Lessons

Lesson Info

Craft Show: Ana Apple

My name is anna, owner and creator of an apple. These are some of our signature designs here, known best for my infant garments, both lives and body suits as a toddler. T shirts, we've got hoodies, and when I haven't expanded booth, I usually have adult t shirts and hoodies as well. That's, a kind of play off the kid designs. Yeah, really, just celebrate women way love creating designs that help you celebrate like a new baby in the family or birthday like a milestone like a first birthday, our first day at school, you know, there's all these different things that can just be celebrated, even if it's just a small thing. And I like to think that, you know, our clothing helps you helps you do that so and inspired generosity to think so. I see california, san francisco specifically is a big theme here. Tell me what this particular product means to you because you know anything with a heart on it, I'm guessing has a pretty intense meaning. Yes, so this is called callie love it's, available ...

on bibs, you've got bodysuits as well as t shirts and then the hoodies, and then this one has a little well see on the front on the cool thing to is just because my business was born in california have a specific love for it a cz wella sze yu know my niche market is really targeted here connect with a lot of my buyers here, but we also online or when I go to an event that's outside of california, like I have got a tally love that's more centered in so counsel the heart's down here for like our l a and san diego stories that we work with a cz well, as I do orders all the time for, like ohio, new york, uh, I'm going to suggest it or make you personally one for you and your daughter, no problem, but yeah, it's totally customizable through a website it's called hometown glory on the website, so you can kind of then work with us if you have, like sports team colors are like a family photo colors that you want to do, that's something we do for this design, especially with business time, especially with like father, son or big brother, little brother, we do a lot of like, so can I do like this type? Like, can we flip it so that they're not totally matching? Or we do kind of the same color way on these two design, so there's a whole lot of fun you can have with, like, mixing and matching and everything and if the baby is not quite big enough to do our bodysuits yet bibs are also really good option and they're also really long life span three months all the way to typically say a year because not all behinds grow at the same rate but I've had one and a half year old's always toe like a small two year old still rockin arbib, so those are also really good option on and then something that I'm going to do is if you're unsure of the size of the baby you're unsure of the gender or if like the parents and I don't know if they want the skull and crossbones on there once I'm going to start offering gift cards there there live online now and I'm just going toe once I get back to the office, I'm goingto get those prints that you can offer them in person too in time for the holiday fantastic lola was always rocking the skull and crossbones when she you were appointed to bees before uh correct me if I'm wrong, but you're using a lot of vintage yeah too and so what what's the importance of vintage teo so along with really fun in quirky designs, I like tio just have responsibility with my materials, you know, so the felt that I use is made from recycled plastic bottles and with the ties will they just really love into traffic? And when my grandma passed away, she used to be a seamstress on so I inherited all this fabric, and at first it just kind of sat there, and I really liked looking at it and feeling it and feeling connected to her through that. But then I was like, well, it's not doing anyone any good. It's not celebrating her life by sitting in a box in my closet, you know? And so I decide, like, you know, just just a way to kind of celebrate that celebrate her life along with celebrating a new life coming into the world, who this is getting deep now eyes to then, like, use them into, you know, these really fun designs and give a little meeting and then just have that little backstory. I really remember grandma literally all over the country. I think so, yeah, few internationally as well, but yeah, I think the country yeah, that I well, I think we might have a customer who has been eyeing the stuff, so I'm gonna let you engage with her, okay? And then we'll check back with you. Thanks. Hi. Hi, how are you? I'm doing very well, how are you? I'm very well, I just feel like yeah, so tell me also I have a niece is she just turned one and she is the best thing ever everybody that I was actually wondering so for for things like this like how durable is it? Because she is certainly messy and these are going to need to go in the washer repeatedly absolutely and I'm a firm believer that kids should get messy and should play hard and come home just destroyed, you know? So so because of that I specifically have chosen materials that are really durable, like I said, our fellows made from recycled plastic bottles is not will be so because of that whereas you know like a wool sweater something if you dry it gets really worked in the dryer thes have done multiple times and they don't I don't have any issue everything's been stitched on very strongly you can the little pockets actually work on those guys too, but yeah, and the same goes for a vintage fabric I find that some of them are actually more well made than some of the fabric wow that's what I was going to ask you. So how does the vintage fabric hold up? Because just the I thought of it seems like it would be very delicate right? And that's that's kind of where my blanking on the word but my kind of quality control comes in when I even before I even put it into production, I'm looking at him kind of pulling at it. We always do a pre wash on it just to kind of see. Well, if if this is the initial washington what's it going to be like, twenty or thirty washes down the line and, you know, I'd hate to have to put something out there that the kids can only wear one or two times. So that's definitely something that I've I've built into the way that we construct our stuff nice, and so do you see that? I mean, it seems kind of like a unisex type of lines. So when your custom, when your other customers buy today, like, are they are the women are sorry, not the women, but the people buying for little girls tending to go with, like some of the reds and the pinks. Or are you seeing more of a I'm trying to decide what, what I should get? No for sure. That's, why I'm having having a hard time deciding which one I should I should pick. Well, I take that as a compliment for so yeah, for sure I definitely identify with, okay, I'm gonna take it back, I'm not a fan of like baby blue and pastel pink like that's just completely another. My, my, uh, not my taste. That being said, I know that certain people are so I do offer, you know, certain things that are kind of pinky there I do, I do really like hot pink, but I kind of throw it a little more hip with the black and everything, and they do have some baby blue, but it's it's kind of my style of doing those traditional colors, but I definitely hold value and not keeping, like, keeping a lot of things pretty unisex. I've had a lot of