How do you prep for the Faire Market?
Looking for some tips and tricks to prepare for Faire Market?
For those of you that do wholesale with your business, this post is for you! Or if you are wanting to get started with wholesale- this will also help you get off to a good start!
For those of you that are new around product, Faire is a wholesale platform that you can list your products on to sell to shops. It is application based, don't let that deter you, however, apply when you are ready to roll!
First things, first, you need PRODUCT. This is not the time to be ordering your product, that happens month before the market. For the market, it is ideal to have product in hand ready to go. I have found success on Faire by having a variety of designs in one product category. That being said you don't need 20, but you do want enough to entice a buyer to purchase multiple designs. I design my collections by color. I want all of my products to play well together on the shelf so that the buyers will purchase more. #winning!
After you have ordered your product, the next KEY piece is INVENTORY. We need to have a true number of available products we have for sale. Doing inventory is a quarterly job in my business. There is no way around it. It's tedious- so maybe invite a friend? One of the worst feelings is overselling a product because of an inaccurate inventory count.
As my business has grown, so has my strategy. As you know, I used to think everyone would find me and my products, unfortunately, that's not the case. The only way for stockists and really any buyer to find you is OUTREACH.
Outreach encompasses all the ways you can reach out directly to a stockist and let them know you have products available to stock their shop! I send consistent emails to my current stockists and am always sending cold pitch emails to stores I would like to see my products in. (Want to know more about how I do that? Click here) My outreach for Faire Market consists of sending a postcard a couple weeks or so before the market and emails every day of the market. Faire gets loud, everyone is sending a ton of emails, so I figure I might as well join in!
The really cool thing about Faire Market is that you can set up shop promotions to run during the market and for the time being Faire will match them. The main thing to consider when setting up your promotions is what the actual discount will be. You can set a discount to be 5% off, plus Faire will match 5%, and then if it is a new customer there is the standard new order commission of 15% plus $10. So, you need to look at your pricing and make sure you will still be making money giving 20% + $10 off your products. It is a lot to think about, but we are in the product business to make money, not deeply discounted product. So DOUBLE CHECK YOUR NUMBERS.
Lastly, make sure your shop looks presentable and makes buyers want to purchase. You can do a preview of your shop page to see how things are looking. Make sure you have your best sellers at the top, you can add a new seasonal shop background image and also create collections to make it really easy to get more purchases.
As a recap:
Product
Inventory
Outreach
Check Your Numbers
Check Your Shop
I wish you all the success on Faire. It is handy to note that the markets usually land in January and July. Now is the time to start planning ahead. Hope that helps make your planing a little easier!