Have you had any weird experiences when displaying at a craft show? Have you encountered rude customers coming into your booth? If you want to make money through selling your handmade products in craft shows, you don’t have to be a great sales person.
You just need to avoid these common mistakes:
1. Sharing Too Much Information
Don’t be over-friendly! Know the smart ways to start a conversation during craft shows. The more information you share to people, the more likely they’ll be confused. When people are confused, they don’t become customers.
Looking smart by using sophisticated language or talking in technical jargon is not a good idea. When talking to customers, make sure you only tell them what they need and want to know. However, when you tell them more than they want to know by sharing something interesting, sometimes you’ll increase the likelihood of getting sales, but in most cases you’ll just bore them to death. People have short attention spans, so be careful about dragging things on.
Spend time to explore different ways to ask your sales questions. Over time, you will be able to formulate smart questions on the fly.
2. Not Enough Information
If you search a specific product on eBay, you’ll see that there are a lot of vendors selling the same product. If you can’t see enough information about it such as the size, color, etc., you will simply go with someone who does, right?
Apply the same principle when selling in person. Don’t assume that your audience knows what you know. They don’t. You are in the trenches and eat and breath your products all day, everyday.
3. Overselling
Being pushy will turn off potential customers. Just imagine when you’re in a relationship. If you are being to clingy, no one will be attracted to you. You have to be casual with your sales techniques and just show them how you love what you’re doing. At the end of the day, if your handmade product or service is that good, the person you are selling to should feel privileged to use it.
If you badly need to make a sale, creating a sense of urgency is a good option.
4. Not Up-selling
Don’t just focus on just making a few sales. Don’t forget to upsell effectively and add other complementary or similar products according to their taste. There’s a reason why every time you go to a fast food restaurant, the person behind the cash will ask “would you like fries with that?” or “would you like to make that a combo?” Get yourself in a similar habit and you’ll see your sales increase much faster.
5. Not Accepting Credit Cards
When one customer ran out of cash from splurging but came across your booth and wants to buy your amazing products. That person will most likely use his/her credit card but you don’t have a card reader. It’s a wasted sale, right? There are a lot of handy mobile card readers now that you can use anywhere that will greatly improve your sales.
If you need more insight, watch this video by Olivia Hayward about what to avoid when selling your handmade goods in person:
Well there you have them. Make sure to bookmark this page and keep it handy when you sell your next product. It might just surprise you how much avoiding these mistakes can improve your sales.
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