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Saturday Market
Wiren
Registered Users Posts: 741 Major grins
After 4 years I have finally plunged into signing up for the local Farmers Saturday Market. Start Up is going to be about $350. Costs include initial market booth fees, mats/backs/bags, and photo's. I am borrowing the tarp, table and some grid wall/stand.
I ordered:
25 11x14 (with the mats to fit 16x20 frame)
25 8x10 (with the mats to fit 11x14 frame)
25 5x7 (with the mats to fit 8x10 frame)
135 postcards
I will buy a bucket of suckers for the kids as give aways.
If I sell out, I would profit about $2,200 the way I have it all priced... now, mind you - I realize i'd be lucky to sell enough to pay my booth fees as Saturday Markets tend to have the same crowds over and over (in my small town at any rate) with only a few new customers each weekend.
I thought about ordering greeting cards also... for those of you who have successfully sold at these small town Farmer's Markets... is there anything else I should be ordering for sale? Trying to get the market started and done for as little start up as possible. I will be meeting new potential customers and selling future services as well as trying to sell my art pieces, but don't want to be forgetting something.....
Any advice, tips and help would be appreciated.
I ordered:
25 11x14 (with the mats to fit 16x20 frame)
25 8x10 (with the mats to fit 11x14 frame)
25 5x7 (with the mats to fit 8x10 frame)
135 postcards
I will buy a bucket of suckers for the kids as give aways.
If I sell out, I would profit about $2,200 the way I have it all priced... now, mind you - I realize i'd be lucky to sell enough to pay my booth fees as Saturday Markets tend to have the same crowds over and over (in my small town at any rate) with only a few new customers each weekend.
I thought about ordering greeting cards also... for those of you who have successfully sold at these small town Farmer's Markets... is there anything else I should be ordering for sale? Trying to get the market started and done for as little start up as possible. I will be meeting new potential customers and selling future services as well as trying to sell my art pieces, but don't want to be forgetting something.....
Any advice, tips and help would be appreciated.
Lee Wiren
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Comments
Just saying..............
Glort has a few good ideas for you.
Good luck with this. Please let us know how it worked out for you.
Sam
Hi Sam, well, after looking at it, my mats/bags probably cost me about another $50 more than I recalled... but still cheap. They are not museum grade quality mats, but they aren't made of paper sacks either - got them from RediMat.com... http://www.redimat.com/products/suppies_redipak/pakbc_smb.html
I used Costco for the prints.. hard to beat the price, I really prefer the quality I get from Bay Photo, but the cost difference was immense... the 11x14's & 5x7's totalled out to about $80... the 8x10's I had from over a year ago when I was packing around a visible portfolio. The postcards cost $85 shipped from Costco.
All Redimat packs (all 3 sizes): $179
Cost of prints/postcards: $165
Booth Fees: $70 (it will cost me $35 for each day during the summer I choose to show up)
Grand Total: $414 - so if I sold out, I would be looking at about $2K in profit (maybe a sliver more)
I also have several framed prints that I use for local coffee shop displays that will go on the gridwall for display and those will be for sale also...
Glort has some great ideas... I may be limited on the music i'm allowed to play and with live music at both ends of the market, my music may be drowned out. The signage is a cost I may look into depending on how successful this goes first.
I will do the raffle to win a pre-framed 11x14 print... maybe $1 raffle ticket cost and winner drawn at the end of the sale day... market goes from 8am to 1pm... If I pull the raffle winner at 12:30, I could get people back to my booth right before closing and possibly grab a few more sales right before close...
I will keep you all posted on how this goes, my first Saturday at Market is May 5th.
Lee
Costco is so awesome, I'm not a member yet. I've been told point blank: "We have two printers and we don't color correct. If you'd prefer to have it printed on the machine that prints more blue or the one that prints more red... just let us know."
Yet, I'm considering printing some posters & prints with them to sell onsite at a banquet coming up. Good thing someone in the family is a member and the posters that I want to print up, have been seen and were printed from there.
