Mobile Vending
How To Start And Run Your Own Traveling Cash Machine
By
Jarvis Hooten
The answer to your question is yes; mobile vending is one of the easiest and least expensive businesses to start up. It is not, however, a conventional business. You don't rent space at a mall and open up shop the way most retailers do.
Festival vending requires very specialized strategies and techniques to succeed. There are hurtles you may not have anticipated that can kill your new little enterprise before you even finish one season.
This guide will walk you through every step of the vending business. Whether you're just in the thinking about it stage or already have a booth up and running, you'll find loads of info in these pages to make your business thrive. It's all covered: designing a stand, dealing with government agencies, finding events, choosing products to sell, how to draw customers and how to keep records.
Since a picture speaks a thousand words this guide also has plenty of photos, diagrams and other visuals to help you see for yourself why some things work and others don't. Mix your creativity and initiative with the techniques in this book and you're on your way to a nice living through vending.
Contents
First Things First – Deciding If This Business Is Right For You ...................................................... 3
Food Or Merchandise? ............................. 13
Let's Get You Business Started! ............... 19
Finding And Booking Festivals – What You'll Need BEFORE Applying ...................................... 28
Where To Find Festivals ............................ 35
Accepted To An Event! Now What? .......... 40
Designing Your Stand ................................ 44
Okay, Let's Do Some Events! ..................... 55
After The Event – Keeping Records ........... 66
Business Trimmings – Stationery, Business Cards, Web Site ........................................................... 69
First Things First: Deciding If This Business Is Right For You
We're going to start with a somewhat philosophical look at owning a business. Don't worry, we'll dive into the nuts and bolts about mobile vending shortly. Every successful venture begins with a successful state of mind, so that's the place to begin this guide.
There's a wonderful old story about a shop owner who went to Mexico on vacation. One afternoon during this vacation he stopped into a small pottery shop, where he found a very attractive pot that he thought would look nice in his own shop back home. He bought the pot for five dollars and packed it away in his suitcase.
Back home in the States our shop owner unpacked his hand made pot and set it on a shelf in his shop, planning to find a nice plant to put in the pot the next day. He opened his store for business and it wasn't long before one of his customers asked about buying the lovely pot.
“Oh, the pot isn't for sale, actually,” the shop owner explained. “I got that in Mexico as a decoration for the store.”
As the day went on more customers asked about buying the pot. The shop owner kept explaining the pot was a decoration and was not for sale. After all, the shop owner reasoned to himself, he was not in the pottery business. Finally, one customer came out with an offer that was too good to pass up. “It's just what I've been looking for!” the customer said. “I'll give you fifty dollars for it.”
The shop owner realized he had happened onto a hit product. He made another trip to Mexico and returned to the small pottery shop. He told the elderly owner he wanted to buy a hundred more of those pots, perhaps in different sizes and colors, and asked how much the potter would charge.
The old Mexican potter thought for a moment, then said, “For that many pots ees twenty dollars each.”
“Twenty dollars?” the shop owner responded in surprise. “But that's four times as much as you charged for just one.” He went on to explain that, in business, the price for an item should go down when sold in large quantities.
“Señor,” the Mexican potter smiled, “One pot, ees fun. One hundred pot, ees work!”
This old story has two important lessons. The main lesson is obvious: Anything, even your favorite activity, can become a chore when you have to do it repeatedly. Once you go into business doing something, you'll begin doing it because you have to, not just when you want to. Perhaps you love to bake or you're a hobbyist who enjoys woodworking. Will you enjoy baking or crafting the same things over and over? How will you feel when those items you put your heart and soul into meet the scrutiny of customers?
The other, less obvious lesson to the story is: Be flexible. You have to sell what customers want to buy, and what they want may surprise you. If your ideas of fantastic, fun products don't sell and customers repeatedly ask for something else, be prepared to sell something else or go out of business.
The old expression “Do what you love and the money will follow” is true, but it's not the whole story. Yes, of course, you'll be more successful in business or a career if you pursue something you enjoy doing. But when you turn doing what you love into doing it for a living it becomes your job. There will be times when you won't love doing it but still have to do it.
Also, when people are paying you to do that thing you love, whether they are your customers or your employer, they get to have a say in how you do it. No one, no matter how glamorous their life may seem or how enjoyable their work may appear, gets to make a living doing only what they love all the time. There is some element to every business and every vocation that isn't always fun.
Here's the philosophical point: To succeed at running your own business you need to enjoy the business of being in business first, then choose the kind of business you want to pursue. Your passion for baking or woodworking or whatever your craft is won't carry your business if you don't also love merchandising, marketing, planning, risk taking, responsibility and customer service. It also requires a certain amount of gumption and raw nerve to take total charge of your income and, for that matter, your own life.
