Yes guys, I am back again with a reflective post... it is about time that I briefly shared with you my experience of attending two craft fairs and trying to sell some fantasy maps!
So, the business selling adventure started with a trip to the Felixstowe Craft Fair on the 25th of August, and I must say that the craft fair contained some unexpected surprises that had started quite some time before the sales could even begin, with the leisure centre Wi-Fi being unreliable to connect to, affecting the vast majority of sellers at the fair, meaning that they have had to rely on mobile data to take card payments, or otherwise, were only able to take cash.
My first sale from my business came just before 12 noon, when one family decided to snoop around my stall and was interested in my work. Now, I was engaging them in the usual talk about the maps that I had made, until the mum decided that they wanted a map of the Kingdom of Ventura and Lorentia and offered to pay me with a £20 note. Probably something that I should learn from - bring change in case someone wants to take cash for payment!
One of my old lecturers from the University even came to speak to me about where the fantasy maps could fit with my computing knowledge, that I might go on to become a data scientist in the future. And one humbling moment came when one potential customer came up to me to say that there is still plenty of potential out there when it comes to making maps in books - just goes to show that it is always worth trying anything in life...
The next craft fair that I attended was the Rushmere St Andrew village hall fair which happened on the morning of the 7th of September, and I have to say that I have managed to gain some valuable leads on where I could take my fantasy maps to sell them - the honey seller at the stall next to me knew of a Dungeon Master shop in Woodbridge called "Aardvark and Dragons", located near the Tide Mill in said town, while the artwork seller next to me gave me a book on Tolkien's maps to read (must say that it was loads of fun).
And I also managed to make another sale, when one customer who had an interest in Dungeon games approached me sharing his love for maps, and he was looking to buy a map of Vergun - which was met with big congratulations from the other stall holders.
To be quite honest, the atmosphere at the Rushmere fair was much more relaxed and the organisers were really friendly to speak to - and I tested that kindness to the absolute max when I forgot my phone at the end of the event and one of the organisers offered to bring it back to my house - I was even left a note to contact them to arrange collection of the phone that I had lost. Not to mention that I have managed to gain three Facebook followers and one Instagram follower in the days after the fair - so if you haven't yet checked out my social media pages, feel free to do so and give a follow if you are interested in seeing maps that will make you shine!
So, what are the conclusions from going to fairs in general?
I have to say that attending the craft fairs have been a really steep learning curve for me. On one hand, they are a really good tool in gauging general interest in the idea, as most potential clients that came to my stall gave generally pretty good feedback about my idea and wanted me to continue pursuing the business idea in various ways. But on the other hand, the sporadic frequency of the fairs that I am attending, as well as the amount of revenue that I am making (which is a measly £20 so far), currently questions the overall financial viability of this income stream.
And another big takeaway to learn from this is to never be pushy at a craft fair - it's not a problem to come up with some eye-catching information persuading your customer to buy your finest map on an online shopping website, but being pushy at a craft fair will almost certainly make the customer less willing to buy something from you.
So, moving on from my experience of selling them at a craft fair, I am going to focus on re-targeting my physical map sales towards a tabletop audience and reaching out to places where I could sell them more regularly - that means trying to sell them at local games shops, such as the Geek Retreat in Ipswich, as well as at fairs that are related to comics and fantasy worlds. Etsy is also not out of the question when it comes to selling them online.
And last but not least, Christmas fairs are still on the cards for me, as there is a much bigger interest in map work, and other art in general, around that time.
With that, I would like to end this blogpost with this message:
The business idea is still a long way away from complete failure...
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