A Soap Dream Come True! Camden Lock

Finally, after months of dreaming of selling my products at Camden Lock Market I got a pitch today and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
This morning I grumpily woke up after being disturbed all night by a very inconsiderate neighbour of mine and got to Camden Lock by 8:45am, I was met by a group of other would be casual stall owners.

Everyone looked anxious like they were waiting to see a judge! Then after about 10 or so minutes a Irish guy came out and everyone including me drew closer. He loudly asked the crowd if anyone there made their own stuff to my dismay mostly EVERYONE put their hands up! My heart ever so slightly sunk as I wrongly presumed that not many fellow crafters would be there. 

But it was fine and I was showed to a pitch outside inside the square. After setting up I began to gaze around and noticed how many jewellery stalls were actually there, it seemed like it was more jewellery than anything else. Each one had amazingly different products and I had to force myself not to buy anything until I had at least made some money. In the end I traded a couple of bath souffles for a lovely necklace with Iffy who makes beautiful jewellery peices that are way too reasonable to be honest. 

I really enjoyed talking to the traders who were beside me as they were interesting and really friendly. One of the traders Phil was great he lives such a interesting life and sells beautiful jewellery he buys from Thailand  
The customers were great too although alot were tourists that were just browsing or just were not interested. The food stalls had my stomuch grumbling like crazy with all the many different cuisines.

I had to really step out of my comfort zone and approach people and talk to them about my products, the properties and benefits they provide.  When I did this my sales did increase, I need to also demonstrate the product on people the next time. One of my aims today was to get people looking at the website and getting my brand out there. I gave out a load of flyer's and business cards and hope people do check out my site.

By the end of the day I'm tired but exhilarated as I have accomplished something I had said I wanted to do at the beginning of this journey, but this is where the  journey really begins for me. I will defiantly be returning to Camden Lock and hope to be successful in getting another pitch.

Website Up and Running! www.milkriver.org.uk

Its been a long time since my last post but alot of progress has happened within that time. Firstly, I am finally Self Employed! Secondly, after many many hours of hard work www.milkriver.org.uk has gone live! Yay!!!! and Thirdly, started doing festival/shows/fetes.Its been manic but well worth all the hard work.

1. The initial fear of being my own boss is still very real, its worrying when I've not made many sales but something always comes up. The main thing is to keep records of everything and set up a good book keeping/filling system which I'm in the process of doing.
2. Setting up the website was very hard. I found that writing the descriptions for each product was so time consuming but obviously well worth it. All the other bits and pieces like meta tags, shipping and 100 and one other things involved in building a site has been exhausting! At times I was calling the help line 2 or 3 times per night (its open 24 hours).
3. At the very first event I had a stand at I met a photographer guy called Karlton Chambers, and all though I made no money at the event I was happy I went as I met Karlton. I asked him if he would be willing to take photos of my products and he agreed. He took some beautiful photos and I feel he made my site pop! He has been very encouraging and I thank him so much for his hard work and time.

I'm hoping to do Camden Lock this weekend, I have been told by a few people that Camden Lock is quite hard to sell at as there are a lot of tourists that just want to browse or don't really want to spend more than a few pounds.The weather has been so bad here in London so its a gamble but as I'm self employed I need to try any avenue to make some money!

I am also in the process of setting up pampering parties buts that's another post! lol

Till next time.........................

Natalie