Maximizing Sales at the Holiday Expo: Tips and Strategies for Vendors

[sarahmarie]

In my community there is a Holiday Expo on Nov. 11th. It is for vendors to sell thier stuff for Christmas shopping. I am thinking about doing it. The only fee is a $25 donation to the elementary school down the road.

I have never done anything like this (I havent even done a show yet!). What would you do for this? I was thinking about having some stuff out for people to see and feel. maybe some Christmas cookies (any recipes anyone?). I was just going to have catalogues out for people to order from. Do i treat this like a catalogue and have me as the host? Do i do drawings?

HELP!!! thank you!

 

[susans_kitchen]

DO IT!!!!!! I did the same thing (although no donation even, the school for our community is being graded right now) I booked two shows and got a recruit off of it. And it was badly advertised and not well attended. I took some product and displayed it, and I brought the A/P/C/S and demoed it and the USG. Lots of fun!!

 

[lacychef]

Definately do it!!!! Doing booths is a great way to get leads for shows etc...
Do have a drawing--it's up to you if you want to give away a prize, gift certificate thru you, free cooking shows, or a combo of all those things! I usually display the new products & products in the starter kit, & maybe have some cookies or something for people to try. Definately set up your tables in a "U" or "L" shape, so you can be out there able to talk to the customers. Yes, if you get orders you can submit as 'consultant as host' like it's a catalog show. If you earn free product, you can use it to get things you need!
Best of luck, I'm sure it will help get your name out there!

 

[PampChefJoy]

A couple of tips--

If they ask for a donation to a prize raffle (many do), give a personal gift certficate -- in all the fairs I've done, I have yet to have anyone redeem one -- so I'm not out any money until they do -- versus giving away an actual product that they may or may not want.

Secondly, do a raffle drawing yourself. Make sure to have them mark on there is they want you to send them a catalog (I wouldn't hand them out at the event unless you have old ones sitting around). I have cut up a couple current ones and put them in binders in case people want to flip through or place an order but they generally want to just browse.

After the event, call everyone who is a maybe and tell them they won a "free kitchen show"!

Anyone who is a yes, book them on the spot! Make sure you have host packets on hand.

If you want to have any cash and carry, I recommend Season's Best cookbooks. You could also do up a few layered batter bowls but that would require most cash outlay from you.

I wouldn't do any food for sampling. It can get messy and you'll get more lookie-loos, and generally alot more kids coming through touching things and messing up displays. Nothing sharp out on display unless you can keep a constant eye on it....

Hm.... if I think of more, I'll let you know...

 

[pchefinski]

Oh definately. For that cost, don't you dare pass this opportunity up! I did an expo last October that cost me $100 and got 35+ contacts, 3 possible recruits (which sucks to be me, I never followed up completely on 2 of them), and 3 shows out of it. And it was tiny, not advertised like AT ALL, and I shared the booth with my recruiter, so the leads were split up between us. I made mini chocolate chip cookies, she made tiny rosette pumpkin cookies (which were really good!), so everyone could have a small taste. nothing too huge, about the size of a nickel-quarter or so. got almost all of my contacts from my "win a free show" raffle.. had a few on-the-spot orders too. try to get bookings on the spot.. do a book to look maybe.. have a dozen little boxes or bags and a sign that says "book to look" on it. have prizes listed inside.. 10% off, free show, bar board, $5 coupon, free dessert, mini serving spatula, etc.. then when they book the show and hold it, you tack the prize onto their order and pay the difference. have host packets already prepped and give them to those who book. make an appointed time for follow-up call/meeting. Don't stand behind your little table.. get out in front and talk it up with people. If you're uncomfortable doing that, fake it til you make it. They'll never know the difference. lol Have catalogs available. Though my experience was I got mroe people's information when I had run out and I told them I'd send them a catalog.. Mini catalogs were nice to have too. Good luck, and try to keep it simple. YOu won't get so overwhelmed with it all, and the whole thing will be more fun. Plus, you can entice people and lure them in without overloading them (or yourself). Keep us posted on your other ideas!

 

[pchefinski]

Oh, I forgot to add this in: Make up a batter bowl mix, tie a nice big bow around it and sell them for $15 (I think that's what the rate was last year).. People can order them, you'll fill them & wrap in a bow. There was a TON of success with these last year.

 

[strasfamily]

How do you guys find out about these holiday expos?

 

[mary k]

Holiday ExpoI'm fixing to start doing these kind of shows in September until Dec. and hopefully every weekend.
Call you local chamber of commerces in your area and pick up any kind of newspapers in different towns you go to and look through it. This is how I find them. Once you get started you will start getting flyers from every were for these type of shows.