If you're reading this and are still excited about starting your own business then you have the right personality to succeed. This is true for any business you may want to pursue. Now let's look specifically at what you may like or dislike about the mobile vendor business.
Mobile Vendors Have To Be, Well, Mobile!
The factors that make mobile vending fun to some are the very same factors that make it miserable to others. Topping that list is the very nature of being mobile. Traveling vendors have to construct their shops at each event they go to, then destruct their shops at the end of each event. We often have to stay in hotels or in our RV's. Every event has a different environment, different hours and different people to adjust to.
Some folks really need consistency in their lives. They want to go to work at the same time and same place every day. I'm not going to say setting up my stand and taking it down are my favorite tasks. (Here's proof that no one gets to do only what they love all the time.) But traveling and being in a different environment for each event is one of the things I like most about mobile vending. Being a mobile vendor also means being dependent on going where the people are, which usually means going to fairs and festivals. If you live in central Montana or Northern Maine, your travel expenses to get to festivals will be so high that your opportunities will be limited.
Having your home in a remote part of the country does not mean mobile vending is completely unworkable. You could set up shop at parks on weekends where hundreds of kids play soccer and bring along their soccer parents. Some mobile vendors enjoy surprising success just setting up in shopping center parking lots and, of course, there are those familiar sandwich wagons that visit construction sites every day.
So
you don't have to go to fairs and festivals to make money, but fairs
and festivals are usually where the most money is made in mobile
vending. A park with hundreds of soccer kids and their parents just
can't compete with a festival attended by
tens
of thousands of people. To participate in those lucrative festivals
without suffering ridiculous travel times and expenses you need to
live in or near populated areas where the festivals are held.
Event Organizers – Good, Bad And Ugly
Assuming a fixed location store and mobile vendor have the same products and customer service, the fixed store's success is dependent on location and advertising. A mobile vendor's success at an event is directly dependent on the success of the event itself. If an event is poorly attended or poorly organized or just has bad weather, the vendors suffer. Also, a mobile vendor is dependent on each event for facilities. Some event promoters are very good at providing vendors plenty of electrical power, water, trash removal and easy access to the grounds. Other event organizers are happy to collect vendor fees and then forget all about the vendor's needs.
The answer to this problem is simple. Don't go to events run by lousy organizers! Of course, the problem with that is you won't know who the lousy organizers are at first. Some people who get into mobile vending quit after a few bad experiences. With a little perseverance and research you'll learn who to do business with. You'll also learn what to look for and how to weed out the bad events.
The mobile vendor advantage on this factor is cost. Fixed location stores have more control over their traffic and facilities, but at a good event mobile vendors have access to throngs of customers at a tenth the cost of the fixed location shop. What a nice way to segue into the next factor:
Start Up Cost
Starting up your own business for the first time is kind of like buying your first house. You just can't believe all the unexpected expenses involved. Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but starting a mobile vending business comes with plenty of those dreaded unexpected costs. Still, compared to the expense of starting up a fixed location business, mobile vending is a bargain.
What's more, mobile vending is less risky to start than a regular shop. Let's face it, fixed location stores have fixed costs. If things aren't going as planned they can't just close up for a few months then start up again. Well, they could, but not without continuing to incur huge expenses.
As a mobile vendor you could start out doing just a few events a year while continuing to work a regular job. If you run low on capital, put your equipment in storage until you've saved up the cash you need (my experience exactly). If you lose money at an event that was poorly organized, you have the option not to go back to that event. Mobile vendors can completely change their menu or products without having to rebuild their customer base. A fixed location store has none of this flexibility.
Here's the way a friend of mine explained how to anticipate the costs of starting a business, any business: Make a list of all the expenses you expect to incur in the first year. That includes all equipment you need to buy, all inventory and advertising – not just for your first month or two in business but for the entire year - retail space rental (in our case this would be vendor fees), vehicles, fuel, maintenance, licenses, insurance, employees, office supply, postage, printing, tools, cash register, display cases... every possible expense you can think of. Don't use bargain prices on this stuff. Pretend you are buying everything new, even if you plan to seek out bargains on eBay or Craig's List.
Okay, got your grand total? It's a pretty scary number, isn't it? Now double it and that's how much you'll need to start your business.
Ouch! Wait, what about the stories you've read about multimillionaires who started up their businesses with just a few hundred bucks? Yep, some folks are extraordinarily lucky. Some folks actually win lotteries and sometimes people come away from Las Vegas with more money than they went with.
