Our experience of our first ever sales!
Last Saturday we debuted our product, the EcoBag, at Southside Shopping Centre in Wandsworth. We were the first team to arrive, at 8'oclock, and it was so early that most shops weren’t even open yet and the shopping centre was very quiet. We were not quite sure where we should set up our stall, but after a quick trip up to the control centre and some helpful advice from a kind man who worked there, we finally began to set up our stand in the prime position, opposite the Waitrose, just as the other teams were beginning to arrive.
We decided we would keep our trade stand simple with a plain white table cloth so we could clearly display the products. We also had a handwritten poster and a large whiteboard to attract the attention of my one walking by. Our Marketing and Sales director Nicole had managed to produce some amazing wooden signs to explain the product and they fitted in perfectly with the rest of our stall, whilst giving us that professional edge. We also laid out some business cards that we gave out to people throughout the day in order to get the word out about our business.
We were very excited to get going as this was our first time selling our product to the public. While sales were slow in the morning, they began to pick up at around 11 o'clock and we discovered a true sales person in our financial director, who ended up making the most sales of the day. Our prime selling period was between 11 and 1 o'clock and we were very pleased with our performance. We also had many interesting conversations with various members of the public from those praising our product and appreciating our company philosophy, to one man who decided to find everything he could possible criticise about our product before finally making a purchase. It is fair to say that we had a rather eventful day.
We also enjoyed looking around the various other young enterprise stalls and talking to them about their experience. There were 7 companies at the event including two other companies from Putney High School. (Shout out to Extress and Pocket Story our fellow Putney companies). All the other teams were very friendly and we all enjoyed our time at Southside.
Overall, It was a very successful and exciting day for our company; we managed to sell almost all of our stock, making sales amounting to a total of £200. Throughout the day, we received lots of positive feedback on our product and ethos, as well as some constructive criticism that we will use to improve our performance in the future.
Selling at southside was an especially rewarding experience as we were able to meet other young enterprise companies from a variety of other schools. All in all it was an exciting day for us and we can’t wait to meet more of you when we sell again at Kingston this Saturday!
Don’t forget to head over to our Instagram for frequent updates on our progress and where we will be selling next!