Celtic Manor Baby Show

We're in June now (don't worry we'll catch up before Christmas)


I decided to go Big Bang and book myself a proper baby show. 

I don't know if anyone reading this has ever booked a stand at a baby show or similar, but it's pretty expensive. Usually at least £100+ VAT per square metre for one day which is cheap when you consider the sales you could make, but is expensive when you have a fairly small £ profit margin.

For example, if you sell 4D scans (or whatever) at say £100 profit per scan, then you only have to sell   4 scans to break even on a small stand. This is doable. 

However, when the equivalent for me is 50 Welsh teddy bears, you can see that scale is my problem. This is what I learnt at Celtic Manor resort. 

It was a long round trip to learn this lesson. You may ask "why didn't you do the Maths before?"  We'll I sort of did but I was brimming with enthusiasm and I thought I might clean up with my Welsh bears, even have to take back orders. And this event was £120+ VAT. So I thought it might be good. 

I met my mum at the Premier Inn and we had dinner together. This was very nice and I felt quite excited. I managed to get my dongle working (no jokes) and tested the virtual terminal for credit and debit cards. All ok. 

We got up early and made our way over to the hotel. It went downhill (or uphill) from there. I won't got into too much detail, but it went a bit like this:

Think we are first at the loading bay. 
Find we are in the wrong place. 
Find other loading bay is up a big hill, and is full. 
Park precariously on the slope, unpack. 
Shortage of trolleys. 
Only one very slow squeaky lift. 
Very hot day. 
Unpack. 
Eat free event cupcake in hyperglycaemic frenzy. 
Arrange stall. 
Wait for customers. 

The customers were nice, I sold a few things, but as anyone involved in mothers and mothers to be knows, they come out early. So the initial rush was hopeful but it quickly petered out. Mum and I took it in turns to get our pre-ordered lunch. This is where the hotel took the proverbial. £12 buffet lunch was some pathetic chips and some slithers of smoked chicken on some crostini. Well, I tell you, I ate more of those little tasty morsels than was really necessary, but I wanted to get my money's worth. Where were the cold drinks (just lukewarm cheap orange juice), where was the salad even?

It was in the terms and conditions that nobody was to pack up before 4pm. Most people in our room had finished packing up by 3!!  I sold a welsh bear at the eleventh hour but I still managed to only take £200, which is about £50 profit. So you already know it was a financial disaster. But I got some email addresses out of it, and at least one follow up sale. And I learnt a lot.

Seems to be a common theme so far, eh? I am getting better at this, I am a fast learner. It was a long journey home though with all those toys in the back. 

I met a nice lady though who had invented a step to help toddlers get into their car seats - she has since won awards - check her out at www.mycarstep.com or at JoJoMaman Bebe

And of course don't forget to look at my lovely website www.rachelstoyshop.co.uk

Ttfn x