ProfitBrite

Sell Your Product at a Consumer Show or Swap Meet

Renting a day space at a swap meet or a consumer show is a great way to sell your product or service, and also to see if there is enough interest to quit your day job and try it full time. A swap meet, or flea market, is typically a weekend event that consumers come to in order to see a variety of products. These people are typically very motivated to buy and will often impulse shop.

A consumer show is typically organized by a product category. For example, I recently rented a booth at a hunting/fishing show to sell food vacuum sealer bags, rolls, and machines. A consumer show may be a better place to sell a product that is specific to a particular type of industry or hobby. A swap meet is great for general consumer products.

Regardless of the show you attend, you must have an attractive space that will draw potential customers in. If you do not look reliable and legitimate, then they will go elsewhere. A large sign advertising your business is a must. People will not stop if they do not know what you are selling. I purchased a custom vinyl banner online for around fifty dollars. I highly recommend vinyl banners; they are weather-resistant, and they easily roll up for storage.

You must also have some tables to demonstrate or display your products. Most consumer shows and swap meets can refer you to a furniture rental company if you don't own suitable furniture. I have found that draped tables are the best way to go, because you can store product under the table, and it can't be seen from the outside of the booth. All rental companies have draped tables available.

Depending on your product, it is a great idea to have a few available for the customer to examine prior to purchase. You should definitely take whatever you are selling out of its box and put it on your front table for display.

I sold discount rel=nofollow [http://www.vacuumsealersunlimited.com/About_Us.html]FoodSaver bags at a consumer show recently. I had several bags of sealed food on my front table, along with several vacuum sealing machines. If you have a variety of products, it is important to display all of them. Rent several tables for your booth, so you can show all of your wares.

If your product is something that needs to be tried on, like clothes or shoes, make sure that you have a private dressing area. This can be accomplished by purchasing wire mesh walls at a home improvement store, like Home Depot, and attaching material to three sides and a drape across the entrance.

If you can have live demonstrations of your product, I highly recommend it. It is a great way to draw people in. I also sell commercial chamber vacuum sealing machines and bags. I drew in several people by vacuum sealing bright red sports drink in a vacuum sealing bag. People love to be entertained, and even someone who might not have to come to buy your product may buy it if they see a live demonstration. Be sure to be cheerful and friendly, and to answer all questions patiently and thoroughly.

Another important decision for you to make is how you will accept payment for your products. Do you want to accept credit cards and personal checks, along with cash? I opened a merchant account, so I could accept credit cards, because I've learned that most people want to pay that way. Most venues have wifi that you can purchase by the day, so you can use your computer to get their credit card information. I personally do not accept checks from customers. Because swap meets and consumer shows are typically on the weekend, there is no way to verify with the customer's bank whether or not there are sufficient funds to cover their purchase. If you offer cash or credit card payment, the vast majority of people will be able to purchase from you. Also, most venues offer ATM machines, so a potential customer has access to cash that way as well.

Last but not least, be sure to have the basics to keep your booth running smoothly. If you are accepting credit cards and need your computer, be sure you have access to an electrical outlet and bring extension cords to plug your computer into. Selling your product or advertising your service at a weekend swap meet or outdoor show is an inexpensive way to earn some extra money and to see if there is a potential for future success.

In addition to being the mother of three busy sons, Lisa also owns and operates Vacuum Sealers Unlimited, a recognized leader in the vacuum sealing industry. Vacuum Sealers Unlimited sells FoodSaver bags and rolls and Seal a Meal bags and rolls for up to 60% off retail.

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Top 3 Effective Joint Ventures

Top 3 Effective Joint Ventures...

#1 - Email List Swaps - One of my favorite ones, and the most instant results. If you do it corectly you can add 100's - 1000's of new subscribers to your email list in hours. The method is simply, you and your JV partner agree to basically swap each others list, customers with a cross promotion for each other.

Let's say your joint venture partner has 1,000 subscribers and you have 1,000 subscribers, if you both do a email list swap, that's a extra 1,000 NEW subscribers that will see your offer, and if it's a good offer like a freebie that leads to a lead capture page, there's no reason why you can't add 500 - 800 of those subscribers, all depending on the responsiveness and quality of the list though.

