Selling at a market

Direct feedback, no shipping, and the place where the claim discipline is hardest to hold.

A good first channel

No freight, which removes the category's worst cost.

A customer who can smell the product and ask what is in it, which is exactly the small maker's advantage.

And immediate information about which products people actually want, which is worth more than the day's takings in the first season.

What the market asks

Liability insurance, almost always, and for this category the insurer's questions will be more searching than the market's.

A business license or tax registration.

Some markets restrict non-food or non-craft goods, so ask before planning around it.

And be ready for a form written for food producers that does not fit a cleaning product.

The table

A demonstration, which is this category's great advantage and one almost nobody uses. A greasy tile and a cloth sells a degreaser better than any label.

Bottles facing forward with the use legible from a meter.

A printed ingredient list people can pick up, which is the thing the supermarket shelf cannot offer.

And refills, which work well at a market where the customer can bring a bottle back.

What to say and not say

A market is a conversation, and the conversation is labeling. "It kills everything" said across a table is a pesticidal claim exactly as a printed one would be.

Give yourself and anybody helping one sentence that works: what it is for, what it removes, what is in it.

That is a better sell here anyway. The reason somebody buys from a stall rather than a supermarket is that they can ask what is in it and get a real answer.

References