During economic downturns like these, unemployment is soaring and people don’t know where to turn to find an income source. So, I thought how about doing my own thing, instead of relentlessly searching for nonexistent jobs. Now, the question was what should I do to earn some extra money while keeping my 1- year-old child out daycare
One day, by “coincidence”, I came across Darlene a good friend of mine from college who I hadn’t heard from in quite a while. During our fierce chit-chatting session, amongst many other things, Darlene told me she had started a small business. She was now throwing purse parties. I could not believe Darlene (who never struck me as a sales person) or business-woman-type was now a successful small business entrepreneur while I was still wondering what to do to make money. I was particularly surprised to find out she had already hosted about 15 of those parties at the time and she was ready for some more.
I kept in touch with her and learned a lot about how she did it. I saved some of her notes, researched some stuff on my own and decided give a try.
If you would like to start a purse party, read on and you will find the best tips on how to get the party started.
1) Stock a wide variety of product As far as buying goes, Darlene had scoped out a number of different vendors and she said that www.bagsrep.com had a huge variety with a fair price/quality angle and her shipments were always delivered on time. Be open to other products like jewelry, purse hangers, and hats. Again... www.bagsrep.com stocks all of these products.
2) Quality merchandise The purses must be of decent quality because you will rely on referrals and repeat customers to grow your business. In the case of purse parties, word-of-mouth is extremely important to scale up the business. Happy customers will invite their family and friends as long as the purses are nice and the parties are enjoyable. Be sure to print up business cards and ALWAYS carry them with you. I use www.vistaprinta.com.
3) Location Picking a location should not be a problem. Start at your own house with a smaller crowd to test out the waters. Later on, scale up to some of the other ladies houses and offer them free purses for hosting.
Other possible places are your local school, church, wine tasting rooms, hotels etc...
4) Who to invite? To start, invite about 20-30 guests. I like to use Evite.com to keep track of whom I invited and their responses online. www.evite.com When you invite 30 people you might get about 10-15 actually showing up. Be sure to pick dates that do not interfere with holidays, summer/winter vacation, etc.
5) Keep it fun! Take notes of what purses were more popular. Keep in mind your audience when purchasing. What snacks were more successful? Keep the parties fun and not too “salesy”. Make people feel comfortable and stock up on some nice products and sales will soar!