You can find joint venture partners through forums, twitter, and JV sites like The Internet Marketing Inner Circle. Another GOOD way, and the one I use the most is through my email. If your subscribed to a lot of internet marketers list, then your already getting 100's of emails on a regular basis. My method is to reply to some of those emails and simply ask them if they would like to do a JV email list swap, and most of time they are up to it.

Infact, most of my biggest joint ventures came from just this method alone and I have added 1000's of subscribers, it's not hard to average about 3 - 5 new JV partners a day using this tactic alone. JV partners want to know 3 things, how big your list is, how much clicks you can drive, what and when you can want to start the JV.

#2 - Trading Content - If your not creating content and you want to find new content for your subscribers, this is a quick and effective one to do. You simply swap each others content such as, articles, blog post, special reports, videos�etc and it's unlimited, you can swap ANY kind of content you like.

You can add this content to your thank you pages, subscriber confirm pages, login pages or anywhere traffic is already going to. The good thing about this is if your joint venture partner is averaging about 300 unique visitors a day, that's 300 more visitors to your content building your branding, credibility and best of all, sales.

You always want to match up with your JV, no one will really want to JV with you if your getting 100 unique visitors a day and their getting 1,000 unique visitors a day. Articles is one of the bet ways to trade content, it's simple and informative, and have a high rate of being passed around not only through your JV partner, but to other marketers and even ezine publishers.

#3 - Teleseminars/Webinars - One of the most viral and best way to deliver value is through teleseminars and webinars. Why? It's easy to share, and with webinars it's visual so it's easier to understand and keep your attention. One of the best webinar presenters I've seen is Jim Edwards, he always deliver GOLD and keeps your attention.

With teleseminars, it's instant and straight to the point. Although you don't have no clickable links, it's still powerful because it's recorded, so it's not just a one time thing. If you mention your links in the teleseminar, just imagine how much people is going to listen to the replay.

For a JV, this is good because your building credibility and value for your subscribers and customers. Not only that, marketers are always looking for more content, so it usually get's passed around on blogs, forums, articles and to their list. It doesn't have to be a long teleseminar, it can be from 5 minutes to 1 hour, it all depends.

One thing about this method is it's not hard to find JV partners. Most marketers won't mind doing a teleseminar if they know it's going to get distributed to a good amount of people. You can even JV the experts, they won't mind giving you 5 - 30 minutes of their time to give value because it's helping them too.

It's no secret that JV's are the way to go. Sure, you can do it by yourself but it takes longer, finding and completing successful JV's will propel you to the top quicker. Combine all of the JV methods above and even better, you won't have to worry about finding traffic, you'll be too busy scheduling your next JV. Go get em :-)

Terrance Charles is a well Respected Internet Marketing Expert with over 10 Years of experience in the area of online marketing, affiliate marketing and email list-building. To learn more about the techniques Terrance uses to gain traffic, subscribers, sales and signups, visit http://www.thesimplecodemanuscript.info

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Top-3-Effective-Joint-Ventures&id=4175843] Top 3 Effective Joint Ventures

The Perfect Self Employment Solution - Your Own Work From Home Business

A couple years before I retired, I visited a flea market a couple of times. This stuck in the back of my mind, as a way to make extra retirement money.

Shortly after I retired, I decided to hold a garage sale at my house to see what it was like, and how much money I could make. I searched for information on the internet about garage and yard sales, and read about strategies for a successful garage sale. From what I read, it seemed pretty easy to me. Haggle a little, and have a price in mind for all your stuff. I thought I could handle that.

I held the maximum garage sales my city would allow, (three per year) and wondered how I could do something like this full time. My area was not zoned for holding garage sales every weekend, in front of my house. So, making money like this, at my place, was not an option.

I remembered that I used to go to the swap meets with some of my friends when I was a kid. It was fun, because I did not have much money, but I was always able to buy something I could afford that I liked. And, if I came up short, there was always the snack bar as back up.

My nostalgia brought me back to the same swap meet I went to as a kid. But, they had torn down the drive-in and built student housing for a college there. I wondered where the swap meet went? I looked it up on the internet and found their phone number and called them up. I found out that the new location of the swap meet was now actually the parking lot of the college itself.

- it was only a few blocks away from the old drive-in. It was on sSunday, only.

I visited the swap meet the very next Sunday. I talked to some of the vendors, and then went to the swap meet office to make a few further inquiries. They told me I could sell there a few times, before I was required to apply for a resale license from the state.

