Marketing - Get That Customer To Pay Attention To Your Item

Sorry, it's been pretty busy lately and there's been no time to post.

 

The Renaissance Festivals are coming up again and it's been time to make enough items to sell there.  I have two friends who have a booth and they buy stock from my finished pile.  Some things go over well, others don't, so it's trial and error, but when a 'good' item is found, I get to supply them for the 6 weeks the event goes on.

 

Cat toys are always good sellers, but some items better than others.  HUMOR is the deciding factor.  Why buy a mouse when you can buy a fuzzy mouse butt?  Why go for a regular mushroom when a 'questionable' mushroom covered in tiny skulls is offered?  Why sell a bird when a dead bird with X's for eyes is laying there?  Yes, you get people's funny bone engaged, they pay more attention to the item and are more likely to pick it up.

 

And all merchants know that something picked up is under more consideration to being purchased than an item that's left on the display.  Get it in their hand and half the sale is done.

 

Well, yes there will always be a certain group of customer who go for the traditional catnip mouse or other 'normal' type toy.  But then they've already seen those in every pet supplies shop like....everywhere.  It's more fun for me to make something that is a bit unusual, downright weird, or even just with a great print (for instance the tiny Minions on some of the fabric selections lately are perfect).   And being different does translate into sales.

 

It helps, too, to have a good line of schtick going --- 'We put those two dragons into the birdcage because they were spitting at the customers'.  'The fox doll comes with a pouch around his waist, and inside is his lunch, a white mouse'.  'Yes, all our catnip birds died, they're laying over there in a bowl sort of expired so they're on sale today for a dollar off.'  'We got infested with faeries in the booth, it was real hard to fix till we tried a can of Raid, they're all over there in a pile now, deader than doornails, wanna buy one?'  "The purple snakes are the poisonous ones'.

 

Sometimes just one comment like this helps get the item into someone's hand and brings a smile. It's worth doing.  Not only are you playing to your audience, you've gotten them to take that extra three to five seconds to actually CONSIDER the item.  That's all it takes to get a sale sometimes.