You may ask yourself: how do I pick the right market to participate in. We asked ourselves this the first year that we started BZ FurFur. There are a lot of things to take into consideration: Price, location, demand, audience. Initially we had no way of knowing which market was going to be the best fit for us. Now, with four years of experience under our belts, we are starting off the new year with a much better perspective on how to plan our year.
Starting out
When we started out we had to get the “lay of the land”. Having never been part of a market we had to first understand what was out there. The best way to do this was to go to some local events, talk to the vendors, see what they are selling, and ask them questions. We started by going to some markets at local breweries and getting a feel for the events; Where do people tend to congregate, do we see an overabundance of products similar to ours, are we seeing no vendors similar to us, and, if so, why. Once we had an idea of what was out there we started to dip our toes in and tried a few local markets. The results were not always favorable with our booth typically breaking even at best. So we had to start casting a wider net.
Spreading out
In year two we decided to start applying for everything and anything we came across. Pop-ups, Farmers Markets, local events, anyone who would take an application. Pretty soon we were booking up two or three weekends out of the month with shows all over the region, sometimes up to two hours away. The exposure was great but, unfortunately, we learned very quickly that quantity does not always equal quality. There were a lot of shows that just weren’t worth the cost because we weren’t making back our booth fees. There were others that were cheap, and easy to make back our money, but it just isn’t worth the time. Not to mention; the less expensive markets require you to lower your costs such that you are barely able to pay yourself for your work.
Tightening up
In year three we started to narrow our focus. We picked fewer markets with a focus on those that we did well at in previous years and sidelined the ones that didn’t prove profitable or worth our time. For new shows we would be very selective, looking at social media for pictures of previous years to get an idea if the turnout is good and if it passes the “smell test” for our target market. This worked out well in that we greatly reduced our overall time at markets and, for the ones that we did attend, we made a decent profit.
From craft to art
This year we started out the year by thinking judiciously about the shows that we would take on, further paring down the list of vendors from previous years, and reaching out early to make sure that we are on the list for the shows that we do want to attend, and putting more focus into getting into art shows and juried shows that bring us closer to the target demographics that we want to reach. The goal now is to move from craft vendor to art vendor. This is a tough transition but, with a solid stable of markets, we can ensure that we can still sell products and pick up commissions while we focus on meeting those long-term goals.
Have you started your planning for 2025? What are some of your suggestions for finding the right market? Tag us @bz_furfur and, as always, stay unique.
