New Products
Well, since it is a New Year, I thought I would make use of some of the produce I have stored in one of our freezers and start adding new products to the JamBusters! inventory. I used the quince we picked in Oliver late last year for a couple of new things. I added Quince Chutney and Quince Preserves to our offerings. As George pointed out when I was going through recipes, “You can’t go wrong with anything chutney.” I also did up some new Haskap jam. I had Haskap Beast Berry Jam in the inventory last year and it finally sold out so I replaced it with Haskap Beauty Berry Jam. In case you’re wondering, the berry varieties of the Haskaps are called “Beauty” and “Beast” so I didn’t make up the names of our products. I actually used the berry names for them. I added an old product with a slight twist - Cherry Cherry Chocolate Preserves. We’ve had this one before but the recipe got altered slightly this time around. What makes this an interesting product is that it contains cherry liqueur. And one final item in our dried soups section I added this month is a Three Bean Chili Mix. I’ll be adding more dry soup mixes as they have started to gain traction this season.
The New Year Numbers
January is usually one of those odd months for us. Sometimes it is slow and sometimes it is not. This year, it was fairly steady. The calendar month of January 2021 had us vending a total of ten days, so the numbers will be related to a five-week sales cycle. Total jars sold for the month was 82. Our best day of sales was Saturday, January 9, 2021, with 15 jars sold. Our slowest day of the month was a tie between two Sundays (January 10 and January 24) with just 2 jars sold. Just four of the ten days saw us sell into the double digits. As for Watkins sales, there was one day with no sales at all but the rest of the month was good. Three of the ten market days saw Watkins outsell JamBusters! with a couple more dates where Watkins nearly matched JamBusters! figures. In total, a solid month for us regardless.
Other Things
George only came out to help me twice during the month. He has been busy with his freelance writing business and has scheduled his work weeks into the weekends so he can space out some of his bigger jobs. Plus, the last couple of times he spent a Sunday with me at the market wore him out. January 2021 is also the time for renewals. During the month we renewed our annual Vendor Insurance policy. Upcoming renewals will include our membership in the Princeton & District Chamber of Commerce and our Town of Princeton Business License. We haven’t put much thought into advertising for JamBusters! or Watkins this year as we have no idea what the summer vacation season is going to look like with COVID-19 still a concern. The Oliver Indoor Flea Market continues to have mandatory mask-wearing, hand sanitizing stations, and social distancing protocols. We also wear masks inside our booth and hand sanitize with our own sanitizer frequently. Neither George nor I expect a change in these guidelines throughout the majority of 2021.
Follow Us Online
We have a fairly active Facebook page. You can find it HERE. Plus, if you are a fan of our products, please let us know. You can find our Google My Business page HERE. As for what 2021 will bring, our outlook of this New Year is to just wait and see what happens. Whatever it happens to be, we will be able to adapt to it and continue doing what we have been doing with the home-based business that we started in 2014.