Yesterday was our first ever market stall. At 14 foot we initially were worried about how to fill it but on the day we had no trouble. Maybe we had a bit too much as we really tried to ‘dress’ the table and make it attractive and eye catching to people. Shara and I used cushions, vases and flowers from home – all things that got the most interest on the day with people wanting to buy them instead of our fascinators!
The day started with my alarm going off in the darkness that comes before 6am.....when the sun finally came up it was a beautiful morning , very clear and bright. As I drove to pick up Shara, the pheasants were in kamikaze mode and wandering into the road and pigeons were still asleep on lamp posts. We got to our pitch at 8am and started to set up. It was so cold that our toes went numb and I could see my own breath but the sun did warm us a bit during the day. We were adopted by a regular trader who told us things like where to get the best cup of tea and checked on us during the day, and the stall opposite put on some wartime music on his stereo. We felt very welcomed as newbies and looked forward to the day.
As an experience and exercise in market research (in the literal sense), the day was a complete success. We had an amazing reception and great feedback which has given us a lot of confidence in what we do. Our ethos is that we make things that we would wear and things that we love so it was wonderful that people we didn’t know were impressed with what we made. As we were reminded ALL day, there was a Vintage Fair on in the town hall which we would have loved to be part of but not being a regular trader meant we couldn’t get a stall in there this time. We did get some traffic from the vintage fair but think that they had already spent what they came with in there already. I think we were a complete surprise for people in the market who expected to find the usual bric-a-brac but there we were with swing music on and full vintage hair and makeup. We made quite a few people double take and I gave a couple of hair tutorials, it was so funny to see people’s reactions because as far as I’m concerned Sunday was my normal look so it’s difficult sometimes to work out why people are staring!
We did have our share of ‘characters’ through the day....when we were first setting up a man came up to us and asked if we sold dvds. I wanted to ask him if a stall covered in flowers and ribbons looked like somewhere that would sell dvds but just said no and got on. There was the 3 piece suited man who randomly stuffed ivy decorating the table in his pocket – very strange, and finally the chocolate eating pensioners who came in all shapes and sizes. We thought it would be nice to have some cakes and sweeties on the stall to make it welcoming to people and the peanut butter chocolate I made was bring people back again and again, sadly not to buy anything. One old couple came back 3 times and stuffed their faces (maybe even pockets??!!) with the chocolate, I wouldn’t have minded but they didn’t even reply to me when I said hello, met my smile or thank us. We did have a very thankful lady who wouldn’t leave until I’d written out the recipe for her and put a few pieces in a bag for her friends. I wondered why Shara whispered at me to hurry up while I was writing down the recipe but then saw that this lady with multicoloured eyebrows was wolfing down the chocolate as she waited. Nice compliment but think I’ve learnt my lesson on freebies!
Feedback was that we need to get to craft fairs over Christmas, that people couldn’t get over that we made everything ourselves and that there is nothing like us out there. So watch this space!
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