Christmas Markets

Craft Bottle Beers at Royal William Yard

Having attended a number of markets and Christmas Fare's with Craft Bottle Beers it is interesting to see stall holders different approaches to selling their wares. Our latest market was at Plymouth's Royal William Yard, a popular and growth area of the city it was an interesting venue.  The one thing we have learned and was reinforced at this market is that is you have the give customers a reason to buy and its not sufficient just to make something and then try to sell it.

We were selling a selection of 25 + local South West craft bottled beers from 8 different brewers. All were fantastic beers, a little quirky, a little different but all very tasty beers. Other brewers were also at the same events selling equally fine beers. Indeed, all of the stall holders sell excellent items from pastries, honey, juices to arts and crafts. There is no doubting the quality of their wares.

The one thing we noticed is that it helps hugely if you can give customers a reason to buy. At this time of year people are looking for Christmas gifts. We packaged a 3 bottle pack with simple but clean"Happy Christmas" branding so it looks like a gift. In addition a jute bag 6 pack with a general Craft Beer message had a wide appeal and the customer also gets to select from a range of oddly named beers with interesting labels that suit different interests. Other brewers focused on gift boxes with their own branding, great for brand awareness but not so good for giving customers a reason to buy.

At this time of year the gift pack is a sure fire best seller. However after Christmas the challenge will be to come up with another reason to buy. Clearly with beer birthdays and Fathers Day spring to mind but I'm sure there are other reasons to be found. Its really about thinking from the customers perspective rather than that of the producer.

You also need to make it easy for people to buy with sensible pricing. Remember people only have so much cash on them. We invested in a card reader that worked through the phone. It turned out an excellent purchase with a significant value of our total sales being through this.

Thinking about what customers want rather than what you perhaps want to make or sell is quite a different way of looking at things, but if you can apply this principle to your business it will potentially reap huge benefits.