Jiaxin Entry #16

The holidays are over but our business will continue as usual.

We ended our holidays by participating in the Katong Square Lifestyle & Vintage Market last weekend (12 & 13 Jan).

We have decided to give Katong Square a shot as we have yet to reach out to tourists in our past events. It would be a new experience for us and who knows, tourists could be one of our biggest customer group!

Similar to the Christmas Bazaar, we also sold handpainted terracotta pots on top of terrariums during this event. Keeping in mind that tourists would not be able to bring our terrariums or even plants back to their home country, we decided to sell the pots as it is, without repotting the succulents to cater to their needs.

At the event site, boards were put up near the car park entrance to indicate to the public that a Flea Market is going on. With stores situated at both sides of the passageway infront of the main entrance, most visitors to Katong Square will have to walk past our booth.

Product & Pricing

We sold our terracotta pots at $12 each, and $16 for those that are potted.

Terrariums are sold at :

1 for $15

2 for $28

3 for $38

Lastly, we also sold our figurines and squirt bottles at the usual price.

Marketing

Prior to the event, we have posted an event poster on our Instagram.

During the event, I posted Insta Stories to remind our followers on where we are at.


Competitors

The competition among plant seller was less intense than the bazaars that we had participated in. There was only a booth selling air plants located across us. They had many loyal customers going to them as they have been a regular plant seller there for the past 2 years. Thankfully there wasn’t any direct competitors as majority of the booths were selling vintage items and jewelleries.

Observation

I observed a nearby booth selling seashell products that have a DIY “workshop” table which allows its customers to make their own seashell product. It is a unique experience and there were a few customers trying out at their booth.

A similar concept that I have thought of before – Letting customers sprinkle the colored sand on the succulents that they want, choosing figurines and adding names if they want.

This would give customers more options for customization, and the terrariums would have greater meaning to them.

I will be suggesting it to my team during our upcoming discussion and we may be able to implement this for our future events.

Summing up the event,

  • The sales did not met our expectations. Although there were tourists passing by, they were not interested in our terracotta pots. Instead, they were more interested in our figurines. Therefore, tourists will most likely not be a market that we will target on.
  • Our unicorn figurines were well liked by kids and many stood at our booth, bringing their parents to check it out. Some parents gave in and got their child a terrarium while some got them figurines only.
  • Some customers preferred plants in the pots which we do not offer. This is an aspect that we could look into, as we could have brought extra succulent over for customers to choose and we can repot for them on the spot.

This bazaar marks the end of our holiday but we have afew upcoming events planned! Stay tuned for more.


Till the next post!

Jia Xin