Taiu and Merike ventured out to Chicago last week to go to one of the largest needlecraft tradeshows, H&H Americas!
Koigu has been a wholesale exhibitor at the show the last years and the show has grown greatly to now include hundreds of vendors. Professional craftspeople of all kinds (yarn shop owners, quilters, craft store owners, knitwear designers, publishers, yarn brands, fabric brands - you name it!) come from all over the world to meet in person. We have found this show to be really inspiring and fruitful every year.
If you didn’t get a chance to make it to H&H this year, we wanted to share a little recap from our point of view and some of our takeaways about the industry we learned from the show.
Our booth:
We had lots of new colours on display organized into collections. We debuted our 2 newest yarns - Andra Brushed Merino DK and Sofie Kid Mohair/Silk Lace - which were a big hit and also teased our Heritage Sweater Collection. If you want more info on what’s new at Koigu that we showed at H&H, email merike@koigu.com.
Our Main Takeaways:
Yarn Stores and Quilting/Sewing Stores are joining forces a little bit more!
with the closure of Joann’s, it seems the more generalized “craft store” is now a hole in the market!
Quilting stores are bringing in some yarn and yarn stores are bringing in some sewing supplies. Make sure to do this intentionally and check there’s a need for it in your store if you want to try this.
There is still a bit of a hole in the market for crochet representation throughout the yarn industry.
Making sure to have a few crochet samples and making crocheters feel welcome can go a long way!
Telling your brand story and the brand stories of the brands you carry in your store is important! Customers care about they who, why, and where of what they’re buying.
Put up signs with brand stories, send out brand feature posts/email newsletters etc.
Making personal connections with your customers is what keeps them coming back, keep them choosing you and bringing their friends.
Stores that know who their customer base is and bring in yarns/products based on their wants and needs do very well!
Not sure who your “best customer” is? Take some time to think about this. Does your store setup and product selection service them?
Ask your regular customers for feedback and what they would like to see in your store!
Shopping yarns in person still matters. Choosing colours and feeling fibres in person still sells best. Our wholesale customers loved shopping in our booth compared to ordering online.
You can apply this in your store as well! Enourage customers to play with yarns and colours with open flat spaces where they can lay out their yarn while planning a project. Even if you’re online only, find ways to make shopping your yarns as “in person feeling” as possible.
We knew this…but samples sell yarn!!!!
Make sure to have a sample of each yarn base you carry, even if it’s something small.
Have an intersting colour that people always ask how it works up but don’t want to make a full sample? Make a mini swatch and display it.
