To Market to Market

So now MinzBeadz was ready to be seen by the whole world and my marketing plan went into action.  On paper, the initial stages went:

• take a stall at various markets, sell my beads and charms, promote my website, convert market customers to online customers
• get a Facebook account, promote my beads and charms, convert Facebook fans to online customers
• word of mouth, talk about my beads and charms, convert people I talk with to online customers

Are you seeing a common theme here? Yes, not much point having a spanking new website that many hours (and dollars) have been spent on if you have no online customers. Besides which, whilst I love meeting and talking to people at markets, I don't particularly wish to get out of bed at 5am for the rest of my life.

Ask anyone who knows me - I'm not a morning person. I will even argue that 5 o'clock is still the middle of the night and not technically morning at all, particularly in winter when it's dark (and cold). Dark and cold = night in my book.  The first market organisers that absolutely forbid any stall holders to enter & set up a stall prior to 8am will have a fan in me for life!

My very first market stall as MinzBeadz

Step 1 - to market to market.  My very first market adventure with MinzBeadz was in Yarram, in the Gippsland region of Victoria. And it went really well.  Oh, damn modesty!  It went freaking brilliantly!  From 8:30 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon I sold beads, charms and bracelets and talked myself hoarse to the lovely people of Yarram. Yarram appeared to love MinzBeadz (either that or they were faking it quite well!), and the feeling was mutual. 

Country people are lovely.  They enjoy a good chat and they're down to earth .  Going to the market once a month is an occasion to look forward to, and everyone seemed excited to have a new stall at their market and wanted to know if I would be there every month (really, what a boost for the self esteem!).

Luckily for me, despite the fact I am no longer a newbie, the locals still roll up on the first Sunday of each month - sometimes to buy and chat, and sometimes just to chat. And it's still excellent fun, despite the 5am start! Yarram is a big area for tourists from early November until Easter, so the local markets can be quite busy places.  Funnily enough, I've met people who live around the corner from me, who I would never have met without Yarram market.

Obviously, since this first big step into the real world, MinzBeadz has made appearances at other markets around the state (with varying degrees of success), but I still have a soft spot for Yarram.

I'm an avid people watcher, and observing others promoting themselves and their goods at markets has been interesting, to say the least.  One whole section of business owners seem to struggle with the truth.  Their motto must be "tell anyone anything as long as they buy the stuff".  And some of what they tell them - wow!  Pinocchio's nose is growing at a rapid pace, and there are a lot of pants on fire.

On one occasion, the stall next to me (not one of "us" regulars - a blow in, in fact) was selling a very similar style of jewellery to MinzBeadz.  The potential customer asked me if a particular item was sterling silver (no). Disappointed, she moved along, asked the same question at the next stall and was told yes (it most definitely wasn't).  She bought something for $25 on an outright lie, and I got a smirk from the stall holder.

Well, I'm nothing if not a quick study - the next person who asked me that (same day), got told no with an explanation of what others (without naming any names) might try to tell you, and what the actual truth is.  Funnily enough they didn't spend the outrageous amount at the next stall. 

And I know what you're thinking - I'm a bigger person than that.  I did not smirk.  Well...not until I got home.  I might be a bigger person in public, but I'm only a small minded human in the privacy of my own home, so it seems.  Having my own business has shown me personality traits I didn't realise I had - private smirking being one of them.

Having a stall at various markets had advantages other than bringing in some much needed income.  It also enabled me to learn who my demographic was, and learn what my potential customers were looking for.

Here's what I discovered about my demographic - females (and lots of males) between the ages of 2 and 90 like beads and charms.  The least interested are teenagers around the ages of 15 and 16.  My potential customers seemed to either:

•  like what I have 
• want sterling silver or solid gold beads and charms
• not even look (in which case you can't find out what they're after).

 Here's how I handled the above:

• expanded the range to include some funky necklaces that teenagers might like (and lots of adults and children).  Degree of success - excellent!
• tell potential buyers of sterling silver and gold charms that I would be happy to get in anything particular for them, but of course the price would be much steeper.  Seems that this breed of buyer are happy for me to put my money on the line to buy things they might like, but not happy to commit to any type of purchase.  They particularly don't want to pay a reasonable price for said items either. They want "the real deal" for the same price as the affordable version!  Degree of success - nil. 
• to drag in the non-lookers and make them look I purchased a large butterfly net and snagged them as they tried to bypass my stall.  They then had to beg for release, which I wouldn't grant until they had oohed and aahed over at least 10 items and purchased one.  Degree of success - 100%

Come back you Non-Looker! You will look & you will buy!

However, when all was said and done, the original plan of converting market buyers into online purchasers has not succeeded. Yep, zero, nada, no one.  The conclusion I've finally reached, is that people who buy from markets and people who buy online are two different groups of people.  And so these days, whilst info about the online store, business cards and so on are available at markets, I save myself a lot of aggravation by not worrying about whether John Q Public even looks.

Given the lack of conversion going on with market customers, I'd better get cracking on Facebook.  But that's a story for next time...