I label the slices, then shrink-wrap leaving each short end open. We just lay the smell sample on top of the full-size bars. If I eventually have to use a full bar due to the sample losing its fragrance, I will just open one short end of a bar to use as a sample which I sell at a discount when the batch is gone.

 

[cmzaha]

I only want one or two pieces contaminated so all my soaps that are sold are fully wrapped. You can make extra soap batter and pour samples but they need to have enough surface to be able to smell them, such as thinner slices of your regular size soaps. Customers will really appreciate fully wrapped soaps especially today. I really wonder if any will actually pick up and smell soaps today and small pieces just do not work for smell samples. This is not a real current pic of the soap portion of my display, but it shows the smell slices on top of the wrapped soaps. My smell samples are also partially wrapped. I wrap everything.

 

[Catscankim]

I know this is a little old...and I don't do craft shows, but I have been taking them to work etc.

I was shrink wrapping with a sniffy spot on the end. People still stick their noses right on it. I had a whole bag full of soaps that I brought to work. Safe to say, Nurse Andrew had his nose on every single bar.

So my new thing is that I shrink wrap every bar with no sniffy spot, and have my end cuts in a small ziploc bag with a corresponding label for the soap. They look nicer this way anyway, although people are still looking for the smell hole lol. They will get used to it. Now I'm like "you put your nose on my soap, you bought it" LOL.