What does “Outside or Outdoor Maker” mean?

Each day of our show, around 35-40 provided Mermade tents are set up for you (by our team). Below are dimensions because they are not your typical EZ Up size. At the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, they sit outside their beautiful whale room & literally steps from the actual ocean! It’s a pretty unique and special place. Some tents sit in the courtyard near the “inside” portion of the market, while others nestle by the food trucks & main entrance to the event. Before & after our customers shop inside, they love shopping from our outside maker’s tent. It’s a dream - eating from the food & coffee trucks, listening to great music and enjoying our free kids crafts or what the OI has to offer. This part of the market is mellow and very curated, a great setting to get connected with the community and share smiles with your shoppers. We don’t allow more than 2-3 makers per category to showcase on the same day. One of the best parts about it (as a shopper) is…each new day of the market, the outside maker tents change! It makes for a magical experience for our customers and keeps them coming back for more. You’ll find you will see a lot of the same customers coming back each day. It’s really fun! If you sign up as an outside maker, choose which day(s) fit best for your schedule! If you choose more than 1 day, that lets us know you’re open & flexible, increasing your chances you’ll get in the show. With this option, you pay a booth fee only and NO Mermade commission is taken. There is also a chance your shop can come twice or even three times if your shop is in a category that is lacking on other days.

How do I know if my shop is a candidate for outside selling?

1. If your product takes some talking about or explaining.
2. If 50% (or more) of your products are priced more than $100.
3. You LOVE to interact with your customers! In fact, you thrive off of their energy and interest. Some makers later tell us they felt they missed out on the fun when they did the inside portion, and would later apply for outside, and loved it!
4. If 50% (or more) of your products are custom, you definitely want to be there for those conversations with customers.

How do I know if I’m NOT a candidate for outside selling?

1. You don’t like to talk to strangers (ei. small chat, smiles & hellos)
2. You don’t enjoy selling direct/convincing customers to buy your products.
3. You don’t like the pressure of selling direct, feel like you might hang out on your phone or nervously duck out.
4. You have a busy home/work life and can’t sneak away for a full day or two selling.

By choosing "outside vendor" you are physically there, selling at your space, and ENGAGING with customer! Note - if you marked Outside Vendor AS WELL as an inside space, that tells us you are OK with being chosen for either. However, you cannot do both. If you only want to be there and sell, make sure you only mark Outside Vendor.

SCHEDULE

Let’s make sure you can be there, before you apply! The final schedule will be uploaded as the show gets closer.

First show offering Sunday! Yeeew!

Friday: Set up begins as early as 8am. Market officially opens @ 10am and closes 6pm. Drinks open up 4pm for date night. Also, opening Day!

Saturday: Set up begins as early as 7am. Market opens @ 9am and closes 8pm. Live music & hard drinks all day long!

Sunday: Set up begins @ 7am. Market opens @ 9am and closes promptly at 5pm. Beer + margaritas and live music running all day long!

The final schedule is sent a week prior to the show.

HOW TO DISPLAY

TIPS:

-Our provided tents are 6.5 feet x 6.5 feet + 7.5 tall.

-You are NOT allowed to display a table up front blocking your tent and you sit behind UNLESS you promise to be energetic and pull people in. Most people don’t.

-You MUST have your shop name listed somewhere in your space. NO VINYL SIGNS !!!! This allows our staff to quickly point a customer to your space, helps customers get to know your name and product, plus, it feels well rounded for customers to feel like it is a legit shop, not just some product thrown together.

-Add some OOMPH to your space! Think fresh, hanging greens or potted plants or perhaps flowers bordering the tent legs.

Click below to see our Pinterest Board to give you some space inspiration to get those creative wheels of yours flowing in a new way! This is especially helpful if you’ve sold with us before. Keep it fresh! Think shelving, think new shapes, think twinkle LIGHTS to show off your amazing product. We offer power to each maker, so be sure to bring your own extension cord with your shop name attached to it.

Try & get away from the idea of a plain table. Blah. So boring! Of course, some products demand a need for a table, so use the table as support then dream up a better display to go on top.

If you are a first timer to our show and feel you may need extra help working through how to display your product, please check in with us! We want your booth to elevate your products and keep the customer at your table longer than a quick, walk by.

SUPPLY CHECKLIST FOR SET UP DAY:

-Your own POS (Point of Sale) System & Portable Wifi.

-Comfortable chair/stool.

-A buddy to keep company and to stay at your booth while you take a break or need to restock, etc.

-Extra cash & change, we cannot to help this, but of course check with neighboring tents if you need to break a big bill. We’re in it together!

-Extension cords (we will hook you up with electricity) & hanging lights. Cannot stress lights enough! It makes evenings MAGICAL.

-Zip ties, your backdrop, masking/duct tape, scissors, random tools. Heck, bring a tool box.

-Weights to go at the bottom of the EZ up & other display items, for unexpected strong wind. A must!

It is mandatory to have some sort of backdrop hung in your tent. It hides the background, hides neighboring tents and it keeps the customer feeling like you have your own collected shop space. Curtains with holes for zip ties work great.

