VivoCity Craft Market 2nd to 3rd June 2012 Post-mortem

Hello friends,

Are you ready for my weekend craft market post-mortem? I'm wondering if you have ever wondered how my post-mortems came about? Well, a long time ago, hubs worked in television. After a show he worked on aired, the team would group together either on the same day or the day after to do a post-mortem. Mistakes were pointed out, scoldings given out, lessons learnt and the whole idea was to improve. When I first started selling my wares, I decided it would be a good idea to do a post-mortem for my craft markets as well. Same motivations here - to remember my mistakes and improve. In the past, I used to announce the exact number of bags and pouches I had sold. Yes, even when the figure was really, really low, I would announce it. No shame. I simply wanted to reference the sales figures in future. But that practice has now stopped. It seemed to irk some people who sell at the same market as me and especially so when my sales figures were good and others didn't do so well. It seemed so insensitive of me. Nowadays I no longer care so much about how many items I sell. I'm more interested in the total sales revenue.

Saturday did not start as well as I hoped for. I have had good luck with taxi drivers for quite a while but on Saturday, I was not too happy with my taxi experience. First of all, when I stand by the kerb waiting for a taxi, I don't hide my giant luggage. It's out there in full view. So I really wondered why my taxi driver stopped to pick me up. I mean, he had the choice not to. Well, he did and he came out to help me put the luggage in the boot. But he asked me to help him and while we were heaving the luggage in, he casually mentioned he had just had an operation. What! I felt really bad that he had to help me with the luggage. I mean he could seriously hurt himself. While he was driving, I noticed he was really uncomfortable and kept putting cold packs on his back. Sometimes he hunched forward. Sometimes I thought he was gonna collapse. He grunted a lot. Okay, I empathize with him. He needs to make a living. But I could see that he had difficulty turning his head to look out the window and we had a number of close calls. It was quite frightening for me but I kept hoping everything would turn out all right. A lot of the journey was on the highway. I contemplated asking the driver to let me out which could have been worst but I just froze and kept on going. Finally we reached VivoCity but he dropped me off at a bad location because he lost his way. I just wanted to get out. I told the driver not to help me with the luggage (I was trying to be a hero) but he insisted on being a hero and heaved the luggage out with some help from me. Hope he learnt a lesson and stayed home till he recovered.

I had pretty good sales on Saturday. In fact, I was just setting up the display when I sold 2 bags. The first one to go was the skulls and roses crescent bag which I had been hoping to gift to myself. Shortly after my camouflage sling bag was sold. Sometimes you get lucky and get sales right away. It seldom happens to me. My first sale usually happens after noon.

Sales on Sunday took a dive. I can't explain why. Yes, there were fewer shoppers compared to Saturday but there were many shoppers who looked at my stuff. Perhaps I had fewer items on my table?

Interestingly, the last 2 items I made were not sold. The sexy zippy wristlet, I made quite late on Friday night. Again, interestingly, these 2 items were the most browsed on Sunday! For the sling bag, it came down to the price. But for the wristlet, I suspect it's the colour of the fabric. It's not a common colour and I do notice that buyers tend not to buy stuff they aren't familiar with.

Saturday's display

Sunday's display

My weekend was quite ordinary. I felt pretty good. No migraines. No headaches. No one annoyed me. I sat with the aviation guys - 2 retired men who sell aviation books and model airplanes. They were quite the gentlemen and helped me man my counter whenever I went away. My counter position faced an exit. Outside the exit is the sea and across the sea is Sentosa, an island resort owned by Singapore. I used the zoom feature on my canon S100. I took the pic at the exit of the building.

This is Lili. She bought a flower-flower felt brooch and wore it right away! She didn't know it but she made me so happy. I sold a total of 3 of these flower-flower felt brooches, 1 tatted lace brooch and 1 bird brooch. The next time I make the flower-flower felt brooches, I will use a brooch pin that also comes with a hair clip. That way, it's more versatile! It's hubs' suggestion.

I had a visitor. This is Amy. She reads my blog. And she came bearing gifts - 2 kinds of fabric and a crochet little purse. We had a nice chat. I won't lie to you and say it wasn't strange to have a total stranger come up to you who knows some bits of me. But this has happened to me before. People coming to tell me they know me from my blog. So I was cool. She crochets but I'm sure you've figured that out.

  Prawn tempura noodle soup

Fried dumpling noodle soup

I could not resist going back to my favourite noodle place for 2 of my meals. But I tried different items. My BFF (the old lady) saw me slurping the prawn tempura noodle and told me the way I ate, it looked really good.

On Sunday hubs came to help me and we tried the Vietnamese bagette. It has some spicy pickles. I'm very certain my kids won't like it. They are so subway kids.

It was nice to see some sellers I know. Corinna of Cute and Cosy lent me 2 embroidery books. Mandy of Forest Flame Millinery, poor thing lugged a whole giant roll of interfacing to give to me. (you could knock a person out cold with it) I only appreciated how hard it must have been to carry it all the way to VivoCity when I brought it home!

This week I'll probably try not to make anything for my next craft market which is at the end of the month. I'm honestly quite tired and I don't want to burn out. Hopefully I get to work on my ePatterns, take care of some housework, read some craft books, crochet a few flowers, work on a few tatting, embroider a little, go on a supply run, visit a few bookstores, learn PhotoShop Elements and have a good rest. I'll see you soon.