Parking Lot Display

[Pounder]

Recently I opened my business (Crooked Finger Leather Art) and have been placing flyers in local stores with their permission of course. One of the managers offered to let me "set up" in their parking lot on Saturdays. My inventory is not sufficient to allow sales but I thought it might be a good opportunity to get my name out.

What do you think? Has anyone tried anything like this, if so how did it work for you? And tips or suggestions?

I appreciate your wisdom and direction.

[Ferg]

You will need something besides pictures if you expect to get any measurable business.

My wife and I have been selling product wholesale for 35 years. We tried everything you can imagine to get business. To be successful in the leather business or any other entity that requires you to manufacture a product, there must never be any thing but your best out there. Sometimes your best isn't good enough, get used to it.

We have been manufacturing one particular product for all those 35 years. We sell more than even the Chinese. We found a niche and have played it to the hilt. On-line companies request our product. Items have been in every major retail and catalog store in the USA and Canada. Quality and on-time shipment is the golden egg.

ferg

Recently I opened my business (Crooked Finger Leather Art) and have been placing flyers in local stores with their permission of course. One of the managers offered to let me "set up" in their parking lot on Saturdays. My inventory is not sufficient to allow sales but I thought it might be a good opportunity to get my name out.

What do you think? :whatdoyouthink:Has anyone tried anything like this, if so how did it work for you? And tips or suggestions?

I appreciate your wisdom and direction.

[Pounder]

You will need something besides pictures if you expect to get any measurable business.

My wife and I have been selling product wholesale for 35 years. We tried everything you can imagine to get business. To be successful in the leather business or any other entity that requires you to manufacture a product, there must never be any thing but your best out there. Sometimes your best isn't good enough, get used to it.

We have been manufacturing one particular product for all those 35 years. We sell more than even the Chinese. We found a niche and have played it to the hilt. On-line companies request our product. Items have been in every major retail and catalog store in the USA and Canada. Quality and on-time shipment is the golden egg.

ferg

Ferg;

I appreciate your advice. I have been going through my patterns and choosing those that are quick to produce yet offer the customer a useful product, i.e. can carriers, lighter carriers, etc. Things I feel will go well in a agricultural community.

Again thanks for the advice.

[Ferg]

I spent all my life in a Farm Family. I know how frugal folks can be. Good luck with your venture. Ask the folks you see at your table what they would most likely buy if you had it.

ferg

Ferg;

I appreciate your advice. I have been going through my patterns and choosing those that are quick to produce yet offer the customer a useful product, i.e. can carriers, lighter carriers, etc. Things I feel will go well in a agricultural community.

Again thanks for the advice.

[Johanna]

We used to do the fairs and craft shows, not to make money, but to get our business cards out there. (Pre-internet days) People were attracted to the leather smells, sounds, and they would watch Jon and John work, which opened the door for conversations and exchanging cards. Sometimes they would call us later, or their friends would call, "Hey, can I speak to that "Leather Guy"? It can't hurt to set up in public, but a website is going to get more attention. Let them watch you work, Chris, they will be fascinated. You never know who you might meet!

~J

[Pounder]

We used to do the fairs and craft shows, not to make money, but to get our business cards out there. (Pre-internet days) People were attracted to the leather smells, sounds, and they would watch Jon and John work, which opened the door for conversations and exchanging cards. Sometimes they would call us later, or their friends would call, "Hey, can I speak to that "Leather Guy"? It can't hurt to set up in public, but a website is going to get more attention. Let them watch you work, Chris, they will be fascinated. You never know who you might meet!

~J

Thanks for the encouragement and I agree about the website which I am designing. I quickly found that is easier said than done. Seems as if that is the first question I am always asked, "Do you have a website?"

I do have one question though, who is Chris?

[Johanna]

Sorry, Pounder, I had your user name mixed up in my head with someone else.

~J

[Lui]

Anytime anyone offers you to set up in their parking lot and its in a high traffic area you should jump on it. Get as close to the road as possible to pull the cars in. Since my store is in a ware house area I have to do a lot of this to get people to know I exist. I also invested in wrapping my van and making it a rolling billboard. I can park on the side of the road bring out a couple saddles and people start pulling over almost instantly.

I would rather have a lot of very nice show pieces to show off my work then inventory. Especially if you are getting the spot comp. (no cost to recover)

Set yourself a work area for demos, its incredible how this brings people in to talk to you and you can educate them on how its made. You can give out cards and flyers and will get more custom orders that way. Then when there is no custom orders on the board you concentrate on making inventory.

Hopefully there will be no time for inventory stuff and you will have a waiting list for the custom orders. But you will still have to do all the marketting and getting out there cause people forget quickly and lose your cards. So you have to keep it up.

Good Luck

[Pounder]

Anytime anyone offers you to set up in their parking lot and its in a high traffic area you should jump on it. Get as close to the road as possible to pull the cars in. Since my store is in a ware house area I have to do a lot of this to get people to know I exist. I also invested in wrapping my van and making it a rolling billboard. I can park on the side of the road bring out a couple saddles and people start pulling over almost instantly.

I would rather have a lot of very nice show pieces to show off my work then inventory. Especially if you are getting the spot comp. (no cost to recover)

Set yourself a work area for demos, its incredible how this brings people in to talk to you and you can educate them on how its made. You can give out cards and flyers and will get more custom orders that way. Then when there is no custom orders on the board you concentrate on making inventory.

Hopefully there will be no time for inventory stuff and you will have a waiting list for the custom orders. But you will still have to do all the marketting and getting out there cause people forget quickly and lose your cards. So you have to keep it up.

