By Toni Hetrick

So you’ve booked your first vendor event.  Congratulations and welcome to the vendor family!  Now what?  The more prepared you are, the better off you’ll find yourself.  Confirm with the event coordinator the size of the space you’ll be provided, and whether or not a table(s) and chairs will be provided.  In an earlier blog post I covered what tables and table coverings I use.  If you missed it you can find it here.  You will also want to confirm the start and finish times of the event.  Many times if the event starts at 9AM for the public to enter, then vendors will be allowed to set up earlier, like 7AM for example to set up.  There are many times that early breakdown is prohibited so keep that in mind and confirm as well.  These are a few simple questions to ask that will help you prepare greatly for the day of the event. 

Often baskets or specific items are raffled off at such events and as a vendor; part of your fee is a donation for the raffle.  You may be responsible for a basket of items or just one item that meets at least a minimum value set by the coordinator.  Make sure you confirm this, as nothing is worse than getting to an event and realizing that you were supposed to bring a basket and you don’t have one.  Remember the item you provide is a great way to earn a new customer.  You’ll want to put something together that highlights your company and what you have to offer.

Is this event themed?  If so you may want to target the merchandise you have available at this event to go along with the theme.  If there is no particular theme, perhaps there is a holiday approaching that you could gear a few items towards to help gain some sales.  At times it’s nice to offer a sale, package deal or coupon for the day of the event as well. 

If you’re working on building a mailing list, this is an opportunity to grow that list.  There are multiple tactics that can be used to obtain client email addresses, but one that I find to be very successful is doing a giveaway at a vendor event.  Have your own personal giveaway in addition to whatever the event coordinator has planned.  This giveaway would be held specifically at your booth, and the items would be just from your company.  It doesn’t have to be anything significantly large, but something to draw attention, people love winning something.  In order to enter to win, part of the information people must provide is their email address.  I make sure to either explain or have it posted on the giveaway that they will be joining our mailing list. 

How will you take payment for the items you sell that day?  If you don’t already have a method of accepting credit/debit cards, I strongly suggest getting an account set up.  I used PayPal for years; however I recently switched to Square.  I was happy with PayPal, however my website host (SquareSpace) partnered with Square, and it was in my interest to make the transition to Square.  Naturally, there will be people who pay in cash, so make sure that you have money there to make change.  Bring plenty of ones.  The time you only have a few ones, you’ll have people paying you with bigger bills all day long and you definitely don’t want to lose a sale just because you couldn’t make change. 

Pack some snacks!  It’s possible that this is going to be a very long day.  Between loading your vehicle, driving to the event, setting up, lasting through the entire event, packing up and driving back home, you will more than likely be exhausted by the time the day is over.  Some events are large enough to have food and drinks, while others will not.  You want to make sure you have some snacks packed to keep you energized throughout the day.

As you can see there is a great deal that goes into presenting your business to the public at vendor events.  These are just a few of the things you will need to think about before your first event.  I hope to provide additional tips in future blog posts.  Until then, I hope you found this post helpful.  As always, thank you for visiting the website.  If you enjoyed this post be sure to click the little heart icon below, to show some love.