Selling at market

A market is the one channel where the thing that makes your product better is directly perceptible, and producers often set up a stall that hides it.

Smell is your entire advantage

Freshly ground spice against a supermarket jar is not a subtle difference and it does not need explaining if somebody can smell both. Every other channel requires you to argue in words what a market lets you demonstrate in three seconds.

So a important thing on the table is open samples people can smell, and the commonest mistake is a display of sealed jars.

What to actually put on the table

Small open dishes of two or three of your strongest performers, refreshed during the day because they fade in the open air. Whole alongside ground where you sell both, because the contrast makes the argument for you.

Keep the selling stock out of direct sunlight. A faded jar on the table is an advertisement running backwards, and markets are bright.

Prices visible, because asking is a barrier at this price point.

The conversation that sells

Not the history of the spice. What they can cook with it, what makes yours different, and when it was ground. "I ground this on Tuesday" is the most effective sentence available to you and no large producer can say it.

Blends sell better than singles at a market because they are yours and cannot be comparison-shopped. Lead with them.

What the stall teaches you

Which lines actually move, which is rarely what you predicted, and which is the cheapest market research you will ever get. Which blends people ask for that you do not make. And what objections come up, which tells you what your online copy has to answer.

Write it down at the end of the day rather than trusting it to memory, because the pattern across ten markets is the useful thing and no single day shows it.

References