#267 7 Epic Virtual Trunk Show Ideas to Boost Your Holiday Sales

“Sometimes the collections have sold out in 10 minutes, sometimes an hour. Like when you keep doing these and you do it right, you get you create so much urgency. And people just are waiting for your collections to drop. And it works really well when you do this, with limited edition and one of a kind. ”

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Tracy: Welcome to the Thrive by Design podcast Episode 267. Hey there, it's Tracy Matthews, Chief Visionary Officer of Flourish and Thrive Academy. The host of the Thrive by Design podcast, and virtual trunk show junkie, I guess is the best way to put it. Over the past couple of years, we have been interviewing, a lot of designers actually done at least five or six podcast episodes about virtual trunk shows and different ways to run them, how to make them successful, how to use virtual means to actually sell your products outside of just selling on your website, it's a little bit different. And today is no exception. And this episode is inspired. Because you know, we're coming up on Labor Day weekend and a bunch of holidays that are a bunch of holidays. I say that the holiday season I should say. 

And I know that basically everything is shut down right now. While some people are gathering in certain areas depending on where you live. You know, a lot of these big like in person events are going to be shut down for the holiday season. So what's a person to do a designer or maker a business, owner to do when they've made a lot of revenue from in-person shows when they've made a lot of revenue doing corporate events and different things? Like how do you recoup that income? And so, back in April, I had this idea to create this virtual trunk show bundle. And that's what this episode is inspired by today to help people pull off trunk shows, like, like clockwork, and the reason why I did this is that for many years designers in our community, including Lisa Lehman, Sarah De Angelo, Shehana of Shahana Jewels and Ana Maria Andricain of Jewel of Havana and they're crushing it people are doing so well.

And so I wanted to dive into this deeper and talk a little bit more about seven epic trunk show ideas, virtual trunk show ideas that you can pull off and boost your holiday sales with because I mean you can host many over the seasons when after this when you hear all the different ways that you can host a virtual trunk show You're going to be inspired. So I'm curious, have you ever hosted a virtual trunk show before? If you have awesome if you haven't, then this episode for you. It's free for anyone actually anyway, but I wanted to mention this because if you haven't after this episode, I really want you to commit to trying one and I want you to tell me so I want you to find me on Instagram. Find me on my personal profile @tracymatthewsny. And share with me what you're going to do for your takeaway because these trunk shows are pulling in so much cash right now. And if you want some help, then I love to help you out with this.

We have an amazing virtual trunk show bundle that is literally only $47. It's like a total no brainer and I price it that way on purpose. If you want to learn more about it, you can head on over to flourishthriveacademy.com/vts that's flourishthriveacademy.com/vts like virtual trunk show and these virtual trunk shows that we're going So well what was the inspiration for this bundle? So what you're going to get, when you grab this bundle, we're going to give you our complete virtual trunk show system. We've pulled the best from all these interviews that we've done for the years from what we teach our students and pulled it in dialed into one system that you can literally plug and play. Plus, you're going to have a virtual trunk show organizer where you can organize all your links, we're going to give you recommended tech tools, and a promotion plan to get your trunk show going. It's all just 47 bucks.  

If you're interested in getting in on this head on over to flourishthriveacademy.com/vts and if you're not sure, listen to this episode, and then head on over there because you're going to have so many ideas, your mind will be blown. So when we started talking about these ideas, I think the first time I heard about someone doing a Facebook sale or Facebook trunk show was about five years ago and I interviewed Sarah De Angelo. I don't know if it was like five years ago, four years ago, three years ago what it was, but she was in our mastermind program at the time and she was celebrating because she had, this was her second or third Facebook sale that she'd hosted. And she went from doing like $1000. The first show $2000. The second show $3000, the third show to like $4000. And the numbers kept rising because she kept getting more organized, and more successful at it. And the reason why I mentioned this is because they can be highly lucrative, think about making two to $39,000 in just a few hours of work. And the reason why I say that is because, honestly, those are the results that our designers have gotten. And I'm going to share with you some of those.

So let's talk about seven of these epic ideas because you're probably just thinking like, Oh, I can have a sample sale or something like that, but there's so many different things that you can do.

Tip number one, pull off your own collaborative art show with you, other designers, artists or makers. Now this is the best idea ever. In fact, I remember talking about this right after COVID started on our momentum retreat, we had a Momentum retreat, formerly SOS, which is our previous name of our coaching program. And I was sharing with people I said, Guys, you know, one of the best things that you could do right now is like your shows being canceled. Why don't you get some of your favorite artists from those shows, and do a collaborative virtual event you guys can leverage each other's already audience. You can bring basically the art show to those people on their couches. And so a couple of people tried it, including Ana Maria Andricain, who's one of our coaches.