Good Luck

Thanks Lui, that is the good advice about keeping it out there, if I had an order for every card I had given to someone who said they would contact me, I would be very well off. I am planning my first in a few weeks I will let you know how it goes.

[whinewine]

Set yourself a work area for demos, its incredible how this brings people in to talk to you and you can educate them on how its made. You can give out cards and flyers and will get more custom orders that way. Then there is no time for inventory stuff and you will have a waiting list for the custom orders.

Good Luck

Nice theory, but it doesn't always work. We did an Arts Festival this year: last year we did it & did reasonably well (my son didn't want to do it this year, but I convinced him to do it again, because it was close to home & you could leave your stuff- good security). This year, I set up to do demos & worked on a targe almost the entire 2 days- guess what- it didn't draw any more additional traffic in the entire 2 days...- and we (& everyone else there, btw,) made less $ than the year before. Honestly, this is just a very bad year in my area. We'll still be doing the Celtic Classic is Bethlehem & our regular Celtic Wine & Music Festival in Sunbury, but I really don't expect to make a lot of $, like we did in the past. People are scared, they're out of work, we've just been downgraded on our world-wide credit rating (& let's not get into politics on this one, ok?- I'm already pissed about the Washington Dysfunctional Babies ) ... it's just a damn bad time to try to sell handmade items... Just my current $0.02 worth.

russ

Edited August 6, 2011 by whinewine

[Scary Leatherworks]

If you don't have a website you can always make a Facebook "page" it's not the same as a regular facebook account. It can be linked to your FB acct but it allows you to have a business name and place pictures. You can also put some info on there as well. It's not a website where people can order from but it is a place they can see your products and at least contact you. besides if you have a pay-pal account they can e-mail you money.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scary-Leatherworks/108548299232217?sk=info here's mine

[Lui]

Nice theory, but it doesn't always work. We did an Arts Festival this year: last year we did it & did reasonably well (my son didn't want to do it this year, but I convinced him to do it again, because it was close to home & you could leave your stuff- good security). This year, I set up to do demos & worked on a targe almost the entire 2 days- guess what- it didn't draw any more additional traffic in the entire 2 days...- and we (& everyone else there, btw,) made less $ than the year before. Honestly, this is just a very bad year in my area. We'll still be doing the Celtic Classic is Bethlehem & our regular Celtic Wine & Music Festival in Sunbury, but I really don't expect to make a lot of $, like we did in the past. People are scared, they're out of work, we've just been downgraded on our world-wide credit rating (& let's not get into politics on this one, ok?- I'm already pissed about the Washington Dysfunctional Babies ) ... it's just a damn bad time to try to sell handmade items... Just my current $0.02 worth.

russ

I know what you mean. Its hard all over. But we have to keep at it. If I give out 100 cards and get one customer Im happy. For event demos I prefer to just carve, I have a stamping stick I made from aluminum pipe that makes a lot of noise and I can chum them right in. Heres another idea I have been doing now with good outcome, make leather feathers. You need very little tools, you can make one in a few minutes that way you dont bore them, wrap a piece of wire around them and hit them with sheen spray. Then sell it to them for 5 or ten bucks. And at the same time you become a monster making them.

We just have to keep doing what we can. I hate cliches but with lemons we make lemonade or maybe coctails for the adults.

[Mijo]

I'm in a slightly different postion with the leather products (dog harness / leashes) that I make, in that these products are only a small portion of the total product line offered by my wife's company. That being said, we take every free opportunity that comes our way in terms participating as vendors in various events. This will include rescue events, routine small dog meet ups, locally made fairs, etc., in addition to the pet events that we pay to participate in.

Even when we don't make any sales at these free events it still pays off in the long run. We'll run into customers at other events that will recognize us from the free events, this happens a lot. IMO doing free events or setting up in a parking lot is just another way to get your name out there.

murse - you mentioned facebook but I don't know if you have tried twitter yet. my wife recently started using twitter more and it seems to be working better than facebook. She mentioned that she's been able to add more followers to twitter than friends to facebooks. Just throwing that out there...

[Scary Leatherworks]

.

murse - you mentioned facebook but I don't know if you have tried twitter yet. my wife recently started using twitter more and it seems to be working better than facebook. She mentioned that she's been able to add more followers to twitter than friends to facebooks. Just throwing that out there...

I do have a twitter acct but not sure how it would work for this. does she just upload one pic at a time as a "tweet" since I don't see any album areas.

[Mijo]

I do have a twitter acct but not sure how it would work for this. does she just upload one pic at a time as a "tweet" since I don't see any album areas.

My wife uses twitter to let people know about events that we're participating in, new products added to the line and when she's posted additional pictures to the company's FB page. Intially the idea was that twitter would be used to help increase the traffic to the FB page, which in turn would increase traffic to the website but for whatever reason we seem to be adding followers at a faster rate than friends. That's not say much though b/c we still have less than 200 friends and just slightly more than 100 followers. All in all the use of FB, twitter and our website hasn't generated a lot of online sales (most of our sales are through events or wholesale to pet boutiques) but these avenues are a cheap form of advertising.

[Pounder]

Just wanted to come back and say THANKS to all who have commented and provided some great suggestions and insights. After retiring from the rat race I am following my dream of operating my own leather business, which so far has been better for the waist line than calorie counting. There is truth in the starving artist. Anyway again thanks to all, I really appreciate your thoughts and suggestions and hope to see many more.