 

[AJPratt]

There is a great CD on paperwork supplies called "Meet the Public". It talks about expos. It is wonderful! Gave me a huge boost of confidence.

 

[dannyzmom]

In my community there is a Holiday Expo on Nov. 11th. It is for vendors to sell thier stuff for Christmas shopping. I am thinking about doing it. The only fee is a $25 donation to the elementary school down the road.

I have never done anything like this (I havent even done a show yet!). What would you do for this? I was thinking about having some stuff out for people to see and feel. maybe some Christmas cookies (any recipes anyone?). I was just going to have catalogues out for people to order from. Do i treat this like a catalogue and have me as the host? Do i do drawings?

HELP!!! thank you!

DO IT!!
The last fair I did, I got $160 in misc sales and a booking that turned into a recruit!

 

[GourmetGirl]

What is the most anyone would spend on a craft fair type thing? I have a couple of options that would cost me $150 for 3 days... from experience is it worth it? Should I get another consultant to help me out? any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[AJPratt]

$150 for three days is worth it. I would definately get someone to help out. You could take shifts or manage the table together. Or even have a few go in with you. I've done these events and after just a few hours of answering questions and standing gets tiring! Our cluster usually blocks it out in 2-4 hour increments. GOOD LUCK!!! And HAVE FUN!!!

 

[Cindycooks]

Go for it! I did the Taste of Home expo back in the fall - which yielded 2 bookings - and a recruit 6 months later from bookings from the booking. She is my strongest recruit. At a Womens Expo in the spring - I sold over $300 myself and got another recruit. Both have yielded bookings and kept my business going.
I found out about the Taste of Home right here on Chef Success! Someone posted about participating the year before and posted a link, so I checked and they were coming to my town! Booth space was $300 - I shared it with another consultant. The Womens Expo was advertised on the radio.
Do a search and bookmark all the radio station websites in your area. They are always posting news of upcoming events. Also check with local churches and schools on fall festivals. The highschool I went to is having a fall festival in October - bummer that I have called, left messages and written with no response. Oh well.
Be sure to have survey slips for everyone to fill out! I made up a sign that said "Register for a $25 Gift Certificate"...so they had to fill out the slip to register. Each of us gave away one. We went through them after the show and threw out all the "No's". Maybes and Yes - we split up. She is in another town so that part was easy. We just took our area.
The girl I was with said the $25 Gift Cert sign is sometimes even used as a ploy to get them to register - sometmes the money is never even given away......who would ever know? Especially if you are strapped for $$ right now.
We did no demo. Just showed products and let them hold and try them. Good Luck!

 

[cmdtrgd]

ALWAYS give the customer what s/he is entitled to! If you can't give away a $25 gift certificate, don't!!! Pull a few products from your "stash" and put them together nicely to give that away! The best way to lose good customers is for someone to find out that the prize was never given away...people talk!I always call everyone who said yes or maybe and tell them they didn't win the gift certificate (I call the GC winner first) but they won a free cooking show which means "I bring the food, drinks and paper products and you provide the place and the people. Does this sound like something that would interest you?"

 

[Cindycooks]

ALWAYS give the customer what s/he is entitled to! If you can't give away a $25 gift certificate, don't!!! Pull a few products from your "stash" and put them together nicely to give that away! The best way to lose good customers is for someone to find out that the prize was never given away...people talk

Oh - trust me I did! I would feel awful not doing that....just saying what she said. (I think she has been guilty of that...).
In fact the girl that won my $25 ended up booking a show!

 

[pchefinski]

The Womens Expo was advertised on the radio.
Do a search and bookmark all the radio station websites in your area. They are always posting news of upcoming events.

You can find all your local radio stations categorized by state here: http://www.web-radio.fm/st_list.cfm Pretty nifty!

 

[KimberleePowell]

How do you make the small batter bowl cookie mix thing?

 

[Cindycooks]

Anne asked me for the link to the Taste of Home website and this is what I found:

http://www.tasteofhomeschools.com/

Looks like they will be posting the fall cooking expo info on Aug 10, so bookmark this website! At ours they only had a few vendors. It started at 5pm for vendors and 7pm for the demo. Prob at least 2000 people there! They did a live demo on the stage - 10 or 12 recipes and gave out door prizes. It was alot of fun. After we closed out our booth, we got to watch the demo for free. We had to contribute a $25 door prize - I put a few things together along with an SB with my info inside the SB. Unfortunately she has not called and I have no idea who won...oh well.
I will definitely do this again if they come back. I highly recommend sharing booth space if at all possible because they were swarming our booth - lots of booths were not busy at all! That was awesome!