ParaJuju Collective – Self-Merchandising Experience

Over the summer, myself and my partner agreed that we had a skillset that wasn’t worth putting to waste so came to the agreement that we should start a popup brand titled “ParaJuju” Collective. The aim of this brand was to sell a plethora of our creative works through a pop-up stall under the title and combined pseudonym of “ParaJuju”. The title ParaJuju is derived from my partners artist handle “Parataxic Productions” and my own being “SickJuju”. The goal of our merchandise project was to gain enough money to budget the creation of our own apparel and accessories brand which will eventually be sold online and advertised through social media. This project was very beneficial experience as it provided me insight into the benefits and hardships of making a living through merchandising. 

The picture above highlights our first stall event on the 4^th of August at Tynemouth Market. The experience itself was fruitful in developing insight and experience, however did not yield a lot of profits resulting in only supplying our stall money in returns. To put it simply we found that running a pop-up stall was going to be more difficult than we thought. 

The products which we created to sell at the event consisted of a collaboration between myself and my partner. I created several of the A4 digital matte prints on the right-hand side as well as tie-dye t-shirts with the intent of screen-printing on them should we receive enough returns in profits to expand our equipment and resources to cover the expenses. My partner created pour paintings, stickers, and a selection of hand-crafted earrings.

 We quickly learnt whilst running our first pop-up event that presentation means everything. The way in which we laid out our products did not draw the attention of any many visitors to the market. Many of the products such as the earrings did not even get looked at and not many people looked through our prints. The silver lining to this experience is that we received feedback from a few kind stall holders that were neighbouring our allotted space who provided us great insight into how we could better market ourselves to gain a better chance in returns. 

Some of the feedback we received from other stall holders was:

• ·         “Customers often dismiss jewellery when it’s presented on a stand like that, people are lazy they don’t like rummaging to find stuff they need it presented to them. Try putting a set of earrings on cut out card, you could even get a logo stamp put onto it to push your brand appeal. Lay them all out flat on a table this draws in their attention and stimulates a closer look.”

• ·         “The presentation of your display is to flat It’s easy for people to look past it. Try placing boxes on the table at varying heights and put a pretty quilt over it, it allows your products to assert more visual presence and customers are more likely to notice them.”

• ·         “It can be expensive to have to buy so many stands for your frames to stand upright but using a bit of folded cardboard and tape can prop up a frame easily. This is something the customers not going to see anyways, and it makes it more likely that your paintings and prints will have appeal.”

Stall Review / Research

In response to the feedback we received from our first few pop-up stall events we went back to the drawing board and spent some time researching and looking into how other professionals who went down the self-merchandise route succeed at their approach regarding display. The pictures above showcase artist duo “Forest & Found” as well as Illustrator “Penelope” displays their creative works to their customers. As shown the products that each artist is selling asserts itself to their target audience generating an impression that is eye-catching and appealing.

The reason why their stall displays are so effective based upon what I can identify is that their products are all displayed on levelled tiers that ensure all products are noticeable from first glance. The Illustrations are all facing forward by making use of effective methods such as attaching them to a board behind the artist or placing smaller prints on a table propped upwards. Where as the physical products such as the pottery are laid out in tiered stacked shelfs that showcase each product to its full potential. 

This research as well as our feedback provided our collective plenty of reference material and goals regarding our display for us to work towards. These goals however do have a vision that we can clearly identify as the afore mentioned artists highlight such a portrayal of our goals. Finally, in response to this outlined research and newly found goals I will be performing a SWOT analysis of my experience.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

As a collective we had a strong understanding of our branded vision and as a result of this had a body of collaborated work that complimented each other and themed well together. I feel that due to this our work began strong and resulted in the few sales we manage to receive during out time marketing our products.

Having both worked social jobs before our ability to communicate and pitch ourselves and products was strong. Customers that came to our stall always left with smiling faces after heavily considering buying something at the least. I believe that this strength has been one of the reasons we performed as well as we did alongside the consistency of our product branding. 

Weaknesses

Although there were 500-1000 people in the market place few people visited and approach our stall despite the impact of our engagement once they did. As discussed, this was likely due to poor understanding of how best to display our products to our target audience. 

Our planning and decision making regarding a choice of venue has been discussed as an issue we may need to resolve. We identified that we may be selling ourselves to the wrong audiences as our products clearly had more appeal to a younger audience whereas the people exploring the market, we visited were much older. Understanding where best to sell our products or what products are best marked where is an important obstacle for us to overcome and fell short during our summer experiences. 

Opportunity’s

Studying a creative course at university will get anybody no where should they not know how to apply themselves. The pop-up stall events that we took part in provided myself life experience in understanding how I can market myself upon graduation. You can make money as creative through more methods that getting a job and merchandising is an effective approach that can yield a full-time wage worth of income should one understand how to market themselves properly. The stalls we ran over the summer provided me the opportunity to gain this insight. 

To afford the opportunity to grow in an ever-changing market many approaches need to be tried and tested. Creating products through my growing creative skillset for the purpose of self-merchandising is something that you can only understand the true effect of should you experience it yourself. By choosing to get myself out their I took the opportunity to gain that experience and knowledge first hand stimulating me to react to my short comings and evolve the meet the markets demands. 

Action Plan / Targets

To better our chances at attracting our target audience a better display is needed to engage with customers. A method we can utilise as a group to practice and improve our stall is to continue researching what other marketers are doing and practice building table displays at home, rearranging and making alterations until our team are confident that the new current arrangement is sure to attract our audience. I can measure the success of this action plan by visiting market events once alterations have been made and keeping note on weather, we notice an increase in footfall engaging with our stall.

An issue we identified early on was that we potentially created out pop-up stall in the wrong area for our target audience. The audience that we presented ourselves too at our chosen market was older than our intended and therefore yielded fewer results than anticipated. Our team decided that this was all down to basing our sales in the wrong market place. As an action plan to counter act this I will look into events that are more suited to our target audience such as craft events whose audience is more interested in what we have to offer. We can measure the success of this plan by keeping a note of interest regarding our stall be exploring different venues and markets to identify which audience our products are best suited towards.

Conclusion

Overall, I am confident that by teaming up with my partner over the summer to launch a handcrafted brand for the purpose of self-merchandise that I have gained insight and experience into new avenues I can make an income in once I graduate regarding my field of study. I believe that this form of experience is something you can only gain by trying and testing out the waters and I am confident I have demonstrated a firm attempt at exploring this possibility. I intend to keep working with my partner and team mate to hone my ability’s as a creative and continue to pursue new avenues for self-merchandising in an attempt to be able to survive and live in industry from my creative skillset.