Hi Cake Friends!

I am looking to attend my first vendor event in a couple weeks. I am thinking of handing out some mini cupcakes for tasting and cupcakes for sale. Thinking having boxes for 1/2 dozen for sale.

My question is what should I expect in terms of how many mini cupcake samples should I bring and how many cupcakes should I bring for sale? Also, would NOT having a credit card machine hinder sales? If so would PayPal on my laptop work for this? I am an online cake shoppe and work from home looking to increase some word of mouth traffic and get the word out. ( the vendor event is targeting to have 80-100 vendors at this event)

Also, I am thinking of having 1-2 party cake displays out and 1 winter themed wedding cake display there. This is a holiday vendor event so will concentrate on the upcoming holiday themes in my decor.

Any other suggestions and notes that I may not have thought about? Thank you so much for all your feedback!! So much appreciated!!

~Carrie

Is your objective more to sell cupcakes and make a profit at the event or to get exposure and advertise? If it's to make a profit, I'd say skip the samples and focus on making the cupcakes to sell. If you're giving away samples, people will grab one or two and not buy anything. Make 'em pay for their sweets

And I do think not accepting credit cards could impact sales. Why not get Square or GoPayment for your phone? It's free to get and I think the charge is ~2.5% (in my opinion worth it to not lose a sale).

I think display cakes are a good idea as well as having brochures or a flyer for people to take with them. Make sure you have lots of signage and try to make your table/booth stand out. G/L!

The lack of using cr cards at an event never was a problem for me. I don't see where it should effect you.
It's hard to advise you about how many samples to take. How many people attend the event? Do you have any figures from past yrs? What is expected. Make up your mind what you will take just so many and when they're gone, that's it. Have lots of business cards &/or flyers to pass out then.