Lee,
I sincerely don't intend to offend so please take my comments as just my thoughts.
While cost is certainly a consideration I tend to cringe when it seems to become the overriding factor when choosing printing and materials.
You (again using you as an example) clearly state you like the quality from Bay photo Better but went with the lesser quality of Costco because of price. The individual cost difference per print is pretty small.
If you / I, at a minimum, can't raise the selling price of an image by a few dollars to cover the small increased cost of superior quality, maybe we should think about the saleability of our images.
Anyone can take a photo today. Anyone can go down to WallyMart and buy cheap matting and frame. Anyone can go to Costco and get cheap prints.
We need to be offering something above that. We need to show them something special they can't envision doing. Something that wows them.
I know many have said they get great prints from Costco, but I haven't seen any of those. While the machines may be the same as some pro printers there can be differences in maintenance, calibration and the paper being used. This difference can be very noticeable.
When it comes to buying photography or any other art, price is not the main concern. Obviously the clients budget is important but as long as the art work is within their budget they will normally pick the one they like the best rather than the cheapest. Want cheap wall covering? You can buy a canvas print from IKEA for less then it costs me to print a canvas image of the same size. We can't compete with them on a price point, only on uniqueness and quality.
I hope all works out. keep us posted.
Sam
I can't image buying prints from a company who tells you we get different results out of our two identical printers, but if you know the secret hand shake you can tell us if you want your prints to be redder or bluer. I want my prints to like like I want them to look like. I want consistent prints based on a color managed workflow and calibrated devices.
Sam
The choices are a changing Sam. Six out of ten local labs in the area have either closed up shop for printing or have upgraded to crappier machines in the last few years. If only the local place that I really liked had the better machine... I'd be set. Until then, the top places for a quick turn-around is Target, Wal*Mart, Costco and one pro lab. A pro lab that doesn't match the other labs for basic 4x6s. Go figure.
I missed the sarcasm. :cry
If your doing some quick posters Costco is probably ok. As for high quality prints, there are quite a few great labs on the internet and turn around time can be pretty short. If I have to wait a couple of days for a good high quality print...I'm waiting. Of course you can get your own printer like I did and as long as the image is within the printers size I am good to go with both quality and turn around.
Sam
1. The budget of the client is the main one. My geographical locale is not largely upscale... mostly lower middle class and minorities live in the area. That's not to say there's nobody with money, but those who have it, usually aren't willing to part with it and are into looking for the cheapest deal (Wally World opened up a Super Center close by due to this mentality - I hate that store!)
2. Competition... When it comes to personal portraits and event shooting, yes, a premium will be charged. Standard landscape style wall art - while "ART" in my eyes and worth a premium price in my eyes, doesn't make it so for the customers in my area. Example - I was at Fred Meyers store the other day, and you can get a (albeit - cheaply made) 16x20 canvas print for $89.99.... when most customers see that.. and then see my price for "ART", even though my image is better quality and better to look at, people in this area would rather save the money and buy the cheap product, How do you compete with that I ask you.....?!?
3. Making more money for less, that's how, I don't have $1,000 to spend on advertising in the hope that it will comeback ten-fold. After watching art businesses and portrait studios close around this area over the last couple years, I am not going to take that chance. The only other way I can compete against Big Box stores selling cheap prints is to offer decent quality (better than what they sell) for as low cost as I can obtain (e.g. Costco pricing) until my customers become repeat and are willing to pay a little higher price for premium grade prints, mats and frames.
I'm certainly not trying to argue your very valid points, but sometimes I read what some of you write and wonder what world you live in. Some folks on forums talk about lots of money getting the ads for your business out there. Others talk about using only the premium grade papers, inks, rare wood frames made by master carpenters in little know swiss villages, museum quality grade uv safe tempered glass to encase your lovely "art" matted in the finest quality ...stuff.
