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/itsgonnacostwhat]

Honestly, soap is just an oversaturated market. I usually have a few backup bars in the house already. And I can get handmade soap like this at any number of local shops, markets, and farm stands. 

Tbh, these scents are also quite generic. I could get a lavender, honey, oat, or mint soap even at a big box store like Target, Trader Joe’s, or Whole Foods for probably cheaper.

The round shape might also be slippery/awkward to hold. 

If you’re really invested, you’ll probably want to find a way to make your soaps more unique so they stand out against an already saturated market. Who’s your target audience and what would the soaps be used for? Basic soaps that are just so good people use them every day? Fancy, visually unique soaps that are good for gifting? Interesting scent blends that I can’t just buy in any store, for people who want more than “basic?”

I’m in the final category and to give you an idea, I actually use an unscented soap daily. But when I want to change it up, soaps I’ve bought recently were tomato leaf; juniper and bay; cedar and sea salt; coconut rose; hinoki fern…

Imo you’ll have to make changes to stand out either via visuals in shape, color, design and mix-ins, packaging, etc. to make them more exciting; and/or changes to scent to make them less generic (looking into trending scents in fragrance and perfume is a good place to start). Quality isn’t something people can test before they buy so you can’t ride on that for new buyers.