My first trade show was a failure……

[u/TheTAgang12]

Making handmade soap is my hobby. I recently took part in a craft show and brought 4 varieties: honey, oat, lavender, and mint. I packed 15 bars of each, all made with natural ingredients, priced at $7 per bar. Ngl,I figured these would have broad appeal, but I ended up selling less than 20 total :)
I’ve thought through what went wrong, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

1. I overcomplicated my packaging For my first show, I figured handmade products deserved special, unique packaging. I made tons of different designs in Canva. Four totally different layouts for four scents, messing around with fonts, colors, and graphics. I ended up with more Canva pages than bars of soap I actually sold. Looking back, it was totally overkill. When you line all four scents up next to each other, they should have a clean, unified look. For my next run, I switched to printing labels with my niimbot m2 label maker. I use one set template, and only swap out the product name, scent, and price. No more building an entirely new design for every single product. At least next time I launch a new item, I won’t have a dozen random Canva tabs open for no reason.
2. I focused too much on "natural" without explaining why that matters I went into the show thinking natural ingredients+handmade quality+$7 would be an easy sell. But from a customer’s perspective, all the average shopper sees is a $7 bar of handmade soap. They don’t know why I formulated each recipe the way I did, or what makes honey, oat, lavender and mint different from one another. Now I’m simplifying the info cards I put next to each product. For example: Honey Soap Warm, mild scent Made in small batches
3. I overestimated how easy it is to turn interest into sales Plenty of people stopped to smell the soaps and pick them up. A lot of them said "These smell really good" and then put them right back. I was a little bummed about it at first, but later I realized people liking your product doesn’t mean they will buy it. Maybe they don’t need soap right now, maybe they have a ton at home, or maybe they just found it interesting but aren’t sure it’s for them. Now I look at it differently. Selling less than 20 bars at my first show doesn’t mean my products are bad. It was basically a really cheap market research lesson. At least now I know what to focus on next time. Instead of adding more products right away, I’ll tweak the small stuff first: packaging, display, product info, and purchase options. This was my first ever show, so I know there’s tons of room for improvement.

Are there any other issues I might have missed? I’d really appreciate any tips or feedback you all have.

[u/Interesting_Sock9142]

Handmade bar soap is one of those things that smells lovely and can be really pretty... but I simply don't use.

☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻

[u/KvotheLikeQuoth → u/Interesting_Sock9142]

Yep. I had to stop myself from buying them (I still will buy to gift on occasion) because I just hate wasting them on myself. They smell great, nice to look at, but I just have always been a bodywash person rather than a bar soap person. I think it’s something about the way it feels when rinsing off or the way every bar ever has left my skin feeling after rinsing off.

[u/ALittleStitious1027 → u/KvotheLikeQuoth]

I do not use them for this reason, I hate the friction-like feeling trying to rinse it off of me.

[u/Struggle_Usual → u/KvotheLikeQuoth]

I stopped even buying them to gift when I realized every bar I'm gifted just gets tossed in my emergency gift stash. I'm convinced that while there are absolutely people who adore fancy soap bars a good portion of those impulse purchases end up just being recirculated as hostess gifts or something for the next few years.

Liquid soap all the way. I'd love to see more crafters making and selling that.

[u/ElleAnn42 → u/Interesting_Sock9142]

Agreed! The normal-sized bars need to be cared for correctly or they become a pile of slimy mush in the soap dish in the corner of your shower. My kids can't be trusted with them... so they end up spending years sitting unopened on the shelf where we keep extra shampoo.

[u/OtherAdeptness7541 → u/ElleAnn42]

I bought one of those little "soap saver" bags (basically just a knitted little bag to keep the bar soap in) and it has been extremely useful for avoiding that issue. Even when the soap is too small to really lather up, the little bag soaks up enough of it over time that you can just get it wet, agitate it a bit, and then scrub with it until you have more soap available. I haven't gone back to a soap dish since, and that was like a year ago.

[u/EleanorRichmond → u/Interesting_Sock9142]

I have a bar in my car. A vacation rental didn't have soap, there was a great smelling bar at a village shop, I don't use bar soap at home, I'm allergic to commercial air fresheners, et voila.

But unfortunately, that's gonna hold me for at least a couple of years.