Surviving the Buyer’s Market: my first wholesale show

Decid­ing to do the show.

So, as I was look­ing through Arts/Craft Show appli­ca­tion dead­lines online, I found the appli­ca­tion for the “Buyer’s Mar­ket of Amer­i­can Craft” (BMAC) at the Philadel­phia Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. The jury fee was $10.00 and I decided to apply along with sev­eral other appli­ca­tions that I was sub­mit­ting. The show dates were Feb­ru­ary 12, 2010 thru Feb­ru­ary 15, 2010. The date of my appli­ca­tion: Jan­u­ary 13, 2010!!! One month before the show. YIKES!!

So, on Jan­u­ary 14, 2010, I received the accep­tance let­ter for the show and my first intro­duc­tion to the amaz­ing Laura Bam­bu­rak: Mixed Media, Wear­able Fiber & Acces­sories Man­ager for the Rosen Group. She was my ‘han­dler’ for the Buyer’s Mar­ket. My first thought upon read­ing the accep­tance let­ter, “Oh crap….now what? Am I really ready to try my hand at wholesale?”

Kick­ing myself for not apply­ing a heck of a lot ear­lier, I now had about 2 days to decide if I’m doing the show, 8 days to com­mit to light­ing, booth accessories/design, and a month to have items ready to whole­sale. Knocked the idea around with my hus­band for about 24 hours. Slept on the idea. Thought about the finan­cial cost (these shows aren’t cheap!) and what other things I really needed to pur­chase for my busi­ness. But, I fig­ured that this was an invest­ment and a chance to meet new buy­ers and build long-term relationships.

So, it sounds crazy, but with a month to go until the show, I was going to do it!

Laura was awesome.

She called me at home the fol­low­ing day, prob­a­bly aware that a first-time exhibitor feels extremely over­whelmed. At the begin­ning of the con­ver­sa­tion, she men­tioned that a lot of first-time exhibitors come to the show as a vis­it­ing artist and that this option was avail­able to me if I wanted to join the pro­gram. In the back of my mind, I’m think­ing maybe she’s right, maybe I should wait and try this next year …..but we kept talk­ing. She asked me ques­tions about my busi­ness, what I would be whole­sal­ing and what sort of shows I’d done in the past.

We talked for nearly a half-hour via phone and she said the words I needed to hear “I’ve worked with a lot of artists over the years, and you really seem to have a good han­dle on your busi­ness. I think you could do the show this year, if you feel ready.” And, I did. I jumped right in. I paid my booth fee. And, once the booth fees were paid, I was com­mit­ted. I knew I had to work quickly to get things lined up for the show. Now comes the hard part….getting pre­pared for doing my first whole­sale show.

That’s on it’s way in Part 2.

About the Author

Kris­ten Stein was one our first Fea­tured Artists while she focuses on two dimen­sional medi­ums she has also spread out to jew­elry and pho­tog­ra­phy. Although her work is exhib­ited widely she has coura­geously embraced the chal­lenges of a work­ing artist in the 21st cen­tury. This series is the result of one such embrace and leap of faith. In it she chron­i­cles her expe­ri­ence as an exhibitor in one of the coun­tries top whole­sale shows the Buy­ers Mar­ket of Amer­i­can Craft.
Being accepted into this show is no small thing, and it rep­re­sents  the extent of Kristen’s artis­tic and busi­ness growth over the past year.

You can find Kris­ten here:

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