Last year, the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen was invited by George Little Management to do a booth at the Boston Gift Show. I attended and worked all four days of the show. Since then, I’ve been asked many times about my experiences there. As a courtesy to members of the League who are considering doing the League’s booth at the upcoming Boston Gift Show, here is my take on last year’s show.
(DISCLAIMER: All of the opinions expressed in this article are mine and mine alone. They are not necessarily the opinion of the League of NH Craftsmen, nor my fellow exhibitors.)
IN A NUTSHELL….
I believe this show is an EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY for League craftspeople. I even believe the educational value is more important in the long run to the potential monetary value for individual craftspeople.
I think it would be best if the League referred to this opportunity not as “Do you want to do the Boston Gift Show?”, but as “Wholesale Shows 101”. Because the primary experience is one of EDUCATION. What you can LEARN from doing this show is extremely valuable. Whether you will make SALES is almost secondary. If you have this attitude, you will experience the most satisfaction and success from the experience.
Why? Because the League is new to this venue. And because this particular wholesale venue may or may not be the best venue for League craftspeople. After doing this show, you can judge for yourself whether or not this PARTICULAR wholesale show is the RIGHT wholesale show for your work. But more importantly, you will know HOW TO DO a wholesale show.
SHOULD I DO THE SHOW?
I found the experience highly educational rather than profitable, and advise you to consider doing the show for that reason. Any sales you make will be gravy! If it is anywhere in your business plan to do wholesale, and you think you might do a wholesale show someday, then doing this show under the League’s banner is highly educational and AFFORDABLE. (It costs thousands of dollars to do a good wholesale show.)
You will see a wholesale show up close and personal, by actually doing the show in a relatively low-threshold, low-risk way—under the League’s banner and in conjunction with other League exhibitors. You will learn how to display and present your products for wholesale buyers, what kind of support materials you need, and what buyers need to know about your work before they’ll buy it.
DO YOU THINK I’LL SELL STUFF?
Short answer: I don’t know.
I constantly try a lot of new things (on-line wholesale vendors, sales/demo booth, wholesale shows, etc.) with the idea that I am RESEARCHING how best to grow my business. An immediate return on investment is nice, but not always possible. Since I’m never positive MY work will sell, it’s really hard for me to know if YOUR work will sell.
Also, to the best of my financial ability, I’m constantly thinking long-term business growth and development. I only hope to recoup my expenses so I can decide whether to keep pursuing that particular venue or not.
Also, because my business plan includes name recognition/brand development, cultivating and building an audience of collectors, and developing opportunities to lecture and write, I don’t measure my success by sales alone. Your business plan may be very different than mine!
So if you are looking for hard answers to “If I spend $200 on this opportunity, will I make $2,000 back?” I cannot help you there.
WHO ELSE IS THERE?
The Boston Gift Show is a GIFT SHOW. That means only a small section of the show is dedicated to handcraft, and an even smaller section to AMERICAN handcraft. You will be appearing with thousands of exhibitors, including importers, T-shirt dealers, food producers and manufacturers. George Little Management recognizes an income stream for THEM (GLM) to feature American producers of handcraft. They want to develop an audience for American handcraft.
But the section itself is still small and relatively new to the show. In fact, there is no section dedicated to AMERICAN handcraft per se. There is a “Handmade” section which includes handmade overseas products, and a “Made in New England” section, which includes food products and manufactured goods.
There are other American craftspeople there, but they are scattered through several different sections of the show. Jewelry is big. Surprisingly, we had the only potters! There were glass people (but glass is big) and soap makers. There were potpourri people and chocolate people. Some of these people have been doing the show a long time, and have a feel for what works and what doesn’t. Others were doing the show for the first time.
This means your audience is not really expecting you at the show, and they are not expecting your price points. However, most buyers were delighted to see the League at the show, and hope we are part of a trend.
Interestingly, other EXHIBITORS were delighted to see us at the show, too. I believe this is because our excellent reputation added credibility and quality to the show. It’s the “rising tide raising all boats” thinking. Which is nice.
WHO ARE THE BUYERS?
Who did we meet at the Boston Gift Show? Catalog buyers, internet store buyers, gift store owners, craft store owners, card shop owners, cookware store owners, bookstore owners, coffee store owners, interior decorators, personal shoppers, incentive gift and corporate gift buyers.
DID YOU MAKE ANY SALES?
Although interest in the League was high, I saw very few actual orders placed at the show in our section. This is part of a trend I saw at my other wholesale show, so it could be economic times. 2005 may be a stronger year. At any rate, be prepared to FOLLOW UP on any leads you gather at the show.
Also, the Handmade section is relatively new. An audience for this section is still building. It will be interesting to see what develops for this show over the next five years.
HOW COULD I MAXIMIZE MY SALES?
Do your pre-show prep with your prospective buyers. I recommend you do a pre-show mailing to your current and prospective buyers in New England. Let them know you will be at the show with new work, and you will be available in person to introduce it. Let them know your wholesale price points (under $25, under $100, etc.)
WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
Booth Set-up:
We quickly realized our original booth layout would not work. It was a huge space, but we also had a lot of people participating, all doing very different crafts. It had to look individualized, but cohesive. And we didn’t want to create a “room” people could only enter through one “door”. That could get quickly blocked and keep other buyers from entering easily.
We created a very open, freely accessible layout. Buyers could easily enter and leave the booth at many points (we were at the end of an aisle) and this made the booth appear spacious. Buyers felt psychologically comfortable and came in at the drop of a hat—VERY important at a wholesale show!
