Women's Work on the Road

Business is slow. Interestingly enough, and proving my theory that there are still people who have money, furniture and larger pieces of art are still selling, but little things are not...

So, we are going to do NYC Greenflea on the upper eastside at least once a month and Golden Nugget in Lambertville, NJ here and there because the more people I expose to the idea and the products, the more I sell.

Another aspect of selling that we had not explored before, house parties. Our friends, Pat and Todd had a wonderful party the other night. Pat carefully invited a nice group of her closest friends and had us introduce ourselves via one of Peter's wonderful powerpoint presentations which Macallan contributed to. With her there to talk about Goody Goodies, the evening was that much more meaningful. The sales were great - selling more in a few hours than I did all week in the store! The evening couldn't be more perfect particularly because we were able to truly bring awareness about fair trade and the women we work with to like-minded neighbors.

The economy is also forcing us to resort to something I haven't done before. We're going on the road - OK, so we do the Cultural Survival Bazaars, but they are driveable selling venues. These are not.

The first Fair Trade Federation conference I will attend will be this March 27-29 in Portland, Oregon. I've never been to Oregon, but I loved Seattle when I was there for Scholastic before we had kids. It was awesome. When we were planning on coming back to the States, one of the places we fantasized about moving to was Washington State...Portland is supposed to be a lot like Seattle. I can't wait. But I can't go there without wholesaling our products, otherwise I can't justify this trip to myself.( http://www.fairtradefederation.org)

Then, we are going to Fort Worth, Texas May 7-9 for the Snowmass Institute's Women's Health Conference where I will be the only vendor selling crafts. The organizer is extremely excited about the fair trade aspect. I'm looking forward to exposing healthcare professionals to our products.

We hope to get more venues, but we're also booking a booth at the Sweetgrass Festival in South Carolina in June 5-6 which is in conjunction with the Spoleto Festival. Should be a blast!