She did literally like three or four weeks in a row of these art shows because Ana makes most of her money from these in person events. And she really dialed this in especially during COVID. And I loved hearing how it went because the first show her and each of the artists did about $3000 and then they made a little bit more after their post show follow up. Second show, same thing. Third show,Same thing for shows that numbers started to grow. They're like everyone was doing like $5,000- $6,000 So these became really lucrative. And so depending on your price point, on a house with a fairly moderate price point, it's not too expensive like 100 to $300 retail. So depending on your price point, if you're doing this with the right group of artists, you can really leverage each other's audiences. 

And you know, many members of our momentum community have been doing this including Jesse Robbins who just reported that he did his first collaborative art show, he's a turquoise jewelry artist out of the southwest and his first show he ended up doing $3,000 and then it made another $3,000 in the follow up. So these really work, grab your friends, gather around and do an art show. And I think that one of the ways that this can work really well is if it's a variety of different products, not only jewelry, like one jewelry artist, maybe one ceramicist, one painter, or something like that. There's a variety of different ways that you can structure this or try it with all jewelry artists. There's so many different ways to do it. So tip number one hosts a collaborative Art Show with two other artists, makers or designers. 

Tip number two and this is a great one to get rid of extra inventory is to host a virtual sample sale. Now this is what Sara and Lisa did. They were getting ready for old inventory. And I used to have sample sales and I loved it because over a course of a couple of hours or maybe like two to three days I'd make anywhere from like five to like $15,000 it was pretty awesome. So this is virtual sample sales. Just to be clear, this is an opportunity for you to offload extra inventory get rid of excess stones beads make random I used to do this I would make like random jewelry with like stuff that I wasn't going to use in my regular collection so you could produce a bunch of products that aren't in your regular line. Just to get rid of all that those old beads or stones or materials that are sitting on your shelf collecting dust so this is a great way these quick and dirty sales bringing in a ton of money as a mentioned, Lisa Lehman brought in about 7000 when I interviewed her, Sara De Angelo did it other for Shehana Fine Jewelers in $39,000. And a sample sale for her birthday. Super awesome.

So this is a great way to host another virtual trunk show event and I would say like have a sample sale twice a year you could do and I love doing them during the holiday season because people would buy a ton of things for gifts. But you can also do them you know another time mid year right before Mother's Day or something along those lines. So tip number two hosts a virtual sample sale. 

Tip number three, launch a holiday one of a kind or limited edition collection with a virtual trunk show. This is a great way to get your pieces out there and show people what you are up to. Now, designers in our community who have completely nailed this down are people like Alex Camacho and Twyla Dill because they are crushing it when they drop new collection releases in this trunk show format. This type of thing is really perfect for people who do one of a kind or limited edition products.

Or if you just want to make a big splash and do some sort of offer when you're dropping your collection, even if it's not limited edition to your audience for the first time. So I think that really the coolest story that I've heard about this, and it's not necessarily like a virtual trunk show idea, but when you start to build awareness like this, your collections can sell out super quickly. In fact, Alex, when she launches her one of a kind collections like she's reporting numbers of things selling out in one hour, in as little as 10 minutes. So sometimes the collections have sold out in 10 minutes, sometimes an hour. Like when you keep doing these and you do it right. You create so much urgency, and people just are waiting for your collections to drop and it works really well when you do this with limited edition and one of a kind. So tip number three is to launch your holiday, one of a kind or limited edition collection with a virtual trunk show Or a virtual event.

Tip number four host a private shopping party for your VIPs. Now we talk about Flourish and Thrive Academy, about list building, about loving your people, about rewarding your longtime clients and buyers, those people who have come to you every single season and keep buying from you over and over again. So this is a great way to reward those private shoppers. So maybe you have a private event for them where they get, you know, a first look at your collection. Maybe it's that you're having a sample sale or discount or some sort of sale only for them. It could be that you're doing special pieces where they only get access to it. A really good example of this is Chelsea Farmer of horsefeathers gifts. She's one of our coaches. She's been in our community for a very long time. And she's developed this system of nurturing her VIPs and she's even created a VIP Facebook group. 

So every Friday she drops a new collection in that group to her VIPs in a virtual format, and the collections sometimes sell out in an hour, and she's told me that she's made anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000, on a Friday in one hour. So you create the audience and you create a reason for them to show up. And you make them feel special, and engage with them. Because you're creating a community, you are doing some amazing work because people will buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, which is awesome. So tip number four hosts a private shopping party for your VIPs. 

Tip number five Host one hour virtual styling sessions for a minimum purchase order. So I love this idea. This is something that came out of our momentum event from inspiration from other designers. So we were talking about things that you could do in April, when everything was shut down and in person events, retail stores and all those things were closed like how do you Reach your customers.