The harsh truth is about half of all new businesses fail in the first three years and in almost every case it's because they ran out of money. Don't be discouraged. This is one of the advantages to mobile vending. You don't have to come up with all that capital before you even get started, as you would if you were opening a fixed position store or restaurant. A mobile vending business can be started part time and built up gradually. It's a fun business for couples to do together (provided they get along in the first place) or even get the whole family involved.
Long Days Of Work, Long Days To Play
Here's another factor that I find very attractive about mobile vending while others find it dreadful. During an event we mobile vendors work very long hours, and those hours change from one event to the next. If you're like me you'll find working events to be fun and stimulating. Every sale is a few more dollars in the bank. Thousands of people are paying money to be at the same event, taking in the same sights and sounds while I'm making money. Still, it takes plenty of stamina to keep your energy up for twelve or fourteen hours, then come back and do it again the next day.
T
he
real pay-off comes when we're not working an event. Each long day of
business earns us two or three days of leisure. Mobile vendors work
very hard, long days for a stretch, then enjoy the luxury of lots of
free days. If you prefer a steady, evenly paced schedule you may not
make it as a mobile vendor. On the other hand, if you like packing
your work into intense portions of the year and then having entire
months off, this is the business for you.
When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Go Vending
Almost all events you'll work as a mobile vendor will be outdoors. You'll be under a tent or canopy, of course, and you may even have a trailer with air conditioning once you can afford it, but you'll still need to endure a lot of exposure to the elements. Working a vending stand also requires lots of time on your feet, plus bending, reaching and lifting. I know mobile vendors who keep working well into their 70's, so it isn't too terribly hard, but you need to be aware that this business does put some strains on the body.
Before you work your first event it's very important to do a bit of physical training to get prepared. Starting a couple weeks before the event you should take long walks, go to the zoo and don't sit down the whole time you're there, do a few knee bends every day, stand in place and pass a heavy jar back and forth between your hands. You get the idea. These kinds of activities will help greatly to make the physical demands of your vending business less, well, demanding.
Staffing Your Stand – Harder For Mobile Vendors
Most people want to be in businesses with steady hours and consistent conditions. This is even more true of employees. It is very difficult to find a quality, reliable worker who is willing and available to tend a vendor booth three days one week, two days the next week, not work at all for three weeks, then show up for four days another week. There are high school and college age kids who are happy with a little summer income and don't require a steady schedule. However, even the best of those young ideal employees may not be available or willing to travel. And if they do go along to an out of town event, that adds lodging them to your expenses.
The need for temporary employees is so common that some event organizers assist vendors by having a hiring day. They advertise locally that vendors will be hiring workers for an upcoming event and set a date and time, usually just before the event starts, when vendors and potential employees can get together.
It is also common for job seeking people just to show up at the start of an event and walk around asking vendors if they need help. To my surprise, some vendors actually rely on finding workers this way. I'm just not trusting enough to hire someone literally right off the street.
The difficulty with finding employees is why mobile vending is perfect for couples; the ideal “Mom and Pop” business. This assumes, of course, that Mom and Pop get along and can work with each other. Couples with teenage kids can make a fun family business of mobile vending, provided again those teenage kids get along with each other.
Eventually, though, you'll want your Mom and Pop business to grow or to be capable of handling large, fast paced events. Putting your teenage, well behaved kids to work in your stand is great until they get older and start careers of their own. That means you need to think about hiring people. Since the thing we're discussing is whether or not mobile vending is the right business for you, you need to be aware that hiring people for mobile vending is a little more complicated than hiring staff for a fixed position business.
My solution to this dilemma came when I discovered the wonderful world of temp agencies. Of course, like you, I'd known of temp agencies before and even have known friends who worked for them. My “discovery” was how well they serve employers like us mobile vendors.
Kelly Services and Manpower are the most well known and are my favorites to deal with. They do the screening and hiring for me. They choose the best qualified person or persons from their pool and send them to me. It's terrific. I do have to pay more to hire someone through an agency than hiring them directly, but I'm perfectly happy to do that and save myself a lot of hassle.
Temp agencies are particularly helpful when you do out of town events. Just hop on the old Internet (Heh, who would have thought twenty years ago that we'd ever refer to it as the “old” Internet?) to find the Kelly Services or temp agency of your choice in the town you're going to and give them a call. They'll want to know the kind of work you are hiring for and the hours you need it done - usually there is a four hour minimum - and they'll arrange your temp worker, just like that!
