Close The Sale – Bring Your Shop With You

Vanessa, who runs both an Artire and Etsy shop (SalvageNation) has a great idea for taking your handmade items “on the go”.

Vanessa thinks a digital frame keychain is a small investment with a big return, especially for handmade sellers.  This easy marketing tool can help answer the question by many potential buyers, “What do you sell online?”

“It is quite difficult to completely explain what you do for a living when your shop is online and your merchandise can only be seen when someone signs on to their computer,” Vanessa explains.   “It’s one thing to say, I make the coolest jewelry, create one of a kind baby blankets, sell vintage collectibles and another to show interested people what you actually have at your handmade shop online.“

Rather than simply hand a business card to a potential buyer, Vanessa’s idea allows the customer to experience your online shop – no Internet required.  “If a buyer says they would love to see your stuff, ask them if they have a minute and hand them the key chain,” Vanessa says.  Many digital frame keychains will hold up to sixty images, allowing for a lot of room for handmade sellers.  Vanessa suggests being creative by incorporating images with your shop’s name on some of the handmade item photos.

“I know every handmade seller has many, many pictures of products,” Vanessa wrote in a recent Etsy.com forum post.  “Those images can be the best promotional tool you have and can go with you anywhere. Purchase a small digital frame keychain.  With the program that comes with the keychain, you can load product pictures into that digital frame.  Now when you are talking about your products and where you sell those products, you can actually show people your work!”

Vanessa has an idea to take this tip even further.   “Use a quick little PowerPoint trick,” she suggest.  “Any frame you create in PowerPoint can be saved as a “.jpg” file – including the entire presentation can.  Create PowerPoint slides, add your shop address to a few and your business phone to some as well.”  Vanessa says adding this information will help potential buyers who are browsing through your handmade item photos have quick access to your contact information.  For information about creating PowerPoint presentations, take a look at Vanessa’s blog.

She suggests taking along the digital keychain to craft shows, flea markets, antique shows, or bazaars you attend in your local community.  “I take a larger digital frame and set it in my booth.  I let the pictures scroll through items I have on Etsy or may have at home,” Vanessa says.  “A seller can’t take everything to every show.  Since I go home each evening, I can always return the next day with an item a buyer saw the day before. It also keeps people in my booth.”  Vanessa told us investing in a larger digital frame is worth the price.  Because these frames can hold more images, sometimes up to 120 or more, there is huge potential for attracting customers at the event.

The greatest part about Vanessa’s idea is the ability to keep this small marketing tool with you at all times.  “While I’m getting a pedicure, I pass it around the room and let everyone sit and click and see the shop.  If the subject comes up about my business, I have examples handy.”

Vanessa suggest handing over the keychain to an interested customer, allowing them to scroll through the images at their own pace.  “Let them do the scrolling and let them hand it back to you when they are ready,” she suggests.  “Tell the customer to take their time and when they have seen enough, to just hand it back. Normally they look at about ten or fifteen pictures and get the idea.”

This idea stood out to our team because of the smart marketing rationale behind using a digital keychain or frame when having face-to-face contact with potential buyers.  “No one really likes to stand and go through photo albums and rarely will they,” Vanessa says.  “This marketing tool is recognizing the buyer’s shopping impulse, which requires fast thinking from the business person.”

Thank you for sharing this awesome marketing idea Vanessa!

How do you handle face-to-face encounters with potential clients?  Do you find it is difficult to explain your handmade items or move the customer from the street to the Internet?  What tips would you suggest for sellers stuggling with how to encourage purchases from an in-person conversation?

We want to hear your handmade marketing ideas!  Share a tip or two with our team for how to increase shop sales.  If our editors like your idea, we will feature you in a HandmadeMarketing.org article – and link to you as the source of the information.

Take a look at our top digital frame and keychain picks at HandmadeMarketing.org below: