Spring (and beyond) Plans

A sluggish economy has forced me to reconsider some of my late winter /early spring plans for shows. I've decided not to move forward with the shows I had penciled into my schedule, deciding to hang onto the funds I have earmarked for show fees.

Instead, I'll hold off a few more months and wait for some of the bigger shows and festivals held in the late spring/early summer. Historically, the warmer weather often sparks the economy in a sluggish economy.

During these economic times in the past, people abandon plans for extensive travel and tend to stay near their hometowns. Local resort areas like the beach tend to become more crowded during these times, and a lot of overflow from people staying near home, spills over into local events...like craft shows and local festivals.

Despite my online shop showing total sales increases for both January and most likely February, I've noticed an alarming trend of low numbers of new visitors to my shops and a steadily decreasing number of overall visitors. I may be wrong, but I really don't think it's a good time to invest the time and money into March shows... at least not based on the numbers I've been seeing.

So, I'll focus my attention to future shows and continue to work at improving my craft and product line. Besides maintaining my online shops, high on my craft to-do list, is placing my handmade sea glass jewelry in a few local boutiques and I've already set the wheels in motion on getting into a B & M shop.

I also have a stack of spring /summer applications to local area shows & festivals that I'm researching and I hope to add several new shows to my summer schedule.

Now if the ocean would serve up several choice pieces of sea glass the next time I'm there... a girl can hope, can't she?


til next time...

R