Swap meet 2: Glendale College

Our second swap meet – Glendale College Nov 20, 2016

how it went:
Cost for space $35 (With coupon)

It went OK. Right after we setup the rain started. The rain was on and off all day and not too many customers. We made one sale that really saved our day, before that we would not have broken even.

I know this parking lot is sloped on a hill. I came prepared with 2×4 wood pieces that I used to level the tables. I bet we were the only ones there that thought of that on their first time!

What we learned: With the rain ruining our chances of sales, we will try our best to avoid the rain!

WE NOW KNOW: we need to AVOID THE RAIN!

We removed price tags and a lot more people are asking questions and we are able to negotiate and make deals! This is also keeping people at our booth longer.

We now have a banner of howtoengineering.com behind our booth and a few people noticed it, but most people do not read signs at swap meets.

When a customer starts looking at an item for a while, Its a good idea to talk with them and ask if they are interested, tell them the price or ask them to make an offer.
We noticed by doing this we increased the chance of a sale by a lot!

We tried to see if saying “Hi” to customers as they were walking towards our booth would help a customer feel more comfortable, but it didn’t seem to work much. A few people even ignored us.

Still, people did not like the handmade items (they cost too much in labor). I will no longer bring handmade items, so I will have more room in the car to bring other items that might sell.

Another thing we learned is to set up our booth to block the area between vendors. There were people cutting between our booths to cut into the next aisle, but were tripping over the merchandise of the person behind my booth. The neighbor booth moved a few things and I added a table there to block the path.

Next blog entry: DTLA Maker faire