We left our home early this morning allowing plenty of time to get to our final vending event of the year. There had been three inches of new snow overnight and it was still coming down throughout our entire trip. The event was a Christmas Craft Sale hosted by the Lower Nicola Community Market and held in the community hall there. Lower Nicola is a tiny community north of Merritt, British Columbia, which is roughly an hour drive.
 
The trip this morning took us two hours and we pulled into the community hall parking lot 15-minute AFTER the sales event started. That is so out of character for us as we are usually one of the first vendors on site setting up. The drive had frazzled me somewhat as the roads were not completely clear and although we have new snow tires on the car, I was still driving well below the speed limit to get to the event safely.
 
Luckily George was quick in unloading the car and that our vending tables were just steps from the main upstairs entrance to the hall. We were set up in minutes and I actually sold a couple of items before we were completely ready. That made things a bit easier as well as the fact that the hall was a good sized building with several vendors on the main floor with us and a number of additional ones in the basement.
 
The cross section of crafts offered for sale during this event was nothing short of incredible. The average person could have bought several Christmas gifts there and stroked off a number of the names on their gift shopping list. There was also a selection of hot food so I was quite pleased to discover cabbage rolls were one of the menu items and that was my lunch.
 
As for the sales during the event, we did not too badly considering the weather. The snow never let up but there were people coming and going throughout the four hour sale. We had a few people interested in the ‘try-before-you-buy’ tasting samples we offer when vending but most of our customers were buying items as stocking stuffers or as hostess gifts so tasting didn’t play much of a role in our sales.
 
George and I more or less ‘tag-teamed’ our way through the day and with 20-minutes left in the sale vendors started packing up. One nearby vendor looked at George and I heard him tell the story about the lady in Kamloops who came to the vending event we attended at the last minute only to discover most of the vendors were packing up. He told her that there were only a couple still set up, including us and that the lady spent a great deal of money on our products as we were still selling.
 
A short while later, when everyone was packing up in the Lower Nicola Community Hall the vendor who looked at George mentioned that she was glad she decided to stick around as she had made a large sale just before she started to pack up. As for us, it was a good event which also had Santa on site for the children who came. I also noticed that for a change we had gone through a lot more business cards than usual and mentioned it to George.
 
He said he had noticed the same thing. Speaking about ‘sames’ happening, the drive back home was another two hour haul only this time the roads were in far better shape although many drivers were driving too fast for the conditions as far as I was concerned. We were going to stop for something to eat in Merritt on the way home but opted to just drive straight home. I’m glad we did as we pulled into the driveway at home at 5:00 PM, which meant we had driven home in twilight as opposed to darkness which made it easier on me.
 
I am happy that our winter vending season is over. It will allow us to take a good look at our inventory to see what we have left. As we have kept rather detailed notes since we started vending seriously this past spring, we will be able to see exactly what products sold well and that will assist in determining what products we will have in 2017 and which ones we will retire.
 
It also allows me to take it easy and only do small batches off and on as we build up our inventory for the start of the 2017 outdoor vending season. We have already decided on one venue we will go to weekly and are always looking at other events we can plug into our spring and summer schedule. We will also look at what worked and didn’t work in the winter ‘off-season’ of indoor vending. We both enjoyed sharing JamBusters! in different places and intend to continue to do this as long as we can.
 
We are also trying to keep JamBusters! from exploding into too big a job for the both of us. At this point it is manageable and we do get asked frequently about mail orders and setting up off-site sales locations. We are hesitant to go into either of those areas as we just want to keep a handle on the hobby aspect of the products. We are trying to keep it from becoming a job and losing the fun part. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens in 2017.

One of the things we discovered early in our weekly vending life this year was how nice many of the fellow vendors were we met. In addition to our many outdoor vending events there have been a number of indoor ones as well. Without checking our ‘date’ book (we keep a fairly detailed record of our vending events/venues) we have met dozens of vendors.
 
As all of this is still rather new to us, we have also discovered that it is not uncommon to see vendors ‘trade’ goods with each other. While we never really factored it into our JamBusters! vending plan, we have managed to make some great trades with vendors we have gotten to know along the way. Probably our first significant trading arrangement came from a swap with a gal we have vended beside for most of the summer out of town. She makes soaps and lotions and although she has supported our business as much as we have hers by purchasing products, we have also been able to trade back and forth.
 
Last week we were planning a visit to see friends just over the border in Washington State. One of our usual stops is to see a mother/daughter combination we have gotten to know through supporting their vending activities. Our goal was to actually purchase some of their wax melts (George calls them pods) as we had recently purchased a wax melter. We have always picked up a scented candle or two from them whenever we see them, but this time around we were going to try the line of melts they recently introduced.
 
Interestingly enough, the evening before our trip George had been approached online by another fellow vendor we met recently. She was working on a project and was hoping to include some JamBusters! products and offered George a trade for either soap or honey or a combo. He jumped at the honey and only minutes before we left town we met with the vendor in our hallway (our inventory is sitting there) and made a trade. Everyone was happy and we hit the road.
 
When we got to the tiny community of Tonasket, we followed a routine we have developed over the years that basically gets us to most of the book, craft and bake sales before checking into our hotel room. Whatever events we miss our first day we get around to the following morning before we head back home. Our second stop was a vending venue where we usually find Sasha and Sadie with their Celebrations/Cha Cha Candles products.
 
We arrived about a half hour before the event started so we visited and I gave the girls a couple jars of one of my new products to try as I knew they were fond of other items I’ve shared. In the meantime, George and I selected a few different ‘pods’ to buy and take back home. Before we knew it, a trade was offered in exchange for the jellies I had presented – which was not expected – and we went with it. We still paid for something as we know what it’s like being a vendor and looked forward to getting home and trying out one of the ‘pods’ on our melter.
 
I let George pick the first one we’d try and he went with one named Cinnamon Buns. He had a job to do away from home for a couple hours so I cleaned our melter removing an old wax melt that had been used up and started up the one from Sasha and Sadie. I loved the scent and when George got home for dinner he remarked that he thought I had been baking. I told him it was the wax melt. He was impressed. “It smells like you’ve made my favourite – cinnamon buns!”
 
The next morning we tried the honey we traded for before we had gone out of town. I was delicious and far better than anything we have purchased commercially as it was raw and unfiltered. As far as we were concerned, the trades we’ve made with other vendors have been excellent and we trust those we’ve traded with are as happy with what they received as we are with what we traded for.