AHi all. I went to a fair this weekend with almost 300 cupcakes I spent over 2 days baking hurt my back and my hand trying to make them all and I only sold 70. There was more than enough people there the location wasn't amazing but I worry I'm doing something wrong! I had 6 different flavours and a selection of treats. I price them at £1.
Anyone have any tips or suggestions to get more attraction? I am now doing this fall time and am relying on the money to support the business!
Many thanks!
Was there too much competition? Were there other cupcake vendors or people selling sweets?
Were they the type of crowd you would expect to buy cupcakes?
AYou could also hand out samples, cut cupcakes into quarters put in mini cupcake or candy liners. That could help too :) let them get a taste of your yummy cupcakes! And be creative with your cupcake names (sinful chocolate, divine vanilla or something like that). Good luck!
Do you have a photo of your booth setup? That might help to determine if your merchandising might have been lackluster.
Liz
How many days or hours was the fair? 300 seems like a lot to make...
Did you get any statistical data on how many people were going to be there and used that to calculate how much to make?
6 flavors is sometimes too many... The more choices people have, the harder it typically is to make that choice... and then sometimes too many choices leads to no choice at all...
What kind of packaging did you use? That would determine if people purchased or not... could they take it home easily or would they have to eat it there?
You always need to know the projected attendance. About 10% will buy sweets. If there are multiple sweets vendors you'd be splitting that %.
I agree with Leah. This info has been posted before, so I'm not sure why people still think they can "make a killing" at these events.
Okay, I do know why. Someone asks this question and someone posts an anecdote about how they (or someone they heard about) made big bucks and it was easy-peasy. Then people chose to pay attention to the anecdote and not to info posted by experienced professionals.
The lesson of the fair/market is a hard one..I did a market about a month ago, that was sooo poorly advertised. I lost ton's of money. I did however, make a small fortune on the custom orders I received after, from people I met with there..so I guess it can balance out in the end. But from my experience markets are a waste of time; particularly if they won't give you exclusivity to sell cakes, cupcakes, or cake pops; not only are you competing with other cake sellers you are competing with other "sweets" sellers.
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