Building Relationships

How is an arts/crafts show like dating?

A bad show is like a bad date – people look, talk, touch and then leave.

A good show is the same as a good dating experience – relationships get built, trust develops, laughter ensues.

Silly analogy, perhaps, but the biggest key for successful arts and crafts shows is the relationship between vendor/artist and customer.

My products need a little explanation. My quilts, pillow covers, totes and gift bags require some talking, some descriptions of the process used to create them, some demonstration of their multiple uses.

I was surprised at my last show to hear another vendor tell me I was at a disadvantage because I spend too much time “selling” my products. She, on the other hand, was happy her pottery didn’t need explaining so she could just sit back and relax. I prefer to think I have the advantage with a lot of talk and demonstration and opportunity to engage the customer. Isn’t “selling” why we’re at shows?

How many times do you see or read about vendors who ignore their customers until the point where money may change hands, who sit in the back of their booths reading, eating or talking on the phone, who send out such a bad vibe that customers walk out? They’re usually the ones to complain that a show was bad.

A show last year put my booth across from a guy who made beautiful mirrors that should have gotten a lot of attention. His artistry, the product’s quality and his pricing were all attractive. But he sat in the back with his i-pod on, rarely greeting potential customers, smiling or making eye contact. At the show’s end, he declared it terrible and vowed never to return. I, on the other hand, had my best show of the season. I went home with a sore throat from all the talking, but also with a lot of money.

I saw that artist at another show later in the summer, again ignoring customers and again complaining about how his bad sales had been, for that show and the entire summer.

I certainly don’t want to become Billy Mays nor do I want arts shows to be carnival-like with vendors barking their sales pitches, but I enjoy the personal interaction in showing off my products, helping someone find the perfect gift or accessory for their home and developing relationships that usually lead to additional sales in the future.

Flower Power

The dandelions are finally turning to fluff in the Colorado high country, meaning my days of dying fabric with the weed’s yellow flower heads is coming to an end.

But the result is a big pile of soft lemony yellow cotton fabric just waiting to be used in quilting and other sewing or craft projects. Colors range from a light yellow to a brighter one, depending on the dye process and strength of the all-natural dye bath.

The fabric – pre-shrunk and washed to eliminate bleeding or dye migration – is available in one-yard and fat-quarter cuts. A full yard is $10 and a fat quarter sells for $3.00. They’ll be listed on Artfire.com in the next day or two (click the link to the left and go right to my Artfire.com studio) and available with NO SHIPPING CHARGE! That’s right, FREE SHIPPING. The offer applies to U.S. addresses only but I’m also offering half off the cost to ship overseas.

Please place your orders through Artfire.com. If you’d like to receive FREE swatches to see and feel the dyed fabric, post a note on this blog or send a private email to me at JDayQuilts@msn.com. Just give me your mailing address and I’ll send you a generously sized swatch. If you have questions, let me know.

The dandelion fabrics are part of the new natural fabric collection from Rocky Mountain Botanicals, a division of Day Dream Crafts that creates new fabrics using only natural dyes. Look soon for reds and pinks from annatto seeds; blues, pinks and reds from berries; browns from a variety of plants and more. The Colorado Colors line features fabrics dyed only with natural products found in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. New fabrics are available seasonally based on available raw materials.

I’m also developing a Pounded Plants line of botanical print fabrics using naturally derived images of Rocky Mountain wildflowers and will have them available at Artfire.com in the next few weeks.

Recessionary Pricing

I’m turning next weekend’s arts/crafts show into a social and financial experiment. I’m going to lower my prices and see what happens. This is anathema to many artists who worry about being justly compensated for their time and talent, but challenging economic times call for new approaches.

Thanks to a lot of downtime in the past few months, my inventory has become huge, so I really need to move a lot of products. I’m willing to sacrifice price for volume. I will still make a profit on each sale, not a huge profit, but a profit nonetheless. And I’d rather make a small profit than carry home and store a huge inventory.

Since I got rid of my merchant account late last year in a fit of anger and frustration about the ever-increasing bank fees, I can risk making a little less money on each transaction knowing I don’t have to pay the bank for the “privilege” of accepting credit cards. Of course, that could back-fire on me if people aren’t carrying around cash or checks, but I’m willing to take the risk at this upcoming show to learn how much of a difference in makes in this economy.

I have artist friends who have never taken credit/debit cards and seem to do just fine. They’ve built a following of repeat customers who know what form of payment to make. I have other friends who pay steep fees to be able to take Visa, Master Card, even American Express and Diner’s Club (does anyone really use a Diner’s Club card anymore?). They are terrified of any potential sale walking away because the buyer can’t use plastic to pay for a $3 bracelet.

Those friends are equally terrified of having checks bounce. In the nearly 10 years that I’ve been selling my textile art at shows throughout the West and on the East Coast, I’ve never received a bad check. I trust my customers to make a valid payment just as they trust me to make a quality product.

