Or you could just give away whatever you have left in the last five minutes as free samples (with the understanding, of course, that this would only work one or two times, you wouldn't want customers holding out for free ones at the end.)

Good ideas!

I like the goal idea. I'm thinking I may drop a flavor and bring it down to six to streamline production a bit. I might also lower the prices the last 30 minutes of the market day the first time out so I'm at least getting something for them and it's not a loss. I think after the first day I'll have a much better idea, so I'm okay with taking a loss the first time.

Tomorrow's the big day -- my first market day! Wish me luck! And thanks again everyone for the kind words and support. :)

Exciting! I wish you the best of luck.

Late to the most recent posts here. But now we wanna know..... Well? How'd it go?

Adventures in Selling Baked Goods
 

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It went really well. Here's a hastily taken image of me at the booth.

It was utter chaos when we first got there in the morning. Though the market starts at 10, set up begins at 7:30. Considering we had very little to bring in and set up, we got there at 9:05. My spot had almost been given away because I was "late," so after a bit of stress we got set up in our nice shady spot.

Kitsune was on baby wrangling duty for the day after I was set up, and thankfully Beans was very cooperative! They both fared very well for their longest ever day without mom. :) They went to the aquarium and back home before coming back to pick me up at 3.

I went with a goal in mind, and took 36 containers to sell. If I sold 20, I'd break even for the day. I sold 26 at full price, and another 7 at a discount in the last hour of the day, so I came out a tiny bit ahead. Hooray! I ran out of samples around 12:30, so I'll definitely be taking more next time. I also sold out of two flavors by around noon, so I'll be taking more of those next week.

Your booth looks great! I'd stop by for sure!

I'm very happy for your success on your first day :biggrin:

You should think about letting Beans stay for as long as she can handle it. That's a customer draw if I ever saw one. Congratulations on your profit!

I second all of this post!

You could make another label for the tip jar that says "College fund".

Though having Beans around would be great for marketing, the goal is partly to allow me some time away! For 400+ days, she has been my constant companion almost every waking hour, so this is a chance for me to do something just for me. It's essentially a hobby that pays for itself.

That said, she and Kits did come to visit midday, after their aquarium trip, so that I could nurse her before they went home. She enjoyed it for a bit then got anxious to explore. Crawling on asphalt doesn't work too well, though. Once it cools down a bit and she can walk or at least stand on her own, they'll probably hang out with me a bit longer.

well, that is a completely different situation.

I understand what your saying about Beans, but I'd buy a dozen if that cutie was there. Good luck!

Your booth looks great, Choco! Having done so well your very first week, I think you'll see a steep upswing in demand as word gets around. I'm so happy for you!

Love the Canopy :) Well done!

Great work Choco. If you get to be my ss this year, you can send me some of your yummies. :)

Thanks, y'all!

Today was a scorcher -- the 82% humidity meant it felt like it was in the low 90s. As a result, there wasn't as much foot traffic as there was last week. Took a small loss for the day. Hopefully things will pick up with the forecasted cooler weather next weekend.

What do you factor in as expenses? Ingredients, obviously. I assume there's a fee for your spot. Amortized cost of the canopy? Your time?

Dont forget vehicle expenses too. Easy to forget. Still an expense though.

Expenses for now are ingredients, packaging, and the market fee. Will add gas for the car soon. Also need to set money aside for all of the taxes and license fees.

I'm not paying myself or factoring in my time at all -- it would be totally not worth it. :) Hopefully in another few weeks I'll be able to take a small paycheck, but the real value for me right now is in the satisfaction of doing something for myself. It's been a great feeling to see people's faces as they take their first bite.

The weather was beautiful yesterday so we had a pretty good day!

Changing the menu up a bit for November. I've had people ask for a sampler pack, but I'm not sure what three flavors would go in to one. Opinions? This month's flavors are:

AZTECA-- chocolate cake + cinnamon chili dark chocolate ganache filling
BUENOS AIRES-- vanilla cake + dulce de leche filling
CLASSIC-- chocolate cake + marshmallow filling
HARVEST FESTIVAL-- pumpkin cake + maple filling
KEY WEST-- key lime cake + coconut cream filling
PARADISO-- espresso cake + chocolate hazelnut filling

Pick two combos guaranteed to please and something more adventurous.

Those all sound fantastic, choco! Can you package sampler packs on the spot? Then people could try the three that intrigued them the most. If they have to be pre-packaged, I think maybe a chocolate-lover's pack (the two chocolate cakes and the espresso cake with chocolate hazelnut filling) and a 'Harvest Holiday' pack (vanilla, pumpkin, and key lime) would cater to different tastes.

Or, put 2 chocolate with the vanilla and the two lighter cakes with the espresso (I'd go for that one).

You're doing great, keep going!

Seasonal neapolitan? Chocolate, vanilla, and the seasonal 'fruit' (ie pumpkin)?