Hey, I am not an expert in all of this. This is what I know - when you are not in the big league, you start small. When your client base does not wish to spend big, you need to offer what they'll take. Have an offering for those who can't/won't spend good money for good quality and have something for those that will. (I do have a couple prints in the Premium stuff for show/sale). Build your customer base from what you have by offering what they can afford, give awesome, reliable and honest customer service with a smile, welcome that customer back for repeat business and be prepared to do a little hard work for the dollar. I guess that's what i'm doing here, I can't expect to make people pay more because, "Darn it all, the quality of the product means you have to pay more!", But I can expect respect from my customers who see me working to provide them a luxury item that meets them halfway to their wallet size and smile when I take that dollar.
Ok, enough of my diatribe, hope I didn't offend and please tell me if I was out of line in my thought process, I am a whipper-snapper still and come off like one at time - so apologies abound if I came of defensive or offensive.
Lee
Thanks for your comments, all of you.
Lee
I'll have to look into an on-site printer... if this first couple of weekends go well, I can print on site as needed.....
As far as taking money for the raffle... that's like a lottery man... $1 for the chance to win a matted and framed piece of art.... my community loves lottery stuff and a buck they can handle....
This thread is turning out better than I thought it would... anybody else want to join in, i'm listening.
Lee
I am pleased your not taking any offense, and I don't view this as an argument, but a simple discussion.
I will differ with Glort with regard to onsite fine art printing. Also realize Glort is the king of super low cost onsite printing. Matching or even coming close to his costs would be pretty darn hard even for us yanks. While printing fairly large amounts (hundreds to thousands) of small / medium prints at an event would certainly warrant the necessary time and effort to develop your printing system, I don't believe this will work for fine art prints. Onsite printing makes sense for events but not fine art prints.
Say your at an event and the local photog has captured your kid performing some athletic feat and it's a fantastic capture with his / her face showing all the emotion etc, and you can buy this for $20.00 right now. Your not going to worry about seeing this image emerge from an inkjet printer just like the one you have at home.
Now how are you going to feel about paying a $100.00 to $250.00 for an image coming out of an inkjet like the one on your desk at home?
Now if you set up a 60" large format printer onsite that could be a horse of a different color.
Perception is important!
I have never seen an onsite printing operation that can compete on a quality basis with an 8 to 12 ink large format printer. Plus I wouldn't want the image exposed to the elements right out of the printer.
Based on your description of the people likely to show up at the farmers market I don't believe the rationalization of going cheap and trying to compete on a price basis will work.
For lack of a better way of putting it, marketing an unnecessary product like art to the poor doesn't sound like a good plan.
Use this as a learning experience and then think about driving a little distance to a more upscale demographics.
One way to lower your price could be to offer the prints without any matting or backing.
Sam
There are a some markets a little drive away that I could look into, but as I started dabbling my feet in the market scene, I thought I would start close to home. With the Costco 11x14 print at $2.99 (and it appears to be good enough quality that the casual art buyer would be hard to discern the difference in quality compared to the Bay Photo prints), the mat/back in a bag at $3.60, I am at a total cost of $6.59... selling that to my potential clients for $40 means I net $33.41 per print, all they have to worry about is finding a frame. So I will be potentially making a little more than 500% of my cost. As I said before, I would like to charge this demographic more for my "Art", but as I am competing with the big box store pricing, going this route to gain an 83% Profit Margin may gain me sales and a good start at local name recognition and possibly see some future business from that, whether it is in better quality/higher priced art sales or for event/personal photo sessions. If successful, I may branch out to the better demographic areas, but i'll start here and see what comes of my plans......
Did you have opinions on charging for a raffle print - do you feel that's a good or bad idea. I did have the thought that it could deter a sale or three if people decide to hope for a free print from raffle win and decide not to buy if they could get it for $1.... I think it would be worth the risk, but I had that thought of it possibly backfiring on the sales side if I did a raffle.
Thanks again for participating in this discussion.
Lee
As to the raffle..................is this legal in your state? This would be my first question. Just because the state can have a lottery or a charitable organization can do it doesn't mean you can.
