Selling At An Event

 

There are a few things I've learned from selling at large and small events. The big thing is that there is a 'blind spot' on the table or in the selling tent, no matter which event you go to.  One particular area is always going to be passed over by people.

 

At the small events people go by in one direction, with the flow of the crowd, so usually what's on the end they first come up to is what's passed over quickly, they tend to focus on the middle and far end of the table. I'm not sure why, unless it's to not block the person behind them, yet not feel like they're being pushed past.  I counter this by putting something either flashily colored on the end there to draw their attention, or I use a vertical display that makes them pause and look.  It gives that needed 2 second reassessment in the customer.

 

In a tent, like the setup we had at Pennsic War (Renaissance Faire event) it was always extremely obvious where people were ignoring things.  We were always set up on grass. A look at the grass on day 3 of the 11 day event would always show WHERE the grass was still fresh and vibrant, and which areas were well on their way to being worn down to bare dirt. 

 

Our table with the catnip toys ALWAYS had the first worn down spot appear. In fact people actually wore a hollow area there in front of that table, it was pretty funny!  As for the 'dead spots', I would change things around on the tables, moving items to new places, every two to three days.  You would not believe how many people commented 'Oh, you just put those out! I didn't see them yesterday!'  It was useless to tell them that no, they were sitting there since day 1 but were in the dead spot. 

 

It's some sort of psychological phenomenon or something, a person's eyes/attention does a formatted scan of items for sale.  You have to break that formatting.