Shows: go big or go home

Mon, Aug 16, 2010

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When I first started I sold shirts at community colleges. It only cost $25-50 for the day but I never made very many sales. Another vendor at one of the colleges told me to keep on doing the colleges with small fees. She said even if you don’t make a lot of money you can’t lose anything. I am giving you the opposite advice, go for the big shows or go home!

The community colleges and small shows wore me out. You have to set up be there for a couple of hours and you aren’t making that much profit for the amount of work you are putting in. Right now I am just doing the big ones in my area. Renegade LA, SF and Unique Christmas show in LA. These all cost around $300 but they are worth the money. I go in for two days and usually make around $1,500-3,000 at these events. You can also fly to the other Renegade or other craft shows around the country and make a pretty penny. Always talk to the vendors and see what other shows are good. You’ll find out a ton of great info from these guys.

At the moment I wouldn’t suggest doing the Unique LA regular season show (I haven’t done very good at them) but their Christmas show has been really great for me. All of the Renegade shows I’ve seen have had a huge crowd and I would recommend them all.

http://uniquela.com/

http://www.renegadecraft.com/

I would really like to hear your guys feedback on some good shows to do, and even ones that vendors should avoid.

threadsnotdead Shows: go big or go home

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Thanks,
Jon Kruse

This post was written by:

- who has written 135 posts on How to start a Clothing Company.

Besides running this blog I also own two clothing companies, Mediocore Clothing and SHRED. I also run Double Dragon Studios with a partner and we do a lot of work for clothing companies making stores, blogs, and myspace layouts. Please send me an email if you have any questions, want to hire me for work, or just want to say thanks.

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  • ItsNnicholas

    What about Magic and Agenda? They seem like great shows but they seem pricey. What's the price?

  • jonkruse

    I was talking about craft shows or events where you can sell your merchandise not tradeshows.

  • http://www.wearelioncrest.com LionCrest Apparel

    Hey Jon,

    This is a good topic to discuss and write about. I agree with you that all clothing companies should go big or go home. (to a certain degree). We all have to start somewhere and eventually you will get to the BIGGER shows making the real money. I started my business over 2 years ago and had to put it on pause for various reasons but this summer I jumped back into the game with challenging myself.

    My challenge and thought was this. If you don't get out there in the world people aren't going to know you exist. I challenged myself to get out to at least one major art and music festival a month this summer. I realized that my internet sales weren't the greatest when I wasn't getting out there to even promote that I had a website. For the small up and coming clothing companies people maybe come across your website a couple times but they probably don't buy anything because they don't have something to judge in person. Critisism is a good thing and we should learn to feed off of it. On a different note . . . people would rather touch and try on your clothing then just guess between medium and small or 50/50 vs. 100% cotton. By now I would hope the human race would know what kind of shirts we enjoy wearing and they can't really figure out what kind of shirts you have available until they visit you at an art and music festival or even take the leap of faith and just buy a random shirt on your site. Yeah you can have great product descriptions and great advertising photos of each shirt . . . but until you gain their trust they won't keep coming back for more shirts every month.

    I'm sure you get where I am going with this. That it really makes a difference in sales when you try and get out to even small art and music festivals. Try and find all the local festivals that go on during the summer months in your city and then compile a list. I'm compiling my list and its growing every month making my company LionCrest more prepared for the coming months and the festivals that will be going on this time next year.

    Good luck everyone and have fun getting out there and making new friends with your customers!

    Remember . . . the first couple times you are out in the public selling shirts are the hardest and it only gets more fun with more experience. Even if you have shows were you spend $300 dollars and make only $100 its still an experience to learn from and even more exposure for your business then if you stayed home that weekend and played the latest release of “Call of Duty”. If you want to hear some encouraging stories of dedication let me know and I will gladly share some stories.

    Have a great rest of the week.

    -Thomas
    LionCrest Apparel + Design
    http://www.WEareLIONCREST.com

  • jonkruse

    I would rather play Call of Duty then go to a show and lose $200.

    I do believe it's a lot easier to sell to customers in person but at the same time you have to look at your own company and see why you aren't making the sales on the internet. I went to your website and noticed you were in the 6 millions for alexa ranking. This just means you don't have the traffic to get the sales. Instead of busting your ass at these shows that your losing money on figure out how to market your clothing line on the internet. Do some SEO, work on your social sites, get blogs to be affiliates and give them a piece of every sale. There is a lot more you can be doing then spending your time on small shows.

  • LionCrest

    6 MIL ?

    I just checked and its about 3 times worse than that.

    I'm going to do some homework and get some SEO done.

    Also . . . can you check out my site again and tell me the good and the bad? I had a guy work on it a bit and its only a simple wordpress blog. He hasn't really done what I've asked him to and its frustrating. I don't have time to make a website so I might need to talk to you about designing one for me if you are available.

    Later Jon.

  • KiaSheWrote

    Great advice! What do you guys think of hiring a fashion sales rep. You can hire them on a independent contract. And what ever they sell to stores or web-sites they can make a percentage of their own sales. Hire someone who already has relationships with stores.

  • Ms_stixs

    Thanks so much soo helpful!!!!!! Much Love n god bless

  • Pepenetro

    I think I read once that you attended the Vans Warped Tour. Do you recommend doing that?

  • jonkruse

    No I wouldn't recommend it, it was a lot of work for little profit.

  • Pepenetro

    Thanks. Good thing we couldn't get in.

  • Highsoulcieity

    hey thomas, i'd love for you to sharesme stories, and some fails, so i can learn now, instead of making them in the future. please email me at highsoulcity@gmail.com

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