Thursday, June 4, 2015

The one with the MuseumMarket

Back in April I received a phonecall all the way from Berlin, if I wanted to join DaWanda at the MuseumMarket on May 17th in Amsterdam. I've never attended a market as a seller, despite encouraging words from friends, telling me that my products would fit in well and that I should give it a shot. 

Reasons not to:
  • What if no one would stop over at my booth? I had visions of myself sitting on a folding chair all day long, feeling miserable.
  • What if no one likes the things I make? 
  • I am a big 'ol introvert and pretty awkward, so getting out there is not my cup of tea. At all. 

Reasons to do give it a go this time:
  • I don't really do New Years resolutions, but two of the things on my sort-of-resolution-list this year are: saying 'yes' more often, and trying out new things.
  • My friend Eefje wanted to come with me. It's great to try out new things, and facing things that scare you with a good friend. At least we would have fun!
  • DaWanda could arrange a bit of a discount (you know us Dutchies, we like our discounts!) on the booth, and they would take care of the social media part of the market. 
  • The whole thing would take place in Amsterdam, that's on the other side of the country. The only person I know in Amsterdam is friend Nardje (Hi, Nardje!), and making a fool of yourself surrounded by people you don't know, sounds a lot better than doing so in a place where you are likely to run into people you actually know, right? 
  • Never try, never know. Thanks Lieke ;-)
 

On our way! It was a last minute decision to do take some stools. We were traveling by train, so we couldn't take as much as we could have if we traveled by car. Most of saturday night was spent making a nifty little construction that would enable us to take them along. 

Everything's set up, Eefje snatched us up some coffee, and we are ready!
 I love those fabric packages Eefje made

 
 I've known Eefje since we were 6, but I don't have many pictures of us together, 
so I like having this one!

 
 The I Amsterdam sign, with the famous Rijksmuseum in the background

 
DaWanda's booth


Well how did it go? Great! I had a wonderful time, and was very happy I decided to go. I even want to go again during summer. We had loads of fun, and even made quite some sales. Especially the bags and postcards were a hit. It was pretty busy all day long!

Things I would do differently next time: 
  • I expected things to go slow, but from the moment we started unpacking, people were coming over, asking questions and even making purchases already. I thought things would be slow, so I took pen and paper to make pricetags right there on the spot. Next time I would type and laminate them in advance, so I could use them from the getgo.
  • Take an extra tablecloth for the front of the booth, so people wouldn't be able to see the mess going on underneath the table
  • Take some more bags, some of them sold pretty fast, and I think I may have been able to sell more of those.  
Last but not least, to those of you who commented on the post friday before the market, those comments meant a lot to me. And thanks for all of the useful tips!

20 comments:

  1. Congrats Marieken!
    I think it's fantastic you went even though it's outside your comfort zone :)
    Plus Dawanda takes care of PR and marketing, so the market was bound to attract a lot of people. Happy to hear you made lots of sales!

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  2. Lovely post! It was a good day :) Maybe we should take pictures together more often. And do fun stuff so we can take more pictures!

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  3. That's great, I'm so glad to hear it went well! Your booth set up looks great and I'm glad you had a friend to help and spend the day with.
    I can't imagine taking everything for my booth on a train! Mine barely all fits in the car...lol.
    I'm glad to hear it was a success and that you'll be going again :)

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  4. Yay! So happy you had a great time and so well done to you:) Aww xoxo

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  5. So awesome to see you had a great time there:) Your booth looked so good! No wonder so many people stopped by so early!

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  6. Congratulations on your first market as a seller! I'm so glad it went well, that's such great news! I've sold at a few markets (not more than 20 but a few!) and I would say it does normally go faster in the morning, and then sometimes can get a bit slower in the afternoon, or at least in my experience that sometimes happened. Depends on the market! I'm so glad it was a success for you though. And great that your friend could come too! X

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    1. The first hours were the busiest indeed! What was it you offered at the markets you sold at?

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  7. Yay, I'm glad it was a success for you! So often I set up at markets and don't sell much but still manage to enjoy people watching. I sometimes even spend more than I make by buying from other booths, but it's still a fun experience most of the time.

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    1. I was very tempted to go on and buy at other boots, there were really awesome makers!

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  8. It sounds like it went really well! I'm so glad it was so successful for you and that you want to do it again. (Also, I love Amsterdam! It's my favorite city that I've been to in Europe.)

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  9. Great to heat that! We did a few while we were in Dallas, sometimes the sales were not so good, but they were always fun! Selling online is different but when you meet ppl face to face that is a whole different story...& more exciting for sure!! Congrats on the sales:)

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  10. Loved this post! First of all because I am so happy you took the chance and it went even better than you expected, which is awesome!
    I also love you talking about the bits of organizing that go behind putting up one of those booths; as someone who is always on the other side of it, I never really fully appreciated how much work goes into it. Well done! So proud of you. Now you got the market bug, didn't you? ;-)

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    1. I think I did! Definitely will be doing this again!

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  11. I'm so glad the show went well! :-) It can be stressful to try new things like that when you're an introvert, so I'm happy you went!

    Instead of doing price tags for individual items, I began making signs that had all of the prices listed. It saved me a ton of time.

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    1. That's a great idea, I think I will do that as an addition to the individual pricetags.

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  12. Congratulations on a successful first market! It really does help to have a friend with you the entire time. It is such a great learning experience so next time you will be less nervous. :-)

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    1. I surely hope so! Being nervous often is pretty silly, in hindsight.

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  13. You know, I typed a very long comment and my internet connection ruined it. I lost connection while trying to submit my comment. Geeez!

    Congratulations for moving out of your comfort zone. You have ticked off an item in your bucket list.

    The museum is familiar to me because my few friends who have the financial resources to take a Europe tour always had the obligatory photo with iamsterdam. In my lifetime, I pray that I'll be able to gather the funds to have my own Euro tour too.

    Friendship since 6 years old!! That's a treasure!!! Not everyone had the chance to keep friends for decades.

    I think you should take more photos of yourself. You are beautiful! I love your height and your smile.

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  14. You can be really proud at yourself for doing something you thought you'd never do! And even better is that it also turned out fantastic! Curious to read about your next market!

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