Hmm, I think I'll try the chocolate lover's trio for this first weekend and we'll see how it does. I can't package them on the spot as the law I'm working under states everything has to be prepackaged. I am thinking of packaging a few individual pies this weekend. They're more time consuming, but I think people might buy one if they're not willing to commit to three.

In other news, I was invited to attend a chocolate festival here in town! What an honor! I had to turn it down as it's a three day event with 9000 attendees, but man -- how great would that have been!

I think the Azteca, Buenos Aires, and Paradiso would go well together in a "Latina" combo.

Those flavors all sound so yummy!

Weeeell, the trio didn't actually do well, so I dropped it after two weekends. Now I do singles, so people can pick and choose what they want to get three for $5.

The last two weekends have been pretty slow and I took a loss. Boooo. Hoping today perks up! December's featured flavors are gingerbread ('tis the season?) and peppermint cocoa -- which tastes like a Thin Mint turned into cake form. Nom nom!

Giving them more power over their purchase is usually a good idea. :thumb:

You can always have decorative signs suggesting combos with creative names.

Slowest day yet. Sold $40. Needed $95 to break even and was hoping for $150. Ouch. ::sigh::

Could you Festivize the packaging?

I'm sorry it's not going so well and sorry if I seem unsympathetic. When it comes to problems, I'm all man....

I'm sorry it's not going well.

I wonder why people aren't buying so much this week? Maybe spending money on Xmas gifts and also eating lots of holiday sweets last week is causing a lack of demand.

I wondered that. Or if it's just too hot there when people are really wanting to feel a chill?

I really believe beans would be a great marketing aid

I'm not sure what the deal is. It's not just me -- the market hasn't had a lot of foot traffic. Some of my fellow vendors go the whole day without a sale or only make one or two sales. Kitsune hypothesizes maybe people are hitting the malls for their holiday shopping instead of browsing street markets. :-/

The mood is winter even if Florida's weather is not.

Plus, families only have so much $ for holiday spending,/
Once it's spent, it can't be spent again and merchants know this.

.. so we have Black Friday on Nov 1st... next year it'll be Oct 15th

Probably true, dedicated shopping expeditions complete with the gnashing of teeth and renting of cloth, looking for the only toilet water Aunt Edith will accept.

fwiw: I have done the bulk of my holiday shopping at street markets, (Pike Place Market and Portland Saturday Market), with a total of five gifts so far. clodfobble had a nice post about shopping for gifts.... my strong preference is to vote with my wallet, and I like to vote for local/independent producers.

I wish you the best.

Thanks all for the good wishes. I had a MUCH better market day today. I took less product and was able to sell it all. Not huge profits, but enough to buy supplies needed for the next two weeks. Hooray!

Also a milestone: today was the longest I've ever been away from Beans! 7.5 hours. Hard on Mama's heart, but she and Kitsune did just fine.

Congratulations, Choco! Maybe having less on display prompted some people to buy before all the pies were gone ...? Less supply, more demand sort of thing.

Hmm, could be! I don't usually display them all at once, but maybe having fewer flavors helped. The weather was muuuuch cooler than last weekend so that helped a lot! I also advertised that I can do party trays so hopefully that'll result in some orders over the course of the week. :)

Great idea! You can do flavor combos for both adult and kid parties.

And for offices ... people bring in all sorts of goodies through the holidays. Hit up some professional offices with your brochures, and any government offices you can get access to. I think you'd see orders out of that ...

Considering you're a newbie to both the location and the business, I think you're doing fine. :thumb:

WTG!


PS, this will probably remain a melancholy ache, like a mostly-healed bruise for a couple decades.

Only seven weeks left in the market season. Never did pull a paycheck, but I've continued to make enough money to pay for ingredients and keep coming back week to week. Not bad for my first year out. :)

Yes, it's all good. The people have to find you, so what you have is an investment in next year, and so it will go as long as you like it.

Cool, making a profit or not it's getting you out of the house, socializing with people, on a regular basis. And that's increasingly difficult to do without costing money these days. :thumb:

Getting out of the house and having an identity other than "Mom" has been priceless for me. I've loved it, and hadn't realized how badly I needed it.

Over the past few months, I've shifted more towards singles and fewer three packs. For some reason, verbally telling people "you can mix and match three singles for $5!" has made a difference. They feel like they're getting a deal, even though the price difference is only a quarter. :)

The past two Sundays, there have been big festivals at the park across from the market and so we've had a lot of foot traffic. I sold out both weeks!

This past Sunday, a trio of cops on bicycles rode through and suddenly one of them stopped, looked at my booth, and said "YOU'RE the whoopie pie lady!" A part of my brain went "uh oh." Turns out, a fellow vendor who was at the festival was promoting me to passers by! So the cops had said they wanted to come check it out. They had some samples and loved them, and one officer bought one.