When the light starts to fade for sunset around 5pm, we suggest turning on your lights so our customers can see your product and to add to the ambiance. Be sure to bring some extension cords with your name taped to it and string up some lights or set up some lamps. Take our advice, when makers DON'T bring any lights, they're always bummed out and miss out on the evening party.

INVENTORY GUIDE

How much inventory should I bring?

We aren’t quite sure since we aren’t in charge tracking outside sale (tracked by makers individually). Just know that most of the makers report that they have made better sales than any other show and some have even tripled previous sales in just one selling day! You’d rather have more inventory than miss a sale, right? Plan to have a place to hide your restock or perhaps keep tucked away in your trunk and your buddy can run to the car midday to grab it if you need it. If you are a regular to shows, just pretend like it’s another show, but with a little extra inventory. If you want to talk to past makers about their inventory stock, click here for our facebook group, to send them a private message on their sales & inventory. You have to request to be apart of the group and we will accept “Requests” after you’ve been accepted into the show.

Refunds/Reimbursements

We understand that life happens and things come up, however the amount of work done prior to the show, is tremendous. All spaces are nonrefundable and you’ll be reminded of this when you pay your invoice. It is listed in our application process and by submitting & paying you are agreeing to a nonrefundable fee.

We do a LOT of advertising for your small shop on our website and on Instagram/facebook in advance. The fee of your outside space is minor when you consider all of the eyes online (aka MARKETING!), clicking your shop, and shopping during & after the market. A lot of makers think if they find a replacement for us, it pays for the fee…but unfortunately, it’s a lot more work trying to educate the replaced maker and get them up to speed.

We do however, offer up your fee to carry through to the next show with no extra charge. It’s up to you to contact us during the application period to make sure everything still applies. If you don’t reach out to us, it’s on you.

FAQ

• Communication: Upon acceptance, our team will be in quick communication with you. We will send you deadlines & dates to expect information & details. You can email our team directly at hillary@mermademarket.com
• Cancellations: No refunds allowed if you must cancel! If you want an extra day of selling, this is occasionally possible and will be priced at half the price of your space fee.
• MLMs: We 99% of the time do not accept MLMs. If you want to promote your MLM with Mermade Market and you can creatively come up with a way to do it by making a product using it, we are open to the idea! For example, we have approved an oil MLM who created beautiful bath bombs using their oils, giving mention to the MLM company that helped create the product. Your shop name cannot have the MLM in it.
• What if it rains? If it rains the week leading up to the show, we will use our best judgement as to whether the outside show will go on each day. We ask for flexibility and we beg that you know that we can’t control the weather! We are humans, like you, with a high understanding of how much it means to you that it must not rain on your big day. If we cancel the show because it will be too stormy for shopping outside and for setting up your precious goods, we will give you the opportunity to automatically participate in the next show, on the same day you purchased. If you decide to not do the next show, we will reimburse you for 30% of your shop fee. We cannot fully reimburse you because of the marketing efforts on our instagram & website that is done leading up to the show. If the show is still happening despite less-than-perfect weather and you choose to not come, we will not give you another day in a future show.
• Can I cruise around and hand out freebies? While we appreciate the ambitious marketing… the answer is no. We have thoughtfully assigned your spot in the maker lay out and don’t want to frustrate other makers. BUT you can definitely handout freebies at your space, and do something to serve the customers like a free kids craft for shoppers. Get creative here and use your freebies wisely!
• Outside makers are not allowed to piggyback and sell with any inside makers. If we see this happening, you won't be allowed to showcase with us in a future show. Example: you have an actual brick & mortar shop and you’re selling with us outside to promote it and sell all your gorgeous goodies, but notice that one of your wholesalers is selling inside with us, you are NOT allowed to go grab some pieces to add to your outdoor space, even if the inside maker said it was allowed.
• Can I play my own music in my shop space? No. We have music dialed for Mermade so no need to worry about this!
• Which day is the busiest? They are ALL THE SAME. This is totally 100% evident in our sales history, thus the same booth fee per day. our customers are fiercely loyal and most of them come back each and everyday!

Spring 2016, Photo by Sarah Gizzi

ADVERTISING

Upon your acceptance, we will send you a stack of postcards to share with customers, family, friends, etc. as well as versions to email and post online. Be sure to leverage all social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, websites and blogs. The more people that know of the market, the more will come see our collective awesome-ness! We recommend avoiding advertising too soon or else followers can forget or can get tired of hearing about it by the time the market starts. It’s a highly curated show and it’s a great accomplishment to be accepted so word of mouth & genuine excitement around the time you’re accepted is great too! We’ve found that 1 month prior is a great time to start posting/talking, with a few reminders has we get 1 week out and for sure the day of.

Social Media Marketing

We have options in our applications for guaranteed social media shout outs, giveaways & swag if you want to get in on it! We really enjoy reposting & sharing in your excitement using your beautiful photos you post. We can’t do it for every shop in the market year time, but know that we appreciate and love seeing your posts with @mermademarket tagged! If we don’t get tagged, chances are we won’t see it and can’t repost. If you’d like secure a spot on our high-traffic social media pages, then please inquire on your application.

Liabilities

Know that we do our absolute best to keep your items safe! However, in the unfortunate event that something goes missing or is broken, we cannot be held responsible.