There is one catch to using a temp agency, but it has an easy work around. Generally, temp agencies need to set up a billing account with an employer. This requires a rather hefty amount of advance paperwork, a credit check and time for approval. The work around is simply to pay the agency ahead of time. That eliminates their concern over whether or not they will be paid for the time the temp person worked, which is why they create a billing account for employers in the first place.
Ready To Get Started?
Okay, we've covered the basic advantages and disadvantages of a mobile vending business to a fixed position business. Mobile vending is less expensive and less risky to start up and run, but it's also less consistent and less predictable than a fixed position store. You'll work much harder and longer for short periods at mobile vending but have much longer periods of free time.
Mobile vendors need the stamina to work outside in a variety of weather conditions, spending many hours on their feet, and they need the flexibility to travel to events. Hiring workers for mobile vending operations is a little more complicated than for other businesses, but those complications can be overcome with a little planning and preparation.
That's about it. Those are the main factors that make mobile vending different from running a regular shop location. Still want to give this business a try? Great! Now let's decide what kind of vendor you'll want to be.
There is one more decision to make between two options in your enterprise before you actually get started building the business. We just compared mobile vending to fixed position retail businesses. Now it's time to decide if you're going to be a food vendor or merchandise vendor.
Merchandise Vending
Merchandise vending is easier and, aside from the initial investment in stock, which, if you are a crafter making your own items, would be a large investment of time, it's less expensive. Almost all events charge merchandise vendors a lower booth space fee than they charge food vendors. I'll get to the reasons for that when we discuss food vending.
Merchandise vendors draw far less scrutiny from government agencies than food vendors. Let's face it, unless you're selling weapons or chemicals, neither of which is likely to be allowed at any event other than a gun show, merchandise poses little risk to public safety. Merchandisers don't use propane stoves or fryers or other devices that create a fire danger, so the county fire departments aren't going to be worried about them. Merchandisers don't sell prepared foods, so the local health departments aren't going to be worried about them. In most cases the only two documents a merchandise vendor needs are a business license and a sales tax permit.
If you are a crafter or you know a crafter whose products you'd like to sell, this decision is already made for you. Be a merchandiser. That is, of course, provided the crafted products you want to sell are things people want to buy! That may seem obvious, but there are plenty of folks who invested a great deal of time and money in a merchandise business before first being sure their merchandise would sell.
Whether or not your cool little doo-dads or amazing gizmos will sell is sometimes difficult to predict. Some items defy all logic and sell like crazy. (Anyone old enough to remember Pet Rocks?) Other items seem like sure things and end up falling flat.
Do a little research. Visit a few festivals yourself and see what other merchandisers are selling. A wonderful resource for researching merchandise is that good old Internet again. Check eBay and other on line selling sites to see what kind of collectibles, trinkets and curios are being offered.
That brings up another advantage to merchandise over food; you can sell merchandise on line! Hey, maybe you should just skip the mobile vending idea and go straight to opening an Internet shop! Bad idea. On line stores are almost impossible to get off the ground without huge investments in advertising and expensive web design.
What does work is an Internet shop that sells in conjunction with a mobile vending shop. People who visit your booth at a festival might like an item but not quite be in the buying state of mind. Make sure everyone who leaves your booth takes with them your business card, which has your web site address. Even better, print an “On Line Special Discount” coupon on the back of your cards.
If you've done your research and feel confident the items you want to merchandise will sell, you still need to be flexible and be prepared to make changes according to customer demand. As I mentioned in the first chapter, you may pour your heart and soul into crafting your items, only to find those items snubbed by picky customers.
Don't let your feelings or your confidence get hurt. Your art is still wondrous and exquisite in its own way. Your family still loves you. But you will have to adjust your craft to satisfy your customers. Or you could just quit the business and do something else for a living. The world isn't ready for your art. That's fine, but it means you are putting the love for your craft ahead of your desire to own your own business.
Let's say you are a wood carver and you love dogs. You have an idea to sell darling hand carved Christmas ornaments in a variety of dog shapes. You work for months carving ornament after ornament until you have enough inventory to open shop at your first festival.
Surprise! It's cat lovers who are more likely to buy animal themed trinkets than dog lovers. Don't believe me? Visit the home of a dog lover, then visit the home of a cat lover. See whose house has more dog or cat themed bath towels, curtains, coffee mugs, door mats, hot pads, wall hangings, dishes, on and on.
Phooey! All that work in dog shaped carved wood, and customers keep asking if you have anything shaped like cats. Are you upset? Of course, but only a little. There are still dog lovers who will eventually buy your dog shaped ornaments. If you truly think like a business person, though, you're excited to have found out what really sells!