Barnegat High School Holiday Craft Fair

On Saturday, Nov 23, I attended the Barnegat High School Holiday Craft Fair.  In my ongoing craft fair reviews, I am posting how it went.

First, I should say that the organizers did a great job at least in organizing the event. They were very responsive by e-mail, and it was easy to sign up and register.  On the day of the event they had the tables set up and ready to go, with unloading right by the door.

It ran from 9 am - 2 pm, had my table set by about 8:30.  (This is my wonderful sister Kati who helped me out with this one!)

When 9 am rolled around, Kati and I started playing the game so people would see how much fun it was.  It worked right away as the vendor in the booth next to mine came over and played, and bought 2 games!  It seemed the day was off to a good start.  10:00 came without too much traffic, but I figured on a chilly suburban Saturday, people might come later.  11:00, 12:00 and still not much.  

I finally got a few more people to play the game - 4 in total played, and I made one more sale of 2 games.  So the good news was that of the people who walked by, many were interested, those that played really liked it, and half purchased it.  But no one was walking by!  

I'm not sure what marketing was done for the event, but there was never much foot traffic.  If I had to guess I'd say there were about 100 people total who came to the event, probably more vendors than customers!  Luckily I broke even, but I would not do this one again.

Vendors on the other side reported that there was a regional high school craft fair the same day, which may have gotten a bigger crowd.  Even worse, Kati is from Brick, and when I drove her home, we went past Brick High School which was having their art fair and it was packed!  People were parked on the lawn because there were no parking spots (at around 2:30, and it lasted until 4 pm).  

But I still think I could do well with more people!  Next events I'm trying are the Birchwood Manor fair on Wednesday, Dec 4 and the Bizarre Bazaar in Maplewood on Dec 8.  But bottom line for Barnegat is to avoid unless the marketing improves.

Amazon is not friendly for small business

I have found Amazon very difficult to work with as a start up business, and as a result will no longer be using it.

I recently started a company, Get Well Games, selling card games with healing topics.  The first card game is Back Up!, where the object in the game is to get rid of back pain.  Before I ordered the games, I investigated selling it on Amazon.  Most people are very comfortable purchasing on Amazon, so it appeared to be a good platform for me.

Fees
Note these are the fees for my product, it may vary for yours
Back Up! is a lower end retail product, priced at $11.99.   For any Amazon product, you have to pay either a fee of $1 per product or $40 per month.  My monthly target is much higher than $40, so I opted for the monthly fee.  In addition, you also pay 15% of the price of the product (varies by product category).  It is a little hefty, but well within my profit margin, and seemed worth it to be on the platform.

Next, I investigated using Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA), where you send your product to Amazon's warehouse and they ship for you.  Being a one-person business, this model was very appealing.  Amazon not only ships, but handles invoicing and returns.  However, it is costly for a lower end product.  In addition to the fees above, I would also pay $2.42 for various order handling charges. (Also a monthly storage fee, which was minimal for a smaller product.)  My margin was shrinking fast!

Instead, if I shipped it myself, I would avoid the $2.42, and I would receive the shipping fee ($4.71 for Back Up!).  My costs for shipping (postage, envelopes, labels) run around $3.50, so I would get an additional $1.21.  Much better for the bottom line, so I proceeded using this option.

I was very disappointed in the way Amazon handles shipping - it seemed to me that they should make enough with the $4.71 to cover their shipping costs and order handling, and they should not charge me what is an exorbitant fee given the cost of my product.  It felt like being penalized for using FBA, when it would be in both of our best interests for me to be there.  Perhaps it is just to encourage only higher end retail products where the fee would be a much lower percentage.

Listing
I went ahead with Amazon, still believing it would be the best way to get people comfortable buying from a new company.  My next disappointment came when I created my listing.  I make the product, so I am the only seller, however when I listed the product it came out looking like there were other options:

Buyers would need to click on that button, see Get Well Games as a vendor, and then add it to their shopping cart.  I contacted Amazon to try to change it, a process they call winning the buy box. To win the buy box you have to be a Featured Merchant, and steps to becoming one were very vague.  You need to have a certain amount of sales, but they are creating a barrier to people buying it!    Still I pressed on.  I ran a Twitter campaign to drive traffic to my page, but after 70 hits, I had no sales.  I updated the picture and encouraging people who had the game from other sources to write reviews, and planned on ways to drive more traffic.

