Thursday, December 4, 2014
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Stacy and Susan's Online Pagan Vendor Fair
I've been lamenting the fact that there seems to be way too many instances of people tearing down other people in what appears to me to be an extension of the "scarcity mentality". In the world of small businesses, particularly handcrafting ones, there is a broad range of what is out there, but there are also HUGE scores of potential customers out there; more than enough for us too ALL succeed even if we were to promote each other, life each other up, and sing each others' praises rather than attempting to sabotage each other in the interest of protecting our own businesses.
To that end, my good friend, and sister of my heart, Stacy and I put our heads together to come up with Stacy and Susan's Online Pagan Vendor Fair. The whole idea came about after Stacy and I had taken part in a similar type thing Facebook. We thought that it was, in theory, a great idea, but needed some serious tweaking because there were way too many people taking part and the majority were Scentsy, Tupperware, Pampered Chef, Thirty-One type sellers that were posting over and over and we were getting buried in the sea of these things. Neither one of us made a penny in that venture. BUT, it got us to thinking: What if we were to focus solely on high quality, handcrafted, pagan artisans, and kept each event small; only 10 vendors, plus ourselves, for a total of 12. In addition to that, every day one vendor would have a minimum of 6 full hours of being a 'Featured Artist' on our main page. This feature would put the spotlight directly on a single vendor (without detracting from the fair that would be on-going on the event page) and give the artisan the chance to really talk about their shop, their products, and their process.
The entire point of the fair is to help small business owners to get themselves seen, to promote their crafts, and to draw in potential customers and it works! The idea took off and gained momentum faster than we could have ever believed! Within a few hours of posting it, we had filled up the first week and were very nearly filled for the second week's! Round 3 also filled up fairly quickly with several returning vendors, but plenty of new ones, keeping the entire thing fresh and new looking.
To that end, my good friend, and sister of my heart, Stacy and I put our heads together to come up with Stacy and Susan's Online Pagan Vendor Fair. The whole idea came about after Stacy and I had taken part in a similar type thing Facebook. We thought that it was, in theory, a great idea, but needed some serious tweaking because there were way too many people taking part and the majority were Scentsy, Tupperware, Pampered Chef, Thirty-One type sellers that were posting over and over and we were getting buried in the sea of these things. Neither one of us made a penny in that venture. BUT, it got us to thinking: What if we were to focus solely on high quality, handcrafted, pagan artisans, and kept each event small; only 10 vendors, plus ourselves, for a total of 12. In addition to that, every day one vendor would have a minimum of 6 full hours of being a 'Featured Artist' on our main page. This feature would put the spotlight directly on a single vendor (without detracting from the fair that would be on-going on the event page) and give the artisan the chance to really talk about their shop, their products, and their process.
The entire point of the fair is to help small business owners to get themselves seen, to promote their crafts, and to draw in potential customers and it works! The idea took off and gained momentum faster than we could have ever believed! Within a few hours of posting it, we had filled up the first week and were very nearly filled for the second week's! Round 3 also filled up fairly quickly with several returning vendors, but plenty of new ones, keeping the entire thing fresh and new looking.
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