Monday, April 6, 2015

Today was a long day to say the least. I woke up around 7 to finish tagging necklaces and making sure I had everything ready for the show. I had to bring two folding tables, table clothes, around 20 neck stands, trays and boxes as well as other display items, all the necklaces of course, the square credit card reader, extra cash for change, and an iPad to use with the credit card reader, so there was a lot to remember to do. I hadn't finished taking inventory completely so I used the 3 hour car ride to Tuscaloosa to write down every necklace I was bringing. My current way to take inventory is make up a number, assign it to a necklace, write a description, assign a price, figure out the quantity, and leave a column to check off if it had sold yet. Looks a little something like this

Inventory Number
Description
Price
Quantity
Sold
SG100
Arrowhead on chain (Black, gold or brown)
$35
4

SG101
Bar on chain (long, short, curvy, wave)
$30
4
S
SG102
Two coins layered
$34
1
S

So once I got to the Chi Omega house in Tuscaloosa I got my sister to let me in and I introduced myself to the house "mom" and thanked them for having me then began setting up. I was in a living room sort of room with several tables which was nice but all the tables were spread out so I realized that during the show a lot of people only came to one table not even noticing all the pieces on the other tables. I had my sisters and my mom to help me set up which was awesome considering I only had an hour to put everything out and in previous trunk shows I start the day before, considering they are typically in my own house. I don't really have a rhyme or reason for the way I arranged them this show, I usually separate by long or short or price but because almost everyone that was there hadn't seen my jewelry before I wanted to mix everything up so they would be able to see the variety. Here are some pictures of what the show looked like:




So overall the show went okay, not great compared to shows I've done before. The main issue was weather. It was pouring rain in Tuscaloosa that day and it is mainly a walking campus so not many people, myself included, wanted to leave their bed. In addition to weather my timing wasn't perfect, my sister told me lunch at the house was from 12:00 to 2:00 so I thought a show from 12 to 3 would be good and allow some people who went out to lunch would have some time after to stop by, but she mixed up the times and it was actually from 11:30 to 1:30, so I missed a bunch of the people who went at the beginning of lunch. Another mistake was advertising. I only posted about the show on my Instagram, which is what I usually do for home shows, but I made the mistake of not trying to reach out the people on Facebook. I overheard one girl who was looking around say "I wonder how Katie found out about this," so clearly I didn't do a great job of getting the word out. I asked my sister to post in her Chi Omega group and she did but she said they post a lot in there and it might have just gotten lost in all the post. All in all the show was fun and a different experience but not as successful as I had hoped it would be. Traveling with all the material was not as difficult as I had thought it would be so I would definitely be up to doing another show not in my house. I also gained a lot of Instagram followers from girls who hadn't followed me before so although I didn't make much money it was probably a good way to advertise. 

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