How I Determine How Much to Bring to a Farmer's Market or Pop-Up
This is probably one of the most frequent questions I get and a topic that I really struggled with when I first began attending markets regularly. How much do you bring? If you bring too little, you could sell out early and waste a day that you reserved for a market only to have nothing left to sell, thereby reducing your potential profit. But if you bring too much, you could risk taking home perishables. Of course, you could give those extra baked goods to neighbors or even some of the other vendors but, darn it, if I spent all that time to bake from-scratch goods, my preference would be to hopefully sell them and make a profit rather than be searching for ways to give them away (if possible).
After attending my local market twice per week for six consecutive months, I think I found a formula that is pretty foolproof and pretty easy to follow. Please keep in mind, however, that market conditions vary from town to town, state to state. So what works for my area may be completely different for yours. Also, keep in mind that I follow two different formulas depending on if the market I’m attending is a first for me or if it is my local market that I attend regularly.
Let’s start with a new market or pop-up event. For this type of scenario, the first thing I do is reach out to the event manager to determine how many people are expected to attend (roughly). I would then bring enough of my “core” baked goods (cake slices or sourdough) to serve 10-15% of visitors and enough of my “filler” baked goods (brownies, cookies, fudge, etc.) to serve 5-10% of visitors. So if 300 visitors typically attend the event, I might bring 30-45 slices of cake plus 15-20 brownies. Another option might be 30 loaves of sourdough and 15 bread bowls (15%) and 30 cookies (10%) or however I wanted to intermingle my items for the day’s menu. As for my supplementary items (creamed honey, vanilla bean paste, etc.), I would bring as many of those as I felt comfortable with since the majority of them are non-perishable so there is no risk if I don’t sell them all. Finally, I would bring loads of samples because the visitors would not be familiar with my booth and offering them a sample to try would increase the likelihood of them making a purchase.
On the other hand, if the event is one that I attend regularly (like my local farmer’s market), I approach things a bit differently and I use a formula I like to call “the three market rule”. That is, I continue to take the amount listed above until I have sold out at least three times in a row. Once I have sold out at three consecutive markets, I increase my quantity by 5%. So 30 cake slices would now become 45. 15 brownies would now become 22. I test these new quantities out at the next market and I might make some slight adjustments up or down depending on how I do. But for the most part, I continue following this formula until I again sell out three times consecutively. Once that happens, I increase by 5% and so on and so on. Also, it is important to note that samples can be significantly reduced once you are attending a market regularly and the visitors know you and become repeat customers. I always start of strong with samples at new events but once a customer base has been built, it is not needed to the same degree.
Okay, that’s about it and I so hope this helps you. I know this was one area where I really had no idea where to start, how much to bring, and so forth. Good luck at the markets!
