*WCC = West Coast Craft
West Coast Craft is a San Francisco institution and my favorite show to vend. Their big indoor show happens twice a year - once in June and once in November - featuring around 250 vendors. Unlike their smaller, single-day outdoor shows that occur monthly, this event is held inside the Fort Mason Pavilion across both Saturday and Sunday. It costs $925 + $25 application fee for a 10x10 booth with wifi and backdrop dividers provided.
My main concerns when designing a booth layout
- avoiding traffic jams (especially with the stickers) as this event gets CROWDED
- putting my best sellers (hair claws) front and center to catch customers' attention
- unencumbered checkout lane that doesn't block the view of products (I finally got to use my "checkout" sign!!)
The booth gods really aligned in making my upright hair claw displays and the berry baskets fit PERFECTLY on this new tiered wooden display I got. I was worried that the berry baskets only holding about 3-5 hair claws at a time would be an issue, but the pace of sales allowed us to restock as needed without trouble.
This display was my first new display shelf in years and I am really pleased with it!
GAME CHANGERS: the cube organizers were INCREDIBLE! I had enough to make my 2 tabletop displays AND have a few cubes behind the booth to organize backstock inventory. I was worried building up to hold the keychains would make it too wobbly, but it was not an issue. I was able to use the shelves from my old ikea pegboards on the grid for extra shelving.
Another game changer was the discovery of REUSABLE ZIP TIES!!!! Not only are these more eco-friendly, but they are amazing for letting you move and adjust stuff with ease. I used them to attach some acrylic shelves to my grid cubes and to attach my standing grid walls together.
When you have as many stickers as I do, it's important to find ways to make it more digestible and less overwhelming for customers. I organize mine by theme: weed, politics, pride, feminism, and "everything else". I start with mapping out all of the stickers I want to bring to help whoever is assisting me in setting up, AND so that we have a reference in trying to figure out what sticker needs restocking if it sells out. In a particular stroke of genius, I also make my storage of the stickers match the map. For more about my sticker storage, check this video.
I switched to the triangle shape display for stickers and it is SO efficient for space and crowd movement. It allows people to crowd around to see all of the stickers without blocking the view of the next wall of stickers or the entrance of my booth. I love it.
I tried breaking my overall price menus into smaller chunks based on what products go together. While this may have been easier to digest, it didn't do the education about everything we offer in the same way that having several full price menus around the booth may have.
Sticker bundles continue to be our best offering, so I tried to apply that to my bumper stickers this time, but only a handful of people went for this deal.
I personally have been less excited about pins lately, but the same cannot be said for my customers! We sold out of several pin styles each day, with the hot glue gun and abolish ICE pins being amongst our best selling products of the show.
In the past, our smokeshop has not been a very large contributor to sales at shows, but I also have so many more items in this category than the last time I did this show, and I knew I would be the only one selling those types of items, so I wanted to highlight them regardless. I was out of stock of our sardine stash box (a best seller) and the avid gardener stash box (new this year) which definitely limited the success of that product category. That being said, our new marker doob tube was the best selling item of the whole show! We even sold out of 30 we brought by day 2. We also sold out of our best-selling TV dinner tray on day 2.
I also tried selling my prints at a higher price point along with a bundle (previously $10 each). This did not help with print sales. What hurt this category the most, in my opinion, was the fact that I did not have each print visibly displayed in my booth. The most popular prints were the few that I did hang up and make visible without having to flip through the bin of prints.
We did not sell a single one of our Professional Email Recipient mugs - which could be a combination of their lower visibility and the fact that there were many ceramics booths selling handcrafted mugs.
Hair claws saw the largest increase in sales, undoubtedly aided by the 33 additional hair claw and clip designs we have now compared to in 2023.
The Misc/other sales grew because that category grew, most notably to include our pill cases that did really well.
Jewelry decreased by a LOT and I'm a little stumped on this. I think the location in my booth could have something to do with this, as could the fact that there are a LOT of jewelry sellers at this show (albeit at a higher price point than my offerings).
I think that the decrease in print sales was a result of how I displayed them, and the fact that there were many more booths selling affordable prints this year.
Above you can see sales revenue for the past times I have done WCC summer, winter, and their outdoor markets over the years, along with the product breakout that comprised those sales. Stickers continue to be a top category - no surprise there. I knew based on this data that hair claws would be a big money maker for me, which is why I put them at the very front of my booth to "catch" customers.
We had around 400 transactions across the whole weekend with the average purchase amount being $23. The peak of transactions by hour was at 2pm on both days, with about 185 sales on Saturday and 210 sales on Sunday.
The first day felt SLOW - everyone thought so. There were waves of heavy traffic followed by lulls, which you can see visibly on the "sales revenue by hour" graph. Sunday there is a weekly farmer's market out front and it's generally understood that it always increases our traffic. "Sunday will be better" is the common refrain, and it was true! Sunday was a slow and steady increase in traffic until the peak, after which it dropped off sharply.
We sold a total of 741 stickers across the weekend. I don't keep track of the individual stickers sold, so we don't know exactly what comprises that amount, but we do know what other products were our best sellers:
1. Green marker doob tube - 29 sold
2. Bread clip mini hair claw - 22 sold
3. Pilly pocket pill case - 20 sold
4. TV Dinner tray - 18 sold
5. Crafty lil bitch enamel pin - 16 sold
6. Abolish ICE pin - 12 sold
7. Sardine lighter - 11 sold
8. Crayon lighter - 11 sold
9. Michaels Run Bestie bumper sticker - 10 sold
10. Abolish ICE lighter - 10 sold
My favorite part of this show was meeting so many sick artists and seeing my artist friends! There is no better joy than getting to trade art with other talented humans! It continues to be a highlight for me!