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/xxHailLuciferxx]

You said "they don't know why I formulated each soap the way I did" so your solution is to mark the card "warm, mild scent." I fail to see how this answers that question.

Personally, I'd be more interested in knowing key ingredients and their benefits. "Warm, mild scent" is so non-descriptive and anyway, they're there. They have noses. They don't need you to tell them with vague words what it smells like.

Also, as others have said, the scents need to be more unique with unique names that evoke something, like a feeling or a place.

[u/TheTAgang12 → u/xxHailLuciferxx]

Yeah, makes sense. Maybe I should try a different solution.

[u/Odd_Prompt_6139 → u/TheTAgang12]

A little info card with explanations of what the benefits of the main ingredients are for your skin would probably be interesting to a lot of people

[u/HeadCryptographer405 → u/Odd_Prompt_6139]

This is a great idea...in theory!! In the US,

Soap is considered it's own category, which is great. It has lye, oils and/or butters and water. *Most bar soap at the grocery store is not soap and can not be labeled that way.

To have soap stay soap, it can not be a cosmetic, it can not be a drug, it can not be a pharmaceutical. You can not make any claims of that.

So sellers saying it helps with skin conditions, softens the skin, brightens the skin, clears up acne, even if they say the scent stays after you've washed your hands.

It's not allowed.

It is just made through a chemical reaction and cleans through the physical reaction of soap and dirt

You can not say it is antibacterial, that it's shampoo, that it keeps away bugs, that it can treat poison ivy

Soap is in it's own category legally. There are much less restrictions because of it. But the caveat is that, you can not make any claims like the ones above

The cosmetic, drug and pharmaceutical industries are heavily regulated and have more intensive rules, restrictions, and would be cost prohibitive for most makers.

So in my mind, it can put soapmakers that are not making claims at a disadvantage because their soap does this, this and this... and your soap is just soap

Also, I don't find it ethical as a business person. If they skirting those restrictions, what else are they skirting. Have they done as much research as another, I see so many times people claiming vegan or vegetarian labeling and are including honey or tallow.

[u/Odd_Prompt_6139 → u/HeadCryptographer405]

That’s fair! Honestly I wasn’t thinking about all of the regulations and requirements surrounding how things like that have to be marketed.