Point of Purchase Displays
Sell Handmade Crafts

What are Point of Purchase Displays?

According to about.com point of purchase displays are:

"Definition: Marketing materials or advertising placed next to the merchandise it is promoting. These items are generally located at the checkout area or other location where the purchase decision is made.

The Big One Art & Craft Fair -Fargo ND

Visit The Big One Art and Craft Fair in Fargo, North Dakota happening Oct. 19 & 20, 2013.

Arts and crafts festival vendors contact Stacy and Lisa Frank at 701-837-6059 to reserve your booth now. Please thank them for listing this show with The Extravaganza Craft News.

Want more information on this and other art and craft fairs in North Dakota each month subscribe to The Extravaganza Craft News at 

Help Buyers of Handmade Crafts
Imagine Themselves Using Your Crafts

Buyers at craft shows pickup, touch, feel and inspect your handmade crafts for looks, feel and quality.

Buyers online can't touch the items and try them on to see how they will look in your hand sewn dress or handcrafted jewelry.

What Wedding Tradition
Teaches Artists to Blog

Did you know they were teaching you how to blog when you got married?

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue actually tells you how to keep your crafting blog alive and well.

Something Old-Post an old post from your blog to remind people of it's existence.

Pricing Crafts Correctly Sells Crafts

As far as pricing your handmade crafts go you need something called a loss leader.

A loss leader is a handcrafted item or a few items sold at a loss. They get buyers of art through the door to your craft show booth or online craft store and getting out their wallet. After they've gotten out their wallet they are easier to sell to.

Keep a few items as loss leaders, adjust some of your prices to be more inline with the real market price (for crafts similar to yours) but not at it, and adjust the majority of the items to be real market price.

Ever had a craft show that seemed like a total failure, like you had totally wasted your time and money attending it?

Ensure every art festival will be a roaring success.

8 easy things you can do are listed below.

1. Send out information about the festival you will be attending by mail, email, blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to your friends, family, and acquaintances. Send an occasional reminder.
   
   Read

There are many things you can do to increase sales of your handcrafted art on Etsy.

Magic Number for Selling Handcrafted Art on Etsy

List many items (it appears the magic number is over 100 as many Etsy sellers state their sales increased to almost 1 a week when they got over 100 items listed), relist items often, participating in forums, creating treasuries etc.

Ooh Lala Beadtique offers a great list of ways you can bring more traffic to your Etsy store and more traffic translates to more sales.

How to Sell More Jewelry with Volume Discounts

Customers love to feel like they’re getting a good deal, so offering some items at “volume discount pricing” can net you a lot of extra sales and repeat buyers.

For example, I have a big selection of very simple gemstone bead earrings with sterling silver earwires. I price them at $16 for 1 pair, $14 each for 3 pair, and $12 each for 5 pair. You’d be amazed at how many people automatically spend $60 buying 5 pair just because that’s the best price per pair.

Is Facebook and Social Media Selling Art?

Social media is working for my art business but...

I have gone to where my customers (artists and crafters) are on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and that is where I post.

Search keywords related to your product in the Facebook search box.

Want to know how many people like fine art? Type in fine art in the Facebook search box and go to fine arts-interests.

Check out your competitions pages from the search above.

Get Jewelry Buyers to Purchase at Craft Shows

Found this fun idea for getting customers to buy jewelry (or any art or craft) at craft shows.

How to Get Your Jewelry Customer Buy at Craft Show Event.

How to Add Art and Craft Buyers
To Mailing Lists

First read Why Add Art and Craft Buyers to Mailing Lists.

Collect Art Buyers Contact Information

Decide what information you need to mail and email your customers useful information that will encourage them to buy your one of kind handcrafted art work. Information that is generally collected includes:

First Name Last Name Address City State Zip Code Phone Number Email Address Birth Date

You need to be a great salesman to make money selling arts and crafts. The problem is how do I become a great salesman without becoming the pushy salesman?

I have to admit I haven’t been the best example of a good art and craft salesman. Why, because I was always afraid of being too pushy.

