First Trade Show Was A Bust- Can't Win Them All- But One Would Be Nice
If you have been following me for any length of time, you know I have been trying to launch a new 3D printed gardending products business. Well, this weekend was my first trade show, and sadly I didn't make a single sale. I had a great space, booth was very attractive and brought a lot of eyes, but I guess not enough for people to pull out their wallets. I guess it either just wasn't my kind of crowd, or I need to make some adjustments.
One thing I did was recalculate my pricing. All of the pricing was based on my older Ender 3 printers which take a lot more time than my Bambu Lab A1 mini. So I recalculated and lowered my prices on the products, hoping that will help. I have the profit margin to do it, so it's not going to be any kind of loss. I am also reconsidering the whole market/trade show thing. For the time and costs wasted, I am probably better off just putting focus into my online presence and instead of paying for markets, try out some Facebook promotion as I had suggested by a few people.
I do have to admit that I have a unique product and that not everyone will get it. But I will say I had a lot of compliments, even from another 3D printing vendor that had little printed collectibles and toys. She said that she was impressed with my stuff and said that she wished she was producing more functional products like mine. So it wasn't all bad, but certainly didn't help my wallet and actually set me back a bit, because I was really needing to make some money to take care of some much needed things like shipping materials and my next show fees. I literally had everything I have into this other than my Hive stake.
But, that's life. To be honest, it felt like a swift, square kick to the balls. The last couple of years have been extremely tough for me in many different ways, and I really needed a win here. So it's been difficult to get over it and I have been down the last couple of days. Like I said in the title of this post, Can't win them all, but one would be real nice right about now. But I am not going to give up, I have what I think is a great concept, just need to find my market.
Until next time...
Be cool, be real, and always abide with you my dudes!
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I don’t like to give unsolicited ideas or advice so I’ll just say your table looks great and keep at it :)
I appreciate it, but I am open for any advice and ideas at this point, lol.
The main takeaway I got was you saying that not everyone will get it, what kind of trade show was it?
It is a lot easier to sell to people who have a problem they are willing to solve, your job then is to connect your solution to their problem and help them join the dots.
Trying to get people to first pay attention, then get interested, and then get motivated to purchase, and then purchase (without calling their spouse etc) is a lot more difficult.
That is why markets often sell
Which is why I will not be doing any more of those markets with these items. If I do, which I have already booked one in Sept, will be a garden centered show. Other than that, I am going to focus on online marketing only.
It was a general trade show. I was next to essential oils and across from fishing gear...
But yeah, the decision has already been made that I will not be doing any more general markets. I did this one because a friend was putting it on and I built a website for him which the booth fee was apart of my deposit for the site. So at least I didn't pay for the space, only gas and food for the day, so I was out about $45.
I hate it when that happens!
Yeah, was very disheartening to say the least.
Perhaps having one fully set up with like soil, plants all set up inside one to give people an idea of how it'll look when they use it and also it would show people exactly what it is at a glance (cause people are not so quick to associate things like this to gardening)
That might garner more interest, like really sell the grow your own stuff vibe.
I thought about that, but it takes a while for things to grow and I didn't have the time to mess with it. I had the transparent one set up and running so they could see what was going on inside with the water and such. The ones I have growing are all much bigger and set up in my little greenhouse so that wouldn't work.
Was it just a generic trade show?... perhaps focus on more of a gardening/plants type events?
Yeah, that’s the plan from here on. I was in between essential oils and a dude selling coaster and air fresheners, 😂