So a couple of designers were talking about hosting virtual styling sessions because this is an opportunity for you to engage with your customers and have like a face to face conversation, but show them how to wear things. So especially if you couldn't be in person with them. It was awesome. So Karina Harris of Waffles and Honey tried out the strategy. And she was basically selling the styling sessions for a couple of hundred dollars. I feel like the number I'm remembering is about $500. So like that was the minimum buy-in, they had to at least spend $500 to get the virtual styling session. And oftentimes because she would be layering and showing and upselling people on the different pieces in the different books, she would be able to sell like sometimes 567 pieces at one of those styling sessions and, you know, just doing the math myself on her price point that oftentimes like would work out to be like an average order value for those styling sessions of about $1,000. I know for people who are selling them I find price points like that's Good sale, right?

So this is a great opportunity for you to connect with your customers. Similarly to something that would feel like an in person setting in a virtual styling session. So these are amazing ideas. Definitely try it. And this is something you must do for the holiday season. I say you like to set up a calendar link where people can book calls with you or times. And you have this as an offer, especially for the men on your list because they will go gangbusters, make it easy, show them a bunch of different things that they can buy for their women, especially if you're selling women's jewelry, and make it easy for them and show them all the options because a lot of times men just like want something easy. They're kind of like, Alright, I'll take it all kind of things. And that's what we like. Right. So tip number five, host a one hour virtual styling session for a minimum purchase order. 

Now, tip number six host a virtual sales pop up on social media and in your Facebook group. Over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. Now, this holiday weekend is one of the most important in all the season actually ranges now all the way through Giving Tuesday. So every single day, there's like something going on the number whatever happens on that Sunday is kind of like in my mind right now, but we have Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, another opportunity to sell on Sunday, Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday. So this opportunity can crush it if you do it right. And I did a podcast interview with  Jeanna and Jared Rushton a couple of years ago, about their Black Friday and Cyber Monday strategy. They had lost her in-person event that they typically had done or they didn't get readmitted back into it. And they were expecting it but they were trying to figure out a way that they could recoup that income. And they had created a goal of about $3,000 and they did a hybrid email campaign website campaign and these virtual trunk shows over the weekend. 

They ended up selling over $8,000. I think the number was somewhere close to $8,200 just selling their semi price point jewelry. It's not super expensive stuff. And their mind was blown. They couldn't believe how well, this was received. And this is what they did. As I mentioned, they did a Facebook sale one day and Instagram, sold another day, and then offered via email. So you can use this as a hybrid shopping experience. And make sure that you think strategically and start planning in advance how you're going to do this for your diehard fans over that holiday weekend. So tip number six is to host a virtual sales pop ups on social media in your Facebook group over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. And I'm going to link some of these previous podcast episodes in the show notes. So if you're wondering what they did, I didn't want to go back and rehash all these old episodes. Definitely like this is an opportunity for you to binge watch some of the people who've done really successful things with our vert their virtual trunk show strategy So we'll definitely make sure that we link all of those things.

Tip number seven is to gather other vendors and pitch a virtual shopping experience for the holiday season to local corporations. One of our students did this really successfully with Google. And I love this strategy. And there's a very specific reason that I love this strategy. Now, certain people think it's beneath them to actually go and sell locally in office buildings and stuff like that. And I think that's a little bit funny because one of the best ways to create a new base of customers is to meet people in person in your local area, who love what you do, because anytime that they need stuff, especially if it's men, buying for women, you come in, they buy something from you, you have a customer and if the wife likes it, or the spouse or the girlfriend or whatever, you have an opportunity to continue selling to them for birthdays, anniversaries, all the events Valentine's Day, like all the things right Mother's Day, and The reason why I say this is because some of my best male customers shopping for their wives have come to me through things like meeting people through other other acquaintances or friends and or through these opportunities to get in front of people in corporate events. Fact I can think about back in the day when I was in San Francisco, my sister in law, Mimi, my sister in law at the time, I should say, me, me, she got me in with the sharper image. So I ended up being able to do trunk shows there, which was awesome. 

When I moved to New York, I mean, had many other experiences in San Francisco have something similar to when I moved to New York, I had friends who worked at instyle in the publishing side, so they would bring me in and I would set up in their conference room at lunch, and they would have an opportunity to do some shopping and it was awesome way to do it. In fact, my friend Alex introduced me or brought me into Goldman Sachs when she was working there. And this was a great opportunity because the majority of the people who work there are Men and at least at that time, there were a lot of men and several women too, but like a lot of men coming in, and they're like it's a last minute. 

