Selling Walnuts at the Mandarin Festival

The first large-scale event where we sold our VAP line of candied walnuts was Placer County's largest ag event, the annual fall Mandarin Festival, which serves as the official kickoff of the area's beloved mandarin crop. Wow -- it was quite an event. We had no idea what to expect and were pleasantly surprised by the huge turnout.

We did learn something in the process. Even though attendees buy lots of fresh mandarin oranges, they are not interested in other fresh produce like apples, winter squash, pomegranates and persimmons. We had brought a whole table of these fall crops and they didn't sell well.

We figured the squash wouldn't sell very well but it would add to the theme of the fall harvest and add plenty of color to draw attention. Well it was beautiful but we probably sold 6 squash all weekend so that space could have been better used to promote other products. We should have used the winter squash (in small amounts) as decoration only, to give the display color. 

Since it was gift season, we offered these festive 1 lb jars of walnuts.

We used crates with colorful fabric and fall leaves to give our display height. They give a country feel, draw attention and bring product up into the customer's visual range.

In the foreground, clear round plastic containers with internal dividers allowed us to make candied walnut and dried fruit gift packs featuring four different product flavors.

We kept our package size down to an affordable size and price...which was a smart move considering the economy has everyone watching their pennies these days. We offered a candied walnut sampler size for $2 and a larger bag for $6. We even offered a variety pack so the customer had plenty of choices. They seemed to like that idea and were generally willing to buy several bags with the $1 discount on a three pack.

We discovered people are very curious and will stop to read signs and look at pictures if you have them located in a way to grab their attention like a banner with color to catch their eye. And people love handouts. Any type of information you can pass out the better to promote your product, like flyers , maps, recipes and especially samples. But your sample must be done in a proper sanitary fashion or they are turned off and will assume the rest of your operation is unsanitary. 

If you expect it to be a well attended event, a display that is repeated throughout your booth would be beneficial because more people will be able to get to the desired product. If someone is standing in front the product than no one else can get to it as well. So put a variation of the same product on another counter to serve other customers. Most importantly have plenty of help! If you are to busy to help everyone they won't wait. There is to much to distract the customer and in about 5 seconds they are gone. 

On the other hand if you have no customers, then you had better keep the next customer around as long as possible by asking them questions or any type of small talk to draw attention to other passer-bys...remember a crowd draws a crowd ! Be proud of your product, believe in it, then you can sell it! We sure did!