Exhibit and Display:
You will see what goes into putting together an exhibit that appeals to wholesale buyers. You bring SAMPLES of your work, preferably enough range and spread to appeal to many types of buyers, but you will not bring stock to sell. And you cannot bring “one of everything”. For one thing, there is not enough room in the booth for all of us to do that. For another, it is hugely overwhelming to buyers.
Buyers also don’t want to know/see everything you do. They want to see your LINES (so they can select the designs/color ways/themes that will work best for their venue) and they want to know what your best sellers are.
Support Materials:
You will go through the process of putting together wholesale support materials—price lists, order forms, catalog, etc. No matter how straightforward and simple to use you think your materials are, the acid test is, can another booth exhibitor take an order for you at the show? If not, you’re hosed. Because if another craftsperson finds the forms too difficult to use or interpret, chances are your wholesale buyer will, too.
Every item you show must be clearly labeled and priced, so that buyers can look at it and evaluate on the spot if it’s something they can carry and sell or not. Every item you show must carry your story and its story.
Here’s what happened at the show. About a dozen of us attending, with a wide variety of product. Only four craftspeople were allowed in the booth at any time, to give as much room over to buyers as possible.
A buyer would approach, get interested in someone’s display, look for information (and couldn’t find it) and ask for help. We would answer what questions we could. But many of the products lacked critical information for the buyer. For example, we had clothing with no sizes, fiber content labels or care instructions, no company label, no hangtags. There was nothing to even indicate the clothing was handmade (except that it was in a LNHC booth). There were no item numbers, so we couldn’t match up the items to prices. We couldn’t tell what sizes were available.
Most of us “get” our own product and processes, and expect to explain it to someone once or twice and have them “get it”, too. But it doesn’t work that way. It became very clear, very quickly, that signage, hang tags, clear and obvious pricing and extremely simple order forms were necessary to keep the sales process moving along quickly. Every time we had to stop to look for paper, an explanation, a price list, a description, the sales process slowed to a stop. It took extreme interest on the part of a buyer to hang around while we dug through piles of paper and folders looking for the right information!
This scenario is a mini-recreation of what the buyer will encounter back in the store when his/her salespeople will be selling the work, too. If it’s not immediately obvious what it is, why it’s special, what it costs, and why it costs that much, the sale will come to a screeching halt. It’s an eye-opener!
Don’t confuse contact information with BRAND information. One person said she was waiting for a website before she had labels made. But it became clear that labels were extremely important for selling her handmade clothing to stores. And Google will take care of putting people in touch with her until she could have her own website built. In fact, store owners are in general not happy about you being overt about customers getting in touch with you. THEY want to be the only ones who can get in touch with you. To their thinking, even your website may be too much contact information. But at the very least, your name/company name should be on the time. It’s your BRAND, and promoting your BRAND is extremely important to your business.
I redesigned my order form specifically for this show. I gave it a lot of thought! But it was still so hard to use, I ditched it halfway through the show. The easiest thing is to label each item with an item number and a WHOLESALE price, and have that information written on a plain order form with your name and contact number printed on it.
WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
If you’ve never done a wholesale show, it’s helpful to do this “trial run” to see how it flows. I remember thinking the buyers came in, picked up an order form and filled it out. Ha ha ha! They come in, you talk, you both ask questions about each other. If you can get the buyer to “write an order”, you grab your clipboard and follow them, writing up the order as they “point and shoot”. They constantly want to know how much $$ they’ve already written. You talk terms, minimums, delivery dates (whether they want it shipped right after the show or on another set date). They sign the order, which means they’ve read and agree to your terms. You take their business card and keep a copy of the order, they get your business card and a copy of the order. They can take support material with them, but they may simply want it included in their order when you ship it.
WHAT ARE THE MINUSES?
It’s a gift show. As a craftsperson, you must be aware that your ideas COULD be noted and copied, or your designs stolen. No one wants this to happen, no one encourages this, but no one can really do much about it to stop it. KNOW who you are talking to in your booth, do not allow photos to be taken without your express permission and without knowing the purposes of the photos. I did not see this or experience this at the show, but it can happen.
It’s a gift show. Some shows highly pre-qualify their buyers, some don’t. Most gift shows don’t. You will have to quality your buyers yourself, by talking to them, asking questions, and deciding if you want to sell to them or not. You might want to think ahead of time if you want to sell your samples (to personal shoppers or storeowners who love your work but don’t sell it), if you want to sell to interior decorators, if you want to sell to internet stores, etc.
Also, CURB YOUR ATTITUDE! Being indignant about the food people around the corner or the T-shirt people across the way is not helpful. They have a right to be there. And a negative attitude permeates YOUR booth, and turns off customers.
Be professional at all times. It’s a long, hard show to do. At one point, all of our exhibitors were lined up in chairs along our back wall. The look was, “We’re exhausted, we aren’t selling anything, we want to go home!!” It’s a deal breaker at a wholesale show.
Also, some exhibitors complained about their fellow exhibitors (including fellow League exhibitors) in the booth, not realizing that the exhibitors behind us could hear every word.
WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN?
Oh, yes! Although I do not believe there is a large audience for MY work at this show, there is SOME audience. I would not do a solo booth at this point—the return on investment would be way too low. But there is still a lot to be learned from observing and participating in this show.
I also met many other fascinating craftspeople and learned a lot from them about doing this show, other shows, other venues.
The networking potential was phenomenal. I am still learning so much about this industry, and this was an opportunity to talk to others who have much more experience in it.
If you have other questions about the show, please feel free to respond to this blog entry and I will answer them as best as I can.
