What I have learned doing markets for a year as a vendor

Yesterday was my one year anniversary as a vendor at craft fairs and other events. I wanted to share a few things I have learned.
1) Know where you need to be: I find this to be the most important. Different neighborhoods will have different people and you need to be where the people there are looking for your type of soaps. If you are making artisan soaps go to locations that will value that so you are not too expensive and too elaborate, too colorful for the customers. If you have a brand with emphasis on “all natural”, go to the neighborhood with people who read labels and care about that factor. If you sell $4-$5 soaps for altruistic reasons to give to poor, do fundraising events for churches, fire departments, etc in low income neighborhoods. Find your people. 
2) The better the competitors in your local area, the better for you. That means they already paved the way and opened some people to handmade soaps and didn’t disappoint a bunch of people who dared to give handmade a chance. There is such a little percentage of people overall who uses handmade soap that it doesn’t make sense to focus on beating each other, it makes sense for all of us to focus on gaining more customers into the handmade business overall. When people ask me for goat milk soap, it doesn’t hurt me to direct them to a good goat milk soap maker in my area. What really hurts me is to hear people saying while they are passing through my booth “Oh no, don’t get a handmade soap. I tried and they never smell like that for long and they just melt away.” Those customers are lost to all of us, forever. 
3) I know at every vendor group, they will tell you to do very established shows with hundreds of vendors. This is not a good advice for soap/candle makers. Specifically us since at least 10% of all vendors will be either soap maker or candle maker or both. First reason; most of those organizers are loyal to their long time vendors. You will be put in a location where you won’t even see 1/10th of the foot traffic. Definitely ask them about their policy on placing new vendors before applying. Second reason; if the event is established, vendors are also established and even more, customers are also established. They know which vendors go there. They have been buying their yearly soap or Christmas gifts at this event for decades from the same vendors at the same events. Your displays, branding, quality, quantity, nothing matters when they go to the event, pass theough you super fast, get their same soaps and leave immediately. And in most of these events, those vendors are always at the same location and their location is aso avaiable to customers beforehand on a map. My best events have always been newer and smaller events as a new vendor. 
4) Branding matters so much! Get that customized canopy, backdrop, table cloth, banner, everything. Catch their eye. Make sure they can see you from hundreds of feet away. And raise your products to the eye level with higher displays. 
5) Do not disappoint your customers. That soap with some DOS is still usable, yes, but that doesn’t mean it is sellable. Same with mistakes that reduces superfat, rebatched soaps with unknown quantities of fragrance, soaps that has vanilla stabilizer that will keep the soap pretty only until they actually buy it and put in their bathroom. Design mistakes are not important since most soap designs look fine even when it doesn’t fit what’s on our mind but quality mistakes shoud be kept for personal use. Selling them with a discount and honesty, may seem fine to you, but the guest who visited their bathroom and saw the DOS covered soap with your branding, doesn’t know about that and you just lost that person as a customer and maybe more if they talk about it later. 
6) Do not compromize on your price point. Know your value. If one neighborhood thinks your soaps are too expensive, there will be another neighborhood that thinks they are too cheap. 
7) Limit yourself while catering to customer requests. At events, there will be so many people asking for specific things. They want a specific scent, they want an ingredient taken out, they want you to make and sell them a specific product…. It is absolutely endless. I used to be like, oh they asked ke for bath salts, lets make a bulk order for salts and make a bunch, so many people are asking for it! And oppps, you make it and they are no where to be found. You can make the business decisions of catering to custom orders but that should mean they are paying you in advance for the product and buying a certain minimum amount. Someone telling you to do a product at a vendor market and promising to come back at your next event to buy it, is not a custom order. I totally understand the drive to want to make it though because it feels like there is a market demand for the product, I am literaly trying to stop myself from looking for a persimmon fragrance oil right now becayse one customer asked me yesterday, but there has to be a limit. Over expanding can get you out of business. 
8 ) If they tell you they will be right back after browsing your booth and they don’t, it doesn’t mean they found better products than yours. That’s your inner voice being annoying. Most of the time that’s just an excuse to not buy. They know they have spent a lot of time at your booth and showed a lot of interest, so they feel weird just leaving. And sometimes they get overwhelmed with the whole event and forget that pretty soap, they are tired and just wanna go home. 
9) Street events with lots of free kids activities, huge foot traffic, lots of food trucks are not sales events. You will see most of that traffic is just parents trying to have some quality time with their kids as cheap as possible. They may buy that one lip balm for the little girl so she won’t cry, but they are not really focusing on shopping for themselves. 
10) Learn to say no to horror families that unleash their kids on your booth while they are scrolling on their phones just outside with absolutely no intention to buy anything. You haven’t worked so hard and paid so much to be a free babysitter and watch them spill all your lotions to your table cloth, scare away other customers. And, other side of the coin, have a little something like some stickers for those shy or politely curious kids that remind you the joy of soap making with their happy smiles, awes and enjoyment. 
11) Do not talk about the details of your ingredients and chemistry too much. (My biggest weakness!) They can get confused with that. If you are talking about some benefits, just point out a few bullet points and leave it at that. 
12) People who come into your booth but telling you they are allergic to fragrances, do not actuay want your unscented products either. They want to enjoy the booth without you trying to sell them something. You are free entertainment to them. (Which is fine without the lies. Lol) 
13) If someone bought some of your products but didn’t order online for refills, doesn’t mean they hated them and they think you suck and they think Dollar store has better soap than you. That’s again, the inner voice thing. (Now I will say this to myself until I hopefully believe it. Lol) Most people don’t really care about using the highest quality all the time even if they thought your soaps were that, they prefer the convenience of dropping some soap to their cart at the grocery store. If they see you again at another event, they will probably remember and buy some more. Most of my repeat customers only buy from me in person. Some even email and ask me which events I am gonna be instead of using my discount code for the website. Some people just prefer to shop in person. 
14) Big price signs for every product type is very important. Most people hate to ask or guess the price. I myself never buy if I don’t see the price. I am not gonna just ask for it, think it’s too expensive and then leave letting them think I am broke. Lol. 

15) Last but not least! On the mother’s day weekend, do not punch the guy who says “we are not getting your mother anything today” to the litte girl who is not even thinking of hersef while she is looking and asking him to get something she really liked for her mom. First, assault is not the answer, second, maybe he actualy got her some amazing gift already. You never know. And also, that was months ago, forget about it already! What is wrong with you?

One final word, a Soapcast episode with an event coordinator that we talked about a lot of tips of tricks of vending is coming soon! She has been a vendor and a coordinator for sooo many years. It is going to be amazing.