[amayausers] Re: Trade Show FLOP!
- From: Steve Griswold <stevegriswold@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: amayausers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 08:03:33 -0700 (PDT)
Thanks everyone for all the great advice.
We did join the Chamber of Comm. just last week and need to go over there to
meet everyone. Giving out free totes, etc seems to be money well spent.
SPA EXPO:
The vendors at the Expo all got together and most are asking for refunds and
signed a petition and letter complaining about the shows promises. The show
planners told everyone that there were 15,000 pre sold tickets, big name spas
would be there to purchase items, etc. There were maybe 500 people and 60 -70
vendors standing there with no clients. The only reason we ever got 500 people
was because the show next door let out and they told them they could come in
for free. So those people were not even interested in Spa Robes, Slippers,
Towels, etc that much.
Sunday we had maybe 20 people all day at the whole show from 10 AM - 6 PM. So
all the vendors had a meeting to discuss refunds, etc that we wanted from the
show promoters. At least this was a local show for us. Some companies flew in
from out of the country, shipped cases, had 6-7 staff with them all standing
there.
GETTING BUSINESS:
So Sunday Lisa went around to the vendors with a monogrammed towel on her
shoulder and offered a special vendor price. That worked out great. So from 1
PM until 7 PM we were slammed, and every booth in the place had no clients.
So that made me feel pretty good. We did learn some lessons also.
1. It is difficult to do one off orders at a show and also try and talk with
people about future orders, etc. at the same time. You get so backed up on one
offs that it is hard to meet people that walk up to the booth asking for
information about your business. If we did it again maybe just to tote bags
since they are quick.
2. If you change from your planned monograms it takes a bunch of time you may
not have. Everyone always wants something different than you are offering. We
offered monogrammed towels (3 letter) in five different fonts. We also offered
tote bags with one fancy script letter on the pocket. Everyone wants their
name, wants to choose from a list of 100 fonts, etc. So we did that for a few
people at 1 PM when we were dead slow, It took some of the items 25 mins to
sew, plus time with the person to pick the font, the colors, hooping, etc.
Then it got busy and we were way behind. With thread breaks it takes even
longer so I will have to post later to get help with all the tread breaks we
are having.
We did get lots of really good leads so we have follow up work to do now and
unpacking from the show.
Thanks Again for all your help.
Steve
Impressions Embroidered Apparel
Atlanta GA
---------------------------------
How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger?s low PC-to-Phone call rates.
===========================================================
The AmayaUsers Mailing List
Website: http://www.amayausers.com
Discussion Board: http://www.amayausers.com/boards
Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://www.amayausers.com/list
===========================================================
Other related posts:
