Should I run a sale at my booth? Won't that hurt my margins when I've already paid for the booth space?

Yes, absolutely run a sale at your show. This is a simple equation: discount plus scarcity equals human beings more likely to take action. It’s just math—binary, one or zero. Either you have this equation in play at your show or you don’t. If you do, you’ll get more ROI and make more sales. It’s that simple. An example: run an ‘inflation sucks’ sale (or ‘inflation stinks’ if you prefer) with 10-20% off booth-wide on items over $100, and the sale ends today (or end of show for multi-day events). The scarcity helps get things over the line. If you’ve set your markups correctly with that 250% markup on prints, offering a sale won’t hurt your margins at all—you’re just pricing a little higher, then offering items on sale. Everybody loves getting things on sale. You’re competing against other artists in other booths, and especially during difficult economic times, having a sale going helps you get more purchases over the line.

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Asked by synthesized from teaching · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2022-07-28