Jiaxin Entry #8

We had our first event!

Last weekend, we had our first ever pop-up event at WhiteSands Shopping Centre’s Weekend Flea organised by TGIF Bazaars.

It was a great experience for us and let me try to recap some of the things that had happened.







Prior to the weekend, I had crafted a message for us to blast to our contacts as part of our marketing efforts on Whatsapp, and to create awareness for Frond.

Next came the day of the event that we were looking forward to.

Day 01:

I reached the booth at around 2pm, and it was quite demoralising to know that we had only 2 sales so far. Thankfully, as time passes, we had more sales for the day. I was also rather worried having to know that there are direct competitors and indirect competitors close by.

Direct Competitor: A store selling open and closed terrarium, but their open terrarium closely resembled ours in terms of the glass, sand and figurines. They are selling them at $16 each with limited designs.

Indirect Competitor: A store selling succulent and air plants

There isn’t much we could do other than promoting our terrariums to interested passerbys and let our terrarium designs do the talking.

We sold our terrariums at 1 for $12, 3 for $30 and offered a wide array of figurines with the big ones at $2 each and smaller ones at $1.50 each.

Although the spot of our booth is not the most ideal as it is at the back of the mall, we had quite a few customers in the evening. As the sky darkens, we set up the LED lights to brighten our booth.

DAY 02:

We knew we had to change our display layout to make it more attractive and less cluttered than before. Cleo bought planks and created stairs to elevate the terrariums for display. Having walked past other booths the day before, I noted there were afew of them having the alphabet light box. I had one at home too and decided to bring it over to increase the visibility of our brand name.

Cleo also brought a small foldable table along so that we can touch up some of our terrariums that have shifted during the transportation. The table also act as a platform for us to do the customisations as there are limited space on the table provided.

Our display layout looked much more aesthetically pleasing and presentable than the day before!




Sales were much better than Day 1 but we still had quite a number of terrariums left. At about 7.30pm, we held a sales promotion, selling terrariums at $10 each. It has proven to work as we saw many passerbys stopping by and looking, with some eventually buying.

To me, the event was a great start for Frond as it allows us to gain feedback from our customers and we can improve our terrariums before our Christmas sales next month! We have come across many types of customers in this event, and many serves as a learning point for us:

1. Figurines

    • There were customers that bought figurines only, and we could consider buying a wider variety. In the case where people have no interest in plants, we can still sell figurines.
    • There were about 2 customers requesting to write words on these “signages” figurine. It is indeed creative of them and we could consider adding these signages as one of our customization on top of the name beads

2. Plants

    • Afew customers wanted to look at our series of Cactuses however, we only had 1 on sale. Hence, in the future, we can consider if we want to bring in cactus into our terrariums on top of succulents.

3. Terrariums

    • It makes great gift idea but it is too early for Christmas since the event was on 17 & 18 November. Hence, our Christmas event may be a better platform for our sales.

4. Workshops

    • More than 3 customers asked if we hold corporate workshops. As workshops were never in our plan, we gave them our name card and asked them to contact us for further details. It sparked to us that there is a demand for terrarium workshops, and this is something we must discuss in our next meeting.

Next on, we have to research for Christmas popup booth rental, and hopefully, we can find a good one!

Till the next post

Jia Xin