At 3 pm, as I was packing up, the cops came back for more. Sorry -- sold out! They were very disappointed, but also very happy for me. One of them pulled a serious face and said "Now you've got a problem. You've got angry cops on your hands." It was pretty funny, and very encouraging to know the word is starting to get out.

Attachment 47004

Part of what my display is looking like these days.

That's brand marketing. It's awesome.

When we were on tour, I was the 'Bitchin' veggie bagel' guy. I had regulars, and all I had done was write that on the front of the cardboard soda flat I carried them around in, and hollered it out as I walked around. Well, the bagels were really good, too, which is key.

I've heard that the best way to be profitable with food is to have a small menu of top notch items or meals. If you only did one confection, your ingredient cost would be more manageable, and the product would be more consistent. You could print up cute little menus that offer your other stuff that could be ordered for parties, etc. Offer delivery to the local area, custom orders and volume discounts. Tony could make you a Web site.

Now that you can go out alone, is it possible to go without the stall? Would the fair organizers allow and charge you less.... Or nothing.... If you were to wander the ground with a flat that could be carried easily? You could make a T-shirt that says Whoopie Pies on the back, and try selling only those one week. If that's what people are talking to each other about, and referring to you as, you should roll with it and see where it takes you.

Make the flat fancy, with a strap that goes from the two front corners, over your head, so you can free your hand or hands to transact the exchange.

Do you have one of those credit card swipers for your phone? A coin dispensing belt thingy? Could you write a song, and walk around singing it loudly? You have a fantastic voice, and a catchy jingle would make you memorable. You get over the stage fright quickly.

chock full o' fun ideas, that jimbo.

:)

Great ideas! If you've become known as 'The Whoopie Pie Lady', roll with it, is my thought. Focus on those and on what sells (as you say, singles 3/$5). Whether you want to go mobile or let people come to you, you may want to exploit that concept. If you decide to maintain a stall, can you put up flyers directing people to your stall? Or advertise in the local papers a couple days ahead?

Keep your individual identity going no matter what ... you are, and will always be, 'Mom', and that is priceless ... however, Beans will gain so much from learning, as she grows, how multifaceted her mother is. Not to mention the benefits for you. Keep on, Choco! You're inspiring.

Thanks for the ideas, guys!

Whoopie pies are the only thing I make, but I have several different flavors. There are other vendors at the market who do tarts, cookies, cakes, etc. so it's nice that I have something unique and specialized. When I first started, I was taking seven types each week, but I've narrowed it down to five which has helped to lower costs. I freeze them after I make them, and then only take what I think I can sell for the week. As the year has gone on, I've gotten better at estimating how many samples to take, and how to factor in things like the weather and events going on that might affect how sales are for the day. Just this week I switched to having to hand out the samples -- I used to have them out for people to just grab, and entire families were coming up and having each member try a sample of each. Seriously, folks? (Some people are wonderfully sensitive about the small business thing, and others are completely oblivious.) So I've been making tweaks here and there that are helping. I also made some fake whoopie pies out of modeling dough, and put them on display, since a lot of people down here have no idea what a whoopie pie is. (My favorite compliments are from the Pennsylvanians who tell me mine are better than what they get back home, or better than their grandma's. Yeah!)

The problems with going mobile are several. One is that the organizers would charge me the same, because a vendor is a vendor whether you take up your alloted 10 feet or not. Also, because we are a weekly market, there are regulars who come every week, and being in the same spot is beneficial because they know where to find me. (There was one week that I got moved to an entirely different spot because the Oscar Meyer weinermobile was in town, and business was awful that day!) There is one guy who beelines toward me every week, plops down his $5, points at a box and then steps a few feet away to inhale all three in one go. lol. So I like being in the same spot for that. The biggest perk of the stall? SHADE. Standing out in the Florida sun for 5 hours would be lethal -- not only for me but for the whoopie pies, even in winter. For next season, I am planning to get a nice teal shelter, so my tent will stand out and be visible from a distance. I like the idea of a flat, and might try it in the future if I do any one time events.

I have a card swiper, I set my prices so that I only have to deal in quarters, and I do sing out that I have samples. :)

It's been an awesome learning experience, and I'm really looking forward to starting strong next fall.

Damn, Apple will probably be courting you for CEO.. :D

Chocolatl

I have heard numerous stories on the radio lately about the dramatic change in tip revenue due to subtle changes in the software used to present the bill to the customer. Can you change the checkout screen on your phone/swiper/doodad to prompt for a tip? Easy, free money....

Just sayin.

Most likely, "Keep the quarter".

I've actually been surprised by how many people actually want their quarter!

I actually don't have them sign because it's such a small amount of money. When you're only paying $1.75 or $5, you're not really inclined to tip. I'm also not *doing* anything -- I'm not doing any work on the spot, so tips are really very rare for me.