So we’ll see how next weekend’s show in Grand Lake goes and what effect the economy has on sales and types of payment. Not taking credit cards may mean I miss a few higher-end impulse purchases, but I’m hoping the lower prices will make up for it. I’ll post my observations, for better or worse, in the week after the show.

Show Time!

What’s the perfect length of an arts/crafts show?

Are one-day shows worth the effort spending hours setting up and breaking down only to be selling for a single day? Or are they a good opportunity to test a market? Does it make a difference if they’re close to home or father away? Does sleeping in your own bed make a one-day show more acceptable than having to stay in a hotel?

Conversely, are three-day shows too long? Are sales on that third day worth the extra time? Are they acceptable for long holiday weekends but not otherwise?

I ask all of this because a new show is being started here and the organizers are debating whether, because it’s new, it should just be one day.

I’m not sure what the answer is. I’m planning to commit to the new show no matter how many days it runs because it’s nearby, in a great outdoors location that attracts a lot of tourists and planned for a weekend when I have no other commitments. But I know several artists, particularly those with heavy products such as pottery, who say they will never do a one-day event.

I do think three-day shows are torture. By the middle of the third day artists are ready to just go home. Everyone’s tired and sales usually are minimal. The last time I did a three-day show over Memorial Day weekend I swore I’d never do one again. I haven’t.

And what hours should a show keep? Does keeping booths open until 8pm make much of a difference in sales? It hasn’t for me. The music at an event may be attracting people in the evening, but it’s usually a crowd looking for entertainment, not art.

I think shows that wait until 10am to open are losing a lot of sales. Those early birds are usually the ones who want to shop, not just look around. I like those that open at 9 (and I still seem to make sales at 8 while I’m setting up or reorganizing).

As for closing times, 6pm seems fine for the show’s first day, but an earlier close on the last day helps artists from out of town who are anxious to get on the road. They’ll leave anyway -- who wants a show where people are breaking down hours early, an act that often chases customers away from the whole show.

I don’t envy show organizers trying to figure out the best operations and logistics for their location, their artists, their customers. It’s not as easy as some people may think.

Golf and Gifts

This is one of the coolest, original ideas I've heard for an arts/craft show in a long long time.

Art Out of Thin Air, the energetic year-old artists' organization in Grand County, Colorado, is holding its first member show at the new Pole Dreek Golf Course Club House in Tabernash.

The show will be held from July 2 through July 23, 2009 with a Show Opening and Artists’ Reception on Thursday, July 2 that sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun.

Each artist is allowed to show two items for display and sale (or not). If an item sells, the artist can replace it with another through the duration of the show.

The show not only gives local artists exposure to an audience that may not usually attend arts and crafts fairs. It's also an audience known to have money and taste. In return, the public golf course gets to show off its new clubhouse while its filled with art and people.

I'm thinking my hand-quilted pillows using vintage golf posters reproduced on fabric may be the perfect things to display.

The fee to participate is minimal: $25 to show one artwork or $30 for two. The money will be used for advertising and other necessities. In a great gesture, Art Out of Thin Air organizers promise to return any money left over to the artists.

The deadline to acknowledge your intention to participate is Friday, June 5. Grand County, Colorado, artists who are interested in participating should contact info@artoutofthinair.com

Charge!

I finally gave up on Wells Fargo Bank late last year and cancelled my long-held merchant account. The fees were just getting ridiculous. A fee for this, a fee for that, a fee for something else, on top of the percentage of sales they sucked from my account each month. And all those fees or percentages seemed to increase at an alarming rate.

So far I don’t think I’ve lost a significant number of sales by no longer accepting credit or debit cards. But as I head into the big summer show season, I’m wondering what kind of hit I may take. It could go two ways, I figure:

-- With everyone tight on cash, credit card use will be heavier and I’ll lose sales.

-- Credit card interest rates are killing people’s finances so they’re using them less frequently, meaning they should have the cash or write a check to pay for their purchases and I won’t lose many sales.

We all know many arts and crafts show purchases are spontaneous. A customer needs to really like and want a product to consider walking over to an ATM to get cash or back to the car to get the checkbook, then returning to my booth to buy something. They may say “I’ll be back to get it,” but they often aren’t.

I’ve sometimes directed people at shows to my online sales, but that, too, removes the spontaneity of purchases. While I’ve been surprised by some of the follow-through for those types of sales, I’d rather make them on-the-spot in my booth at a show.

So, if the first couple events next month indicate I’m losing sales by no longer accepting plastic, I’ll have to reconsider. The research is headache-inducing. So many banks and card processing companies to choose from but few that offer exactly what I want: low fees, low percentages and the ability to put the account on hold for months when I’m not doing shows.

Anyone have any merchant account provider recommendations or suggestions?

Buy Direct

See that ArtFire icon on the upper left of this page? Click it on and shop for Day Dream Crafts products right from this blog. Quick and easy.

We'll be adding new products to our www.ArtFire.com studio regularly. Look for more wine bottle bags, lunch bags and quilts as well as some very cool pillows made with fabric reproductions of vintage postcards, travel posters, photos, labels and advertising.