people by kind of this color scheme in this design, they're a little black tutu on it, and then do that, like, do that for the girl twin and then this for the boy twin. And I'm still waiting on that that picture to come back, tio from the kid's portrait session. But yeah, so I specifically kept it unisex so that people could, you know, and then pass it on to you know, another family or the next sibling down, so and s so what's the pricing difference here so our bibs typically range from twelve to eighteen the ones we are sorry bodysuits and t shirts, typically twenty eight to thirty. Four between these designs on dh then their hoodies are between forty four and fifty for so and how and what's the what is the difference is just the sizing or is that the design as well it's mainly the design yeah how complicated it is like these air to pieces versus four pieces in a button and those get show eight and above so just kind of length of time and a little bit of perceived value as well so yeah nice well I think my niece is really going to want that hoody okay, so I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to get that so maybe when we're off duty oh I'll let you know what okay in just a minute but I wanted teo kind of comment on a couple of things that happened okay not a bad way all in good things things that you can use for the future but you know, one thing you're shopper here asked was about the durability of goods and when you hear questions like that over and over again as I'm sure you do because you you've got that answer really down on you might use that to lead with because a lot of times customers have that on the brain but it's not coming out of their mouths right? Okay on dh so that might be something you know paint all of the stuff is super durable I pre wash it we test everything pull it on this and pulling on that. You know, I know just how crazy kids could get with their clothes, so I wanted just assure you that this stuff is all extremely durable. I want your kind to be able to your kid, your niece, your nephew, to be able to wear this as many times as possible because it's going to be their favorite shirt, right? And also, this is a great opportunity to talk about, you know, when you hear questions like that over and over again at a craft show booth, you want to make sure that on your website those things appear in at an f ake sashes, do you have an f a q section on your site, but that is not included on it, so I would ask that question and that's a great opportunity. And then, you know, another thing is, you know, elizabeth ass about which gift you know which items she was going to pick up or her niece that that is your customer saying to you, tell me, ok, tell me so I would start asking pointed questions that guide you toward a specific items so you can really say yet its this one that's the one you've got that's, the one you've got to have and I've got this other thing that would go great with that, so, you know, you can put together maybe a package or a couple items instead of just one, but yeah, anytime a customer says to you, I'm trying to figure out which thing I want to get healthy them, okay, products in their hand, and ask the questions that are going to allow you to guide people into the right buying decision, okay, all right, what we have from the net cannot write from the net first of all, people have some ideas for you as well, okay? Yellow says anna could show an example of the washed items, so when people were asking about that when elizabeth was talking about that, you were talking about washing it, people said, show her, show her, show her so that she can again see and feel that, okay, but also potentially images of cute kids wearing your clothes, usually in a booth. Okay, then again, we're talking about the ipad over there that could be another place to have a slide show of the kids right now. So one of the conversation that's coming up is about showing prices versus not showing prices. We talk about that again as teo, what your recommendation is or why you don't show prices what your experience is, do you want well, I was just going to give you an opportunity do you normally show prices or is this how the booth do but the way that I fold I like them neatly well, somewhat neatly folded trifle did the prices are on the little tag here? But I know that's not super obvious, so I just kind of mentioned the price range and then when I'm saying I'm happy to help you find the right side that you need and then when you look on the tiger also find that the price on the bottom right? But I have kind of toyed around the idea like alinea has this's the name of the product with the price underneath, I've kind of been going back and forth on if that's something that I want to execute or not yeah, and, you know, that's something that you might just like I mentioned with lina try experiment, okay different ways to display price and see what starts more conversations where perhaps what shuts down more conversation, but I think, you know, on the tie works really well, as long as you are encouraging people to pick things up because as soon as the tag comes out like obviously, I know the price is going to be on the tag that's something that we've all been trained to expect, but people do have people are often read isn't pick up items in a craft show booth because things air folded the sony right right so I would suggest them that as your greeting customers you actually make an effort to pick items up because as soon as they see that tag pop out, they're going to feel a lot better about going through and feeling oh, I see how much that costs does that make sense or maybe just let some pop out and not be outworked yeah yeah yeah, you know it is really just something that you can kind of you can create the environment that you need to create in your booth and so if you are picking things up and you're not so concerned about how everything looks all the time, you're just you know, I'm picking this up I'm putting that down I wanted to show you this one and what it really looks like and the tags sticks out all that kind of stuff that's going to make people feel a lot more comfortable and I don't think you need to be blatant about your pricing, but I would experiment with different things. I do think booze absolutely need to be priced same thing on websites I get so fed up with prices aren't on there because not showing prices to me my mother always told me if you have to ask it's too expensive and so I don't I never ever want to see someone walk away from your booth or walk away from my website because I don't have a price there because b the idea is, if I have to ask it's too expensive. Okay, alright, fantastic. Yeah, I mean, I think about for myself that barrier it's. Just one more barrier to me purchasing a vamp that's. Exactly. Okay, so one fabulous comment from mtp lisa, who says that she really appreciates, unlike the fact that you're designing for the people and not necessarily yourself, which is a theme kind of that we've been talking about. There are still people out there. They do wear pink or blue, or what have you so truly thinking about not necessarily everything that you love but what the customers will love to write. So I think it's great that the internet has spoken, being used so much. I can't wait to see how this line really blooms on me, what all being stores you're in by next year.