I was wondering for a long time when to formally launch Just J as a company. And the opportunity to show case products of Just J at the Arts and Crafts Bazaar was too good to miss.
Urban Solace is owned by Perry Menezes in association with Sanjay Vaswani and Sailesh Deshpande of 3rd-I. They decided to help budding entrepreneurs like me and others to launch our respective businesses and show case our products to a larger audience.
The bazaar was held in the premises of the cafe from 11 am to 11pm. Along with me, there were five other young entrepreneurs, who were having their first show. The range of products on display for sale included Just J table linen and crockery, designer saris, cushion covers, men's wear, ladies' cocktail dresses with hand bags, hand-made jewelery, and other products.
Poster of the Bazaar
The participants transformed the café environment with much creativity to make it look like a bazaar. Each room was converted into a stall to display the products.
The special feature of the bazaar was an absolute absence of paid advertising proving that social networking is the best tool of promotions and advertising. The word of mouth feature is a powerful tool to actually make people interested in coming over to check out the event.
10 April, Saturday saw the participants all busy in setting up the stalls and getting ready for the business. As people came trickling in and we started selling our products, we all saw our confidence grow and belief in our product range. We had an unforeseen challenge with no power supply thanks to the frequent power shut down in the Bangalore city. However, we all managed to make it through the day and do fair amount of business. We had such wonderful customers that some even just hung-around the café sipping tea & having finger bites waiting for the power to come back so that they could shop some more using their credit cards!
Sunday, the second day saw all of us with bright smiles and all set for the another day of sales. We were anticipating that word would have spread around of the bazaar and more people would drop in. So, we all came restocked and recharged to face a busy day!
Sunday morning saw a few early birds, who came to get the best buys before all were sold out. All participants bonded well with the customers and we had many who came back on Sunday to buy some stuff they had taken fancy to on Saturday.
Luckily, I brought some new stock and removed some products that did not do well on Saturday. A few of the customers were happy to see new stuff and my sales were up by the afternoon and my shelves emptying faster than I could restock !!
Looking back at those two days of the bazaar, I must say we had an overwhelming response and all inquiring as to when we all would be back for the next! These shoppers who dropped in were all serious buyers who did not hassle us on prices or product range and just picked the stuff.
It was wonderful to see many young couples come in and shop for their homes. And some shopped till their wallets were truly empty! We had so many come in and say 'hey it’s a friend's birthday/ wedding anniversary and what a perfect gift your products would be!' and shopped!
Some pictures from the bazaar are here.
Setting up the stall
Helping a customer selecting a table cloth
Some tea, anybody?
A corner in the stall
Mugs, kettles, bowls etc
A look of the stall
Bags, clutches, cushions, hand-made shoes
I am truly indebted to Perry, Sanjay and Sailesh for doing a wonderful job in organizing the bazaar and making it a great platform for me to launch Just J to a totally new group of people who would have not known Just J product range and its availability in Bangalore.
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