My first popup store experience
TLDR: Good experience that I won't ever forget. Good to keep this as a hobby but not as a full time job.
Why did I decide to try this?
I always had something for handicrafts and anything hands on since young. I probably got this from my dad as he is someone who is very good with handicrafts, art and repairing broken appliances as he's an engineer. During my course of studies at SUTD, I was staying in hall and it gave me a lot of space and resources for me to explore my creativity. I first begun selling these items online on my instagram platform. One day, I came across a sponsored advertisement for booth rental, and I decided to give it a go to put my work out there and to see if it can gain traction before I decided to go deeper into it. I will be sharing some of the lessons I learnt along the way below.
Product visuals influences consumer behavior
My initial product image had too many things in it and the overall look on the feed didn't turn out to be very nice as well as the images were too cluttered, making it harder for the customers to shop that way. Customers also had a hard time dropping me messages of items that they wanted because they couldn't just share the image with me but had to manually type out the product name as well.
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I also tested out different types of backdrops for different product types. The second image did much better in terms of engagements and likes than the first one because it stood out much better with the vibrant background and there a clash in style as the silk background is more suitable for products that are elegant whereas the colours and design of the dinosaurs were more cute than elegant.
Drag line to see before and after
I experimented taking photos with a lightbox, torchlight and natural light. I still prefered how the product looked like with natural light and some editing of the brightness using Snapseed. Snapsneed was a very useful for me as it allowed me to select specific areas that I want to brighten and it was very straightforward to use, with almost no learning curve and moreover, it was free to use! I highly recommend this app.
Test image layout on Preview before posting
The 3 by 4 layout is how most consumers will browse on Instagram and it is also the first thing that the customers sees when they enter your profile. Therefore it is important to test out how the various combination of colours, product type will turn out before posting them on the account. In the initial image, the overall layout looks abit haphazard because of the different angles of which the product is placed in and the direction of the crease of the cloth. Also, the top left image of the earrings with the maroon pompoms gave an overall darker feel which didn't balance well with the other earrings.
Drag line to see before and after
Ready made charms were constricting and difficult to experiment with
I gave myself a $100 budget to source for materials for the earrings. I bought most of my materials from Aliexpress as it has the widest range compared to the other e-commerce sites. My decisions on which charms to get was solely dependent on my gut feelings and this was the first mistake I made. If I could do this again, I would have spent some time sketching the designs out before purchasing the charms as ready made charms were already constricting to begin with and there's nothing I could do to change the shape and design of the charm.
On my trip to Japan, I bought some resin clay and experimented with those instead. I also laser cut some mirror acrylic and created some designs from those. These earrings did better than those with charms and the earrings below managed to find their new owners :) It was probably because these were more unique and hard to find in the market since they are all handmade from scratch and tougher to replicate.
If not now, then when?
I am super thankful that I took this opportunity to try what I wanted to always try. It definitely taught me a lot as I was moving on with it. Managing my studies and project work while constantly making sure I was updating my store so that I do not lose my customers, always thinking about how to make it better and to reach the greater audience and never giving up even when I didn't get traction.
I am really thankful for my friends and family who have supported me all the way as I embarked on this. It couldn’t be possible without the support of each and everyone of you. It has been such a meaningful and memorable journey for me...