Also I have never seen a small business at any shows I have been to charge for this. I really think trying to charge even a dollar for this will be a turn off.
Sam
I only worried if the turn off would be to sales.. if somebody is thinking about buying a print... but decides to wait and try their luck at the raffle, doesn't come back to see if they won and doesn't hear afterwards, then the purchase they may have made will never happen... I certainly don't want to miss out on any impulse purchases.
I'll let you know what the market organizers say about the raffle idea.
Lee
I can't see how you would be doing other than debasing your professionalism by offering your products in a game of chance - even if you (manage to) sell the tickets. Either your photography is worthy of the sticker price, or it isn't.
My strategy would be to offer high quality photography at realistic prices - nothing more, nothing less! Leave the other stuff for amusement park operators!
Webster - I can see that point..... right up to the part where nobody buys a thing. I know that is the pat answer for most of us and I would like to be stubborn (I have been so far) and stick to my guns on pricing... the only problem is, nothing is selling with that mentality and all I have to show for it is a few small sales (only 1 decent one to the local hospital) sprinkled here and there. I make most of my money on personal photo shoots where I charge a fee up front... just not many people know about me because marketing is tough when every family member and their aunt has the newest DSLR
I am trying to think outside the box in several different ways here. I don't see it as debasing myself, but being realistic in looking at what my demographic area will accept. This is also about getting my name out to the community so I get calls for pre-paid personal photo shoots. Unless you're a politician (and i'm not) You can't make folks feel like you charged them as much as possible just because you could and smile with the expectation of repeat business. New clients have to feel like they are getting a fair shake, not a raw deal. By my meeting them halfway in pricing for art not many people choose to buy these days, offering a sucker to their kids to win their hearts and giving them a chance at a nice prize for only a $1... that's thinking outside the box for today's standards but would have been business as usual 50 years ago... this town only has about 80K people over a large area.... demographically poor to lower middle class in a crappy economy, the idea of selling like you suggest isn't working, I think i'll try something that may bring a different result.
Again wishing all the luck in the world on this but seriously beware........................there can be a real downside to offering prints and services to cheaply.
Lets say you offer a great deal for family photos, EX: two hours of photography and all the images on a DVD. Your business booms people are raving about your great images (and price).
Good luck with raising your prices. If you tried to raise your prices to say $100.00 for two hours what your going to hear a lot of " you shot my friends family for $50.00 what gives? Why are you doubling your price? We really like your work but you only charged my sister, brother, aunt, friend, $50.00."
Just saying..................:D
Sam
My pricing for Landscape, Abstracts, Wildlife and such has been the only concession where I have brought them down for sales at the market. How often these days do folks really say "You know, I need to fill a blank spot on my wall and think a great mountain landscape would look great... let's go to [ photogs site ] and buy a 16x20 shot I liked for $700.00 [ or whatever price the photog charges ]... I have seen prices like that.... I don't think that happens as often of people claim it does or I don't ever hear of folks saying they purchased a great piece for their wall from a photographer.
So, in lowering my pricing for this type of art, I introduce the potential client to me, my website and services, give them an affordable piece of art and have a potential future customer who may (or may not) use me for their next event, family portrait... at the very least, I can hope they will frequent my site for new works in the non-portrait type art I love to shoot.
Cheers, and have a great day Sam.
Lee
http://www.portraitinnovations.com/
I'm sure they are going to try to upsell the customer once they get them there, but the lure of a complete sitting with printed shots before you leave for only $9.95 how is that doing you any good?!?
In fact I think that would not be a good thing at all.
What I should have been more specific in explaining my meaning was you could take the orders and then print the shots that were ordered at home during the week and mail them out or have them ready for collection the next week. The thought behind that was not having to spend money on stock that may not move too well and being able to test market and offer a lot more images than what one might do otherwise.
In this situation I would think trying to do onsite would be definitely a detriment to your efforts and would not advise it at all.
