We had months where we were booked at two different events, in two different communities over a weekend. We had months where we were booked at six different weekend events. We had bookings in place that kept me so busy in the kitchen that I often had no idea what day it was. We set all kinds of records over the year for our small home-based business ranging from pioneering monthly indoor markets with the local Chamber of Commerce and single day sales figures to earning another award for a product at Canada’s only Hot Pepper Festival.
Our year includes many favorite moments as well. We have found communities including Lower Nicola, Okanagan Falls and Oliver are really fond of our products. We even had great sales events in our home town of Princeton and nearby Keremeos. This year we attended several new events not previously on our calendar and found most of them to be good fits for us. Even after establishing some roots at the Oliver Indoor Flea Market in Oliver, BC in August, we still found other places to vend in addition to the weekends there.
We even found ourselves conducting business in a parking lot in Osoyoos one afternoon in August after bumping into a couple we have known only online to that point. They had been interested in JamBusters! products but lived out of our vending territory. That ended with a chance encounter on the way home from vending in the Oliver Indoor Flea Market. It was a funny sight, serving taste samples out of the back of our car and doing what we normally do in a vending venue, only this time it was alongside a busy highway.
December In Review
By the time the month ends we will have vended for a total of ten dates. Saturdays and Sundays we were at the Oliver Indoor Flea Market (with the exception of December 24 & 31). The weekend of December 9 & 10 saw us in Oliver on the Saturday and Lower Nicola on the 10th for their Christmas Craft Fair. It was a busy weekend and it went well for us. On December 16th we did our first-ever double booking on the same day. We spent the morning at the Oliver Indoor Flea Market and then from 1:00-7:00 PM we were at the OK Falls Hotel & Pub for a Christmas Craft Show. The following day we were back in Oliver. It was another great weekend for us.
What’s In Store In 2018
Well, we really haven’t put much extra thought into what we would like to do with JamBusters! and Watkins in the coming year. I have expressed interest in slipping in additional events each month with George, provided we can fit them in. He agrees that we can still explore vending opportunities while using Oliver as a sort of “home base” for our main inventory and sales. I know that I need to drop some products from our inventory and that’ll be part of the job in the New Year. We also added some new items that have really taken off so I’ll want to try to keep them active throughout the year as long as the peppers or other main ingredients are available. Otherwise, George and I will keep doing what we’ve been doing and will keep doing it as long as we enjoy it.