Vendor Adventures!

I did it! I'm tired, sore, and exhausted, but I did it! I spent roughly 11 hours each day at the market. The biggest take away I have is that it's not for the faint of heart. I had a lot of decor and shelves to put up and by myself it would have been a bit more tricky and time consuming. However, I was fortunate enough to have my family help out with the event. Let me first of all apologize if you got to experience my crazy mom and sister hahaha. Okay, I'm joking. They are some of the most amazing people you'll ever meet and I think we just ended up looking like a bunch of weirdos to passerby's. Either way, I had a blast and I'm very thankful to have the support I did from my friends and family. Y'all are awesome!

Overall, I was happily surprised by the number of people that would come into my booth with the knowledge of how wonderful artisan soaps are! They knew they wanted natural/organic ingredients in their soap and approached my booth with the intent on purchasing that kind of product. I was flattered by that and the fact that everyone loved my test station and decor. My mom was a major help in all the preparations and she had most of it just lying around at her house. I'm the type of person that would rather reuse or re-purpose an item than go out and buy something brand new. My mom had this super old, rustic wash basin that we put a dark stained piece of wood over it with two water dispensers so customers could test out my soaps and body scrubs. That was a major attraction to my booth and helped start conversations with potential customers.

My Tomato Days Booth!

One thing I loved about the market was the friends I made that were also vendors. My vendor buddy on Saturday was an artist who used to draw Spider Man and His Amazing Friends for Marvel in the 80's. Talk about a cool life, amazing talent, and one of the nicest people you'll ever meet! If you ever get a chance to attend the Utah State Fair or any market that he is at, you should definitely check out Neil Galloway's caricature booth! I got a lot of great vendor advice from him and others that are veterans at doing markets and events.

I think what I'll end up doing is only a few markets throughout the year. It makes for long days and sometimes not worth it in sales but it is great for getting your name out there. I had a lot of customers ask me how many years I had been doing this and I said, "seven months!". It surprised most of them and made me feel like I have a good hold on what I'm trying to achieve. If you bought any soap from me and would like to give me a review or feedback, I would love to hear from you. I strive to make my soaps appealing for just about everyone. The feedback I receive, I take very seriously to adjust or improve my products. I know I'm not perfect and there will always be room for improvement. For example, I didn't think about the heat affecting my body butters, but it ended up melting them back down into liquids and they are no longer 'whipped'. They'll work just the same, but I was so mad at myself for making a rookie mistake like that, but live and learn ya know.

Most importantly, I am just so dang thankful for everyone that stopped by even to just say hi. Y'all made my heart so full with gratitude. So from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!