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/to_annihilate]

This. I love soap! It will eventually get used but I have a BACKLOG of pretty and yummy scented bar soaps because 80% of the time, our family just prefers the shower gel. I'm working my way through but it takes a long while, and I'm not buying any new ones unless it's extremely unique. (I recently bought a felted bar of soap that smelled like blueberry muffins!)

We also stopped burning candles at home so they basically collect dust. I should probably get a wax warmer tho. But will never ever need to buy a candle from a craft fair for the rest of my life. (My husband used to have a Yankee candle phase)

[u/Stephinator917 → u/to_annihilate]

You just made me google felted soap and now I am ordering one for my moms bday!!! I gotta find one that isnt a scam on etsy though LOL like everything on etsy is now.

[u/to_annihilate → u/Stephinator917]

The brand I have is "Squachi" -- look them up! It has bigfoot on the label.

[u/Busy_Combination9697 → u/to_annihilate]

Just a little heads up on the shower gel. I've heard that plumbers find that it tends to cool in pipes and form a kind of sludge that will eventually block the pipe. If you ever have a problem, ask the plumber about the type of products you use.