They didn't know what to get their wives and girlfriends for a holiday gift. And so this is a great opportunity. I sold a ton of jewelry, and made great connections, who ended up buying from me again, over and over and over again. And I wanted to give a shout out to Karina Harris of Waffles and Honey again, because she did a virtual shopping event with Google. So she had done these in person shopping events for a couple of years, just by networking and to always be putting herself out there. She listened to what Robin and I talked about for years to always be like leveraging your connections and she eventually got in at Google . They have this holiday shopping event a couple times a year. And when COVID hit, they canceled the event for obvious reasons everyone was working remote.

And so she just thought it was off but she decided to just take a you know, take a chance and reach out to the person who was organized In the event, so she reached out to the person organizing the event and said, Look, I know this is like a, you know, unconventional, but what do you think about like bringing that show online so that you're the Google employees can still get the benefit of shopping from all these brands. So the promoter, or the person organizing, and I should say, talk to her bosses, they got it approved. And they ended up doing this, like a 30 person, virtual shopping event for all of Google's employees across the board. And it was really, really lucrative. And so I think that there's a lot of opportunity if you have friends who work in corporate, and where they're trying to bring some of these like, in person things online, this is a great opportunity to pitch the organizers of those events, to bring in a bunch of artists and do holiday shopping events.

So organize your friends, organize other vendors and pitch a virtual shopping event to a corporation and see what happens. can't hurt, right? It's another way to just get your work out there. So I really want you to think outside the box of how you're hosting these virtual events. And if you've done something else super cool for a virtual trunk show, I would love to know, another one that I didn't even know is a bonus, I'm going to use this as a bonus, because I didn't even think about this. But this is an obvious one is a lot of times vendors come in and they do trunk shows with their wholesale stores. So if the wholesale store isn't open, or the retailer that you're working with is only taking people by appointment, perhaps you guys can collaborate and do a virtual trunk show. In collaboration with the store.

This is a great time for both of you to leverage your audiences, you can email your list, the store can email their list, and you guys can collaborate and get the product in front of those people who are shopping for things for holiday. So I hope that this episode has inspired you. I'm going to walk through those tips again. 

Tip number one is to host a collaborative art form. Bear with your friends. So grab two other people and the three of you host a collaborative art fair streaming on stream yard. If you want information on how to actually pull this off without a hitch, make sure that you go grab our virtual trunk show bundle because we tell you how to do this and I give explanations for many of these in that bundle.

Tip number two host a virtual sample sale, super awesome and a great way to get rid of extra inventory.

Tip number three, launch your holiday one of a kind or a limited edition collection with a virtual trunk show. This is a great way to get in front of your audience.

Tip number four host a private shopping party for your VIPs I love this idea and it's super fun. You can make it extra exclusive for them. Don't give anyone else access just the VIPs.

Tip number five host a one hour or host one hour virtual styling sessions for a minimum purchase order. This is a great offering for the holiday season, guys. Like this is an amazing way to work with people who are buying gifts for other people and then also people who want to style themselves. So super awesome. And they can also partner or spouse or someone who's a gift giver can also buy a virtual styling session for someone else and then they can use that gift certificate to actually do the styling session themselves. Super awesome.

Tip number six host a virtual sales pop up on social media and in your Facebook group over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday weekend. This collaborative strategy of using email virtual sales parties and events and having different offers throughout the weekend can be super powerful and it works like gangbusters when you do it right.

Tip number seven, gather other vendors and pitch a virtual shopping experience for the holiday season to local local corporations. So this is a great way to get a bunch of people together. And you guys all come into a corporation and have like a shopping hour People can shop different vendors virtually super awesome. Love the idea. And my bonus tip is to host a virtual trunk show with one of your retailers or someone that you sell wholesale to and do a collaborative event that way and sell some jewelry if you can't get there in person.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this episode. Today I am dying to know how you're using virtual trunk shows in your business. So please come find us on social media @tracymatthewsny shoot me a DM or you can find us over at flourish_thrive both on Instagram and tell us how you're leveraging virtual trunk shows. And if you're interested in grabbing the virtual trunk show bundle because you want to make it simple on yourself. Head on over to https://flourishthriveacademy.com/vts  and grab your virtual trunk show bundle for $47 today.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. This is Tracy Matthews signing off. And if you haven't done so yet, and you're liking what you're listening to make sure that you give us a rating and review. The reason why these are important is that it shows other people first and foremost like if this is a good podcast for them, but also, it helps us reach more listeners just like you and I am in it to win it to help as many people as possible, grow successful jewelry and creative product brands. Thanks so much for listening today. This is Tracy Matthews, signing off. Until next time, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. It's my mission to help thousands of creative businesses inside and outside the jewelry space use their creativity to make money. Make sure that you're subscribed to thrive by design on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever podcasts are played. And we'd love to hear what you think. Please rate and review the show and if you're inspired, please share this with your friends. Cheers to Seeing you flourish and thrive.