That did not seem too complicated, so I decided to give it a chance. I looked around and observed how the vendors sold their wares, and made a short list of the kind of supplies those selling at the swap meet were using to stack their merchandise on.

The next week, I visited a few other swap meets, checked with the state about the resale license, got my turbo tax software, city licence, quick books software, and all the supplies I thought I would need for the next weekend.

The following Sunday morning, I got my tent, chair and table, and loaded them all up in my truck, with all the stuff I wanted to sell. I left my house at about 4:30am, and got on an empty freeway travelling toward the local swap meet.

I unloaded everything in my ten by sixteen foot sellers space, set it wherever it fit, and waited. To my surprise, it was not much different than selling from my home at my own garage sale. And it was all over by noon.

Everything sells for about the same prices they sell for at home. I know, and you know, that you do not really make much money like this. I mean, you buy things retail at full price, then months or years later, you decide you do not want these items anymore, because they go out of style, or whatever reason - then, you decide to get rid of all of it.

you have a few options to get rid of unwanted household items -

you can sell them at your own garage sale, or local swap meet.

give it all away to family, friends or whomever.

give it away to charity.

throw it away.

set it out on the curb with a free sign on it, and hope someone takes it away.

did I miss anything?

did you know that you can actually make a business out of doing this?

anyone can be in business for himself, or own his own home based jobs. If you are going to do everything yourself, they call this a sole proprietorship. You use your name as the business - for example, joe smith garage and swap meet sales. That is it. You get a business license and your state resale license, and that is it - you are now officially in business.

After legitimizing your business, you are entitled to almost every write off that the businesses downtown have. You have to keep track of your sales at the swap meet, and add in the sales tax at the end of the day.

But, I already paid taxes on all this stuff, what is the deal here, anyway? Well, that is only until you sell all your own household stuff. If you can actually find a real wholesale place to buy wholesale items for the swap meet, you add the sales tax on what you sell. The customer pays the sales tax.

After the first swap meet, I had sold all the stuff I had from home. So, without anything else to sell, I was basically out of business. Where do I get more to sell, and make a profit, I asked myself?

I searched for days all over the internet and did not find any real wholesalers I could buy my supplies from. They did not exist. Oh, they said they were wholesale, but they were not. All their prices were not wholesale, they were retail.

There was no way I could buy at those prices and resell at the swap meet, and make any money. I would not have been able to sell it even for what I bought it all for. What do I do now? I thought that was the end of trying to sell at the swap meet.

But, I wondered how did all the other vendors do it?

I started asking around, but did not find out much. I got all kinds of different answers - from, they buy at garage sales to they have a special source in china. Hum...I did not know what to believe, or who to believe.

So, I went back and looked up swap meet and flea market supplies again on the internet, and I knew the prices were all too high - unless you bought a shipping container full of merchandise for thousands of dollars.

A lot of the stuff you bought was sold in crates, and part of it was damaged. You did not know what actual percent was damaged, either. I did not want to sell potentially damaged merchandise, and get complaints. I did not want to take that chance.

Also, where would I store all the pallets of stuff? I would not have had the room in my garage. This was not the way to go - another dead end.

I did not give up, but kept searching for ways to buy wholesale, and I do not remember how, but I stumbled upon this certain auction where you could bid on a full household of merchandise for pennies on the dollar.

It was really a life saver. I found out that these places were in every town, and close by - there were a lot of them. All you have to do is know where they are, get the schedule of the auctions, and know how to bid on them. I learned how to do all this fairly quick. I then had what I needed to sell at the swap meet. I know that if I can do it, you can too.

Many vendors would come up to ask me where I bought all my stuff, because they saw that I had the merchandise that attracted more customers to my booth. I did not want to give up my source I worked so hard to find. If I would have told them, they would have been able to compete against me, and undercut my prices.

I did not want that, because that is exactly what they would have done to me. Why would I want the extra competition from them, to make it harder on me? I would have to lower my prices below theirs, and not make nearly as much money for all my hard work.

Of course, I kept my secret source of below wholesale swap meet merchandise to myself. What would you do?

It is the only way I know of to make any real money at your own garage sale, yard sale, swap meet, or flea market. [http://www.career-test-info-guide.com/]Career Test

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