One very effective method for me would be to add a video showing how to play the game or even of people playing the game.  However, Amazon only allows videos for products they sell, another barrier in the way of small business.

Advertising on Amazon
One of the ways I had hoped to use was advertising on Amazon.  With a new product, I had hoped to gain exposure and get in front of people who were looking for get well gifts.  I set up the campaign, and it seemed to be running, but then noticed that I was getting no impressions.  When I looked into it, it turns out that only Featured Merchants can pay to advertise.  Yet another barrier!  Still I pressed on, trying to improve sales so that I could become a Featured Merchant.  With holidays coming up, I have Back Up! being listed in some holiday guides and also getting some press coverage, all with links back to Amazon for purchasing.

The final indignity
Which leads me to today, Nov 14.  I received a notification from Amazon that I would not be allowed to sell anything in the Toys and Games category during the holiday season, which they define to start on Nov 19, only 5 days away!  I needed to have sold a certain number of items by Oct 31, and at least one by Sept 19. I can understand that they want to ensure quality, but they should informed me when I added my product on October 21 of the blackout period.  Now during the busiest time of the year to sell my product, I will not be able to do it on Amazon.

I have moved sales to my own website using PayPal (see www.getwellgames.biz), which will improve my margins, but I will lose any network effect from being on Amazon (sales rankings, etc.). I will also lose the customer reviews.  However, I have no choice.  I really don't see going back to Amazon - what is the next thing they will do to stand in the way of my business?

Selling Back Up! at Clifton Flea Market

For the holiday season, I am taking Back Up! to vendor fairs and flea markets in the area. Part of my motivation is that I've noticed people are much more likely to purchase if they can play the game and see how much fun it is!  So in person, I can persuade them to try it out.

When I was looking at fairs, it was quite difficult to find information on what they were like.  I thought it might be useful to catalog my efforts and thoughts on them for others who might be considering attending in future.

The first one I attended was on Saturday Nov 9, the Clifton Flea Market.  As it will be in November, it was a chilly day - highs in low 40s, and cloudy for most of the day.  So that may have influenced the turnout.

First, there is no pre-registration, you just have to show up on the day and hope there is space.  Having attended, I think this is probably the choice of most of the vendors there, who don't want to have to deal with anything online.   Arrival was between 6:30 and 8:00, I got there at 7:30, and people came after me who still got spots.  Although it turned out the better spots were on the sidewalk, and perhaps those went to vendors who showed up earlier.  I gamely set up my table.  I had high hopes that I could get people to play the game by giving a prize, and also that I could get people on an e-mail list or liking me on Facebook.

It is hard for me to gauge how many people were there, but never really felt busy.  The sun did break through the clouds for a little while, and was as pleasant as you could hope for November.  Again, seemed a bit busier on sidewalk, I was in the middle, and there was not a good flow of people.

I did get some interest, but usually waned quickly when they learned of price ($11.99).   Most of the other vendors' items were priced from $1 - $5.  If you have items in that price range, or perhaps items that people are familiar with, this could work.  In general, it seemed like a pretty low income crowd, so wasn't good for my price point.  Also not good for e-mail list or Facebook.  All of the transactions I saw were cash, didn't seem to be a very tech savvy crowd.

The other issue that I didn't consider was that there were quite a few non-english speakers.  Not an issue if you are selling clothes or jewelry, but a huge issue for a card game in English!  That easily took out half of the people walking by.

Still, spending time with people looking at the table and asking some questions was useful.  As I was describing the game I realized it would go much better if they could see the cards, so I put them out on the table.  (Was windy, so I had to have the cardboxes to hold them down!).   I also learned to have a look at where you are placed before you set up and try to move if you don't like it!

For most of the morning, the only people with a genuine interest were other vendors.  I got one to play the game, but was hesitant to buy, and claimed no to have e-mail (sadly, I believed him).

Finally in the afternoon, I had questions and more interest.  However, couldn't get anyone to play the game.  I did get one person to play finally, which led to a sale!

So at the end of the day, while I would not do this one again, I am hopeful that it could work with better circumstances.  The next one I have lined up is in Barnegat High School on Nov 23!