The rule of odd numbers

I often feel exasperated when it comes to displaying my bags and pouches for sale at craft markets. There are a few rules I try to follow faithfully. In case you're not familiar with these rules, they are:

♦ Avoid clutter
♦ Group similar items together
♦ Avoid displaying everything on a flat surface - use varying heights
♦ Avoid displaying in such a manner that when one item is moved, others will collapse

During the Christmas craft market, I tried out something new and I feel it worked for me. I had read that displaying items in odd numbers will capture the attention of customers more than even numbers. Now I have never really paid attention to whether my items are displayed in odd or even numbers.

On the first two days of the craft market, I was, as usual overwhelmed with the setting up and just relied on old instincts to display my wares. But my sales on the first Sunday dived compared to the first day. I had really thought my bags would go snap, snap, snap.

On Monday, I felt desperate and decided to display my items in odd numbers. I tried out in 3's and 5's. I felt that anything more than 5 would be too cluttered. I forgot to take photos of my display for Monday but my sales improved tremendously!

The following are photos I took later in the week. By then, I no longer displayed in 5's, just in 3's.

I noticed that my sales were quite consistent from Monday to Saturday with this new display. On the last Sunday, my sales dived again. By then, my stock had dwindled and it became quite difficult to keep to the 3's rule for similar items. When you put different items together in 3's, they just look messy. Anyway, customers tend not to be interested when you have a sparse table. Like they keep searching up and down with their eyes and they still can't find anything interesting to buy.

I am very excited by the success of displaying my bags in odd numbers. And don't worry. I'll try not to be too OCD about it.

I thought I'll show you one more thing I did with the display. At the craft market, I get one grid wall to display my bags. I hang the long bags on the left hand side. The right hand side of the grid wall is usable so I created a grid wall shelf by securing using a combination of plastic cable ties and a string. I ended up with 2 shelves!

via

I knew my shelves would not collapse as SMRT (train) had used these same plastic cable ties to secure rail "claws"  along the North-South and East-West line.