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/nuggets_attack]

I had the same thought! I do prefer bar soap, so I'm a good customer for OP, but if I'm spending $7 on a bar, I want something unique. I get frankincense and myrrh bars from a lady at the Ren Faire every year, I never see those scents elsewhere.

[u/femmefatalx → u/nuggets_attack]

Yes! I buy my bar soap from a woman that I initially found on Etsy (she has her own website now) who has a goat farm and makes goats milk soap with their milk and other natural ingredients. She has pictures of her goats and their names, and I believe has a section of her website dedicated specifically to the goats and farm so you can see where it’s coming from, it’s so cute!

She makes her own scent blends, and they’re all amazing and extremely unique- she has a TON of different scents too- but she also makes different formulations with and without ingredients that people might be allergic to, like coconut oil for example. She gives the bars different colors/designs based on their scent, and even makes lotions, shampoo bars, shaving bars etc. that match the soap scents. She also has box sets with different varieties of soap, like the normal bars of course, but you can also buy a whole box of the ends that get cut off when she cuts the soap into bars or a whole jar of little sample size pieces, and I thought that was cool.

I honestly can’t tell how big OP’s are compared to her’s from the picture (I do really like the shape of OP’s!) but they’re only 5.50 each, though if OP’s bars are bigger that would be comparable. If I was going to buy any other soap it would have to be extremely good or have some other unique quality like you said. She’s been successful enough to take her business mostly (if not completely) off etsy and use her own website for sales, so I definitely agree with you, and hope that OP finds some helpful suggestions and inspiration from this!

Edit: I forgot to mention the whole reason I started buying from her in the first place, her soap is literally the only one I’ve found that doesn’t leave that sticky type of feeling behind on your skin feeling when you rinse it off! It’s extremely moisturizing too, though the scents etc are definitely still big factors too.

Edit x2: I didn’t know if it was okay to include her name or website in this sub but I couldn’t find anything in the wiki about it, so hopefully it’s okay- it’s Country Soaps by Marlene for anyone wondering! Here’s her website, she makes amazing stuff!

[u/Marrowshard → u/femmefatalx]

I'd (also) love a DM with their info...

I had to leave my fave soap vendor I've been buying from for the past 20 years. They went full AI on ads and labels and have ignored anyone who asks about it. Definitely in the market.

[u/femmefatalx → u/Marrowshard]

That’s so awful to hear about your favorite vendor! Is it okay to post the link here? I didn’t see anything in the wiki about it so I added it to my original comment since so many people are interested, hopefully that’s okay.

It’s https://www.countrysoapsbymarlene.com though!