Have you used Google's Adwords keyword tool to find out what words people are using when they are searching to buy arts and crafts? https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS#search.none

I visited an Etsy store and right clicked to view the source code which is what the search engines use to view your store. What I found is:

< meta name="keywords" content="fancy stone necklaces, wire wrapped pendants, hangings and suncatchers, stone bracelets, stone chain necklaces, men's collection" >

I typed those keywords into Google's Adwords Keyword tool and learned.

Holly Sennott creator of  Kooky Critters had this great idea.

"I have a large FB fan following and it brings loads of traffic to my Etsy shop and my website. I have not tried Payvment yet, but will certainly check that out.

One day I was riding in my sisters car. The roads were slick and the car slid off the road into a deep snowbank. The car was very stuck and trying to drive it out did no good. Along came a car with 5 guys in it. They couldn’t pull the car out using their car. They all got out and stood at different points around my sisters car then lifted up her car and put it back on the road.

One guy couldn’t have lifted the car alone, but together the 5 of them easily moved it.

Business is like lifting heavy objects.

Recently I’ve been working to make my craft business more profitable each and every day. Today it occurred to me that I should share with you how I plan to do that.

Week one I worked on catching up on left over unfinished crafts and business projects from previous weeks to prepare for my 30 days of greater profitability. As usual I accomplished some of the things I intended to do, did some things I planned to do later early, and didn’t accomplish some of the plan.

Week two I learned new things about my email marketing to keep my messages from being flagged as spam.

Facebook Page Helps Your Art or Craft
Business Know Who Your Customers Are

Have you ever wondered exactly who your craft show customers are? Who to target in your advertising? How to find out if your target market is male or female, what age they are, or where they are located? Ever wondered who was most likely to walk into your craft show booth?

Your art and craft based Facebook business page can help.

First of all if you don't have a Facebook business page I suggest getting one.

Difference Between Creating Interest in Your Arts and Crafts
and Getting People To Buy Your Crafts

To have a successful full time business selling arts and crafts (defined as making enough income to support yourself or your family without having a part time job) two things must happen.

1. There must be enough people interested in buying your arts and crafts.
2. You must be able to persuade people interested in your art to buy.

Recently I’ve been working to make my business more profitable each and every day.

Week one I worked on catching up on left over unfinished projects from previous weeks to prepare for my 30 days of greater profitability. As usual I accomplished some of the things I intended to do, did some things I planned to do later early, and didn’t accomplish some of the plan.

Week two I learned new things about my email marketing to keep my messages from being flagged as spam.

Recently I’ve been working to make my business more profitable each and every day. Today it occurred to me that I should share with you how I plan to do that.

• Day 1-Set a goal to do something to make my business more profitable each day for 1 month.

Lets face it selling handmade jewelry is tough. Handcrafted jewelry artists need every advantage they can get. I found an article I think will help.

Face Shape and Jewelry Choices by Barbara Van Look of Fire Mountain Gems is a very informative article. I thought it might help jewelry artists suggest the most flattering jewelry choices for their customers faces and increase their sales.

What would be easier trying to make everyone aware of and want your product OR trying to sell your product to people who already want it?

A key building block to a successful business is knowing who your target audience is. Without knowing your target audience it’s likely you will spend your money trying to make everyone aware of and want your product instead of trying to sell your product to those people who already want the product you are offering.

Demographics is the word used to describe the characteristics a group of people have in common.

The Extravaganza Craft Productions would like to thank Montana Arts Council for publishing the article “Grow Your Business During Tough Economic Times” by Shasta McLaughlin in their November/December issue of State of the Arts.

The article contains suggestions that help you cut costs at craft shows and market your business to grow your craft show business during tough times.

View the article at http://svcalt.

Reasons to Stay In Touch With Your Craft Show Customer

Happy Independence Day! I’m grateful for this nation and all the freedoms that we enjoy.

I was writing to my customers, artists and crafters, wishing them Happy 4th. I realized I should write a quick note for every holiday and include them in my auto-responders (I can set the day they go out so they will deliver automatically).