Hobby & Craft Forums

Sales - is your business mainly online sales, sales to friends and family, mainly craft fairs or a mixture?
Which sales method would your business really suffer without?

My sales at the moment are through both Events and Stockists

This year has shown a difference of how it's been going.

Sales at events are a bit down, nothing unexpected considering the 'credit crunch'
Sales at the stockists are very much on the up. I think it must be down to more people holidaying at home.

We'll see what happens next year.

My business is almost all online - through Ebay and my websites...

I don't think I'm organised enough to do events - although I have done a few parties for friends and have a charity event on December the 1st.

Personally I thinkt he internet is the way to go, but I'm biased as I do almost all my shopping online and hate actual shopping

I've never sold online (well not craft stuff anyway) but I guess I'm the same as the majority out there in that I buy from people mostly and not online anonymous websites. That said though, I do believe there's a definite requirement for websites for repeat busness and business coming in from recommendations. Word of mouth is defo the best form of advertising and if people have met you, like you and bought and used your products then they're likely to recommend you and your website to others. It's defo a mixture of the two in my opinion!

Just Soaps wrote:For us, and maybe for many of us on here, few people are going to land on our sites and buy without prior knowledge of our products - either by seeing us at events or having our products as gifts

As many of you know we do many events every month, 40+ each month - everyone with a pulse who passes by gets our brochure - we found that a business card was not enough. In the last 3 months we have given out 10,000 brochures with a discount code for buying on line.

We now have a split 60% events - 40% (and rising) web/trade sales.

By getting out there and meeting our public and pulling them through to the internet we are slowly building up a good customer base. Keep our customers is also something we work hard at, we appreciate that some we will lose as we gain others.

On our site, once someone has made a purchase, there is a form which most fill in, asking how they heard about us.
The answers are usually, bought from such and such event - had brochure at such and such event or received as presents

So the answer to your question - we need both for our business and we work hard at getting our customers.

I had a lot of hlep marketing the charity I worked for from PR and advertising folk, and some of the stuff I learned was quite fascinating - especially around trust and loyalty, and confidence to commit (i.e. buy a product, give a donation, use a new supplier etc)

Apparently we all need to see something an average 3 times before we will commit.. so the more ways you find to make that happen the better. Of course there are the few who blithely shell out shedloads of cash for something on a whim, but for the vast majority they need to see a brochure, an advert, or your smiling face at an event several times before they become a proper customer.

The other startling thing is that it takes 10 times more effort to win a new customer than to retain and enthuse an old one! so customer service is better than advertising if you have to make a choice!

The following users have thanked sparkysdad for this useful post :

judivenn, makeitbig

sparkysdad wrote:
Apparently we all need to see something an average 3 times before we will commit.. so the more ways you find to make that happen the better. Of course there are the few who blithely shell out shedloads of cash for something on a whim, but for the vast majority they need to see a brochure, an advert, or your smiling face at an event several times before they become a proper customer.

The other startling thing is that it takes 10 times more effort to win a new customer than to retain and enthuse an old one! so customer service is better than advertising if you have to make a choice!

Good Post Sparkysdad....

I think a good indication of whether you are succeeding (online anyway) is how many people add you to their favourites...partly because, from a Psychology of Human Behaviour point of view, it takes more effort and motivation to actually click the link or go to the favourites folder than to just close the page...

My favourites are up to 97% (from about 67%) since I uploaded my revamped website...I think the fact that 97% of visitors are actually adding me, means they like what they see, and, even if they didn't buy, it probably means they have the intention to do so in the future...

I think that figure is way more important than how many people actually visit the site - although, to be fair, 97% of nothing is nothing

Two points I agree with (well, plenty I agree with, but factors that stick out in my mind), yes, if I like soemthing I will always go back to look several times before I buy. Sometimes also I might want to email the seller about the item or an aspect of it in the mean time and the way they respond often influences my deciscion.
The other factor is about the favourites - if I add a site to my favourites then I will at some point go back to buy from the site or at least recommend it to others.
A site I like and it has to tick all the boxes, if I buy from it and I get a good service and am happy with the product and the service (including the way it is packed for posting) then I will return to buy in the future definately.

Also...... just as a by the by

If I buy from a site and they send me offers or vouchers I always look at what they are offering or what I could use the voucher for and often use the offers.
Providing there is a time limit on the offer - ie £10 off a £40 spend till Midnight Sunday is one I have used in the last week, free postage on all items in November or whatever is another one I have used.

for us the majority of our sales come from events , we have over the 18 months we've been doing fairs we learnt to work hard at getting people interested ( alot of people can and do walk past jewellery with just a cursory glance ) .We have listened to and taken onboard advice from alot of people especially jane ( thank you jane ) about attracting people and getting them to buy.
our work is better looked at, held ,felt and tried on and many who have gone away happy have recommended us to friends and relatives . Our website gets the hits but sales have been slow , but then it's still early(ish) days for it and i know i need to put alot more work into it ( most of my stuff is made for events as we do one most weekends )

..........plus i love doing craft shows

beckyboo wrote:for us the majority of our sales come from events , we have over the 18 months we've been doing fairs we learnt to work hard at getting people interested ( alot of people can and do walk past jewellery with just a cursory glance ) .We have listened to and taken onboard advice from alot of people especially jane ( thank you jane ) about attracting people and getting them to buy.
our work is better looked at, held ,felt and tried on and many who have gone away happy have recommended us to friends and relatives . Our website gets the hits but sales have been slow , but then it's still early(ish) days for it and i know i need to put alot more work into it ( most of my stuff is made for events as we do one most weekends )

..........plus i love doing craft shows

I think items like jewellery need to be seen and handled unless your brand is really well known, or very affordable that people dont see a small outlay as risky.

having said that word of mouth easily transfers loyalty and confidence, so every person you win over is then a latent sales person for you in future. It can be a long slow business, but it is worth getting the basics right. At least you do lots of shows becky, so you really improve your chances of being recognised and known.

It never ceases to amaze me how unrealistic many folk are about sales marketing and winning business - many seem to think that because they make a product, buyers automatically turn up when in fact a lot of hard slog went in to most successful businesses to create a reputation, and usually a lot of hard cash!! As Jane said earlier, she hands out thousands of brochures at every event - that's money you have to stump up befoe you make a sale.