You need to be able to have all the time you want to do this sort of work to and get it right. That said, once you had the image and the print set up right, doing a second print would be a hit the button job and that would be it. You also don't want to be distracted from making sales and talking to customers by printing and filling orders.
Also I think in this case sitting there with a printer would take away from the prestige of the product.
I like having a fine meal but I'm not interested in seeing the workings of the slaughterhouse that provides my steak.
The finished product delivered and treated with care and value is a totally different thing.
Sam, There are some 17" printers now that use 10 and 12 colours. I know the Canon 9500 series are one example. They are about $1200 here. Epsom also have a load of A3+ printers using a butt load of different colors. Given all colours are made from 3 primary's, I fail to see the benifit other than profit for the manufacturer and better tonal range in B&W which Canon at least do heavily promote.
I have a friend with a 10 colour machine and honestly, we can't see the difference between his and my 4 colour jobs, at least on colour prints. We have not compared B&W's. I would certainly hope there is some better colour for the price and complexity, whether a customer could tell the difference however would be the thing.
I'm not sure if going wide format would be economical like a 24"+ printer. That said a mate of mine who does portraits has one but I'm not sure if that is more a control thing, ( he's anal to the point of stupidity sometimes... actually, quite a bit) or he did it for cost as he's not near any labs and I know courier fees for large prints were significant.
Maybe it's a bit of both.
It would definately depend on how many wall size enlargements you were selling. My mate sells heaps and as his portrait prices for wall prints are all well over the $500 mark, I guess he has some margin to play with. You certainly wouldn't want one of these stand alone wide formats if your main work was 11x14 or such which could be done by a large desktop.
The raffle entry fee, wouldn't work for ME in MY area. I can see however if there is a gambling mentality within the community, putting a price on it may work.
I don't mind admitting most of my giveaways have been rigged. You get a lot of people who will fill in everything for a competition they see by habit. They will hand you the entry and say something like, " Whats this for anyway and what do you guys do?" A friend and I call them the "Fillandgo's" Fill the form in and go.
Then you will have the people standing there looking and admiring and dreaming of winning the prize and hand you the form and stand there looking a bit more asking questions and telling you how much they would like to have this done if they could afford it.
The first lot of entries I put in the rubbish box and the second go in the genuine box.
If I have to give something away, I'll give it to someone who will really appreciate and value it.
Other vendors I know all do the same with their comps.
I spose by charging a buck you would largely pre qualify your database so there is a distinct benefit to it there.
Glort,
Glad you clarified the onsite printing comment.
Now as to a multiple ink printer versus a 4 color printer, let me say you are the king of onsite high volume cost cutting printing. However if you can't see a difference between a dye based 4 color print using the lest expensive third party inks with the lowest cost paper available, and a high quality pigmented ink printer using high quality fine art paper and careful color managed image preparation something is seriously wrong. Plus a pigmented ink print will have a much longer usable life.
I also acknowledge that the difference for small prints of event images might not be worth the increased cost. Event photography, business if different in my mind than fine art prints.
To be successful in high volume event photography, cost is critical, very near the top.
Where as fine art prints are a combination of science (gear) creativity, effort, luck, image capture, post processing, image presentation (printing), marketing, and last cost.
Just my thoughts.
Sam
This is a common loss leader type of advertising. Believe it or not the average sales price after the client (generally kids and family have been photographed is more than many independent creative photographers charge.
The difference is in the marketing and presentation. The independent photographer may quote say $250.00 where as the chain photography studio markets some type of loss leader then up sells while the clients emotions are high. The up selling is very effective and the clients must make a decision then and there. No waiting or coming back. No files.
Sam
So, just to update on this... I have heard back from the Saturday Market organizers and this is completely ok by them. They even offered to have me do a raffle on opening day and announce the winner on the main stage... alas, I won't be able to be there opening day of the market (Apr 28th) and told them I would do it my first market day on May 5th and just announce the winner at my booth.
Lee