Need some tips, ideas and info on Vending a reptile show

[VampyreByte]

We are planning on vending at the Cold blooded reptile Expo in Minneapolis this summer. It'll be our first experience vending at a show.

We would like some info from other people who have vended at shows before. We have a paypal card swiper for payment with credit/debit cards, we'll bring plenty of cash for change. We don't have a Tax ID number or anything yet, still trying to figure out information on if we need one and how we get one.
We live in Bismarck, ND and will be traveling 6 hours or more to the show in Minneapolis. What do you do for transportation of geckos and then i'm guessing we don't leave our animals overnight at the show. So how do you go about getting them back into your hotel room, which i'm sure wouldn't be fond of knowing or finding out that your keeping geckos in your room.

Do you take the geckos off food for a little while so they don't make a mess of their deli cups or other enclosures?

We have a couple of banners being made up and have business cards to give out. I'll be making a banner holder out of PVC and Deli Cup holder out of wood.

How do you make sure other than just paying good attention that your geckos don't get stolen? And is that much of a problem? Seems like it would be easy to just walk up to a table and walk away with an animal.

I'm sure there are other questions i'm not coming up with now, but any help would be greatly appretiated.
Thanks Guys

 

[Olympus]

I've worked a couple Daytona shows and most people that come from far away spend Friday night in a hotel. At Daytona the hotels know people are coming in with reptiles so they don't make a fuss, but yours may not so I would stick all of them in large plastic totes and discretely carry them up. Or a suitcase, even.

But Saturday night you do leave the animals there overnight, the shows provide security so you don't have to worry. Although I think people take home their most valuable animals with them, just in case (animals in the thousands of dollars). It's a good idea to bring sheets or blankets to cover everything on your table though, so no one can see what it underneath.

We don't feed our reptiles that weekend, especially because the temps aren't super warm either, so any food is just going to sit in their gut digesting uber slowly. With the AC, they may not even be really hungry. They do get water, obviously.

If you have multiple people at your table it's easier to keep an eye out but if it's just you or just you and a spouse, for example, perhaps you can look into getting a fine net to throw over all the deli cups, just in case. That way even if one person goes to get lunch and the other is talking with a customer, no one can slip away with a cup.

 

[DrCarrotTail]

I vend one show a month but it's only about an hour away so my geckos are out of their normal environment for about 9-10 hours. I pack up at 7am and am usually out the door about 8am and back home around 5pm. I don't feed geckos over 30g for two days before the show and those under 30g for one day before the show so they don't have food in their bellies and they don't make their cups all gross and stinky. I have a cooler that's big enough for all the animals I will sell so I pack them in deli cups and stick them in there. If it will be really hot/cold outside I'll pack a couple of cold/hot water bottles in the cooler to keep them warm. I also make sure the paper towels in their deli cups are slightly damp so they don't get too thirsty. I would assume if I stayed overnight I wouldn't change too much. I don't think anyone would really question me carrying a cooler into a hotel so they would be none the wiser to reptiles vs. ice cream in my room. I'd also probably bring a spray bottle of water to rewet paper towels if needed.

I only have a small number of geckos. I think the most I've ever had was about 30 on my table. I line them up in neat rows and keep a good watch on them. The more cluttered your table the easier it will be for someone to walk away with a gecko. I haven't had an issue but I've heard a lot of other people say they have. I want to pick up a deli cup holder in the near future so I can relax a bit more about having them all out.

One thing I like to bring is hand sanitizer so people that want to handle my animals have clean hands and won't transmit anything to my geckos.

 

[VampyreByte]

Awesome! Thanks for the great ideas Lisa and Oli!
It'll be my wife and I at the show. So I think we'll be able to keep a good eye on things and Will be hopefully organized with a deli cup holder. I might rig something up like a semi loose bungy cord over each row of geckos so you have to move it out way to take a cup out also.
Thats kind of what I was thinking was a tote for hauling the geckos, but a cooler is definitely a good idea and won't cause any attention also.

 

[Olympus]

One thing I forgot to mention is to make sure you test out everything before the show day, especially stuff like the banner stand. The first show I worked at the table owner hadn't tested out his custom ordered metal stand ahead of time and we found out that it was tediously difficult to put together. Some of the pieces didn't quite fit and we managed to put it up finally by the time people were already walking around. The second time went much better but the owner definitely regretted not having tried everything out first.

So make sure stuff like the stand, your credit card reader, etc. all function as they should a few days before the show.

Besides that I think that's everything you should know lol

It might be a good detail, if you haven't thought of doing so already, to print out some care sheets. Customers will appreciate getting one with their pet (even veteran buyers, it always leaves a good impression about the breeder if it seems like they go the extra mile to makes sure their animals are well taken care of post-sale) and new reptile keepers will have something to guide them, even if they never do another gram of research.

 

[insertexpletivehere]

I would also familiarize yourself with email transfers if you aren't already. I went to an expo last weekend, there was an ATM there and most vendors were dealing strictly cash, but some accepted credit. The debit machine went down just a I went to make a purchase, the vendor allowed me to do an email transfer because I didn't have enough cash on me. I realize that you have the card reader, but if for some reason it won't work, goes down, etc then you can use the email transfer as a back up (plus they don't charge you a fee). The downside is that it can sometimes take 30-60 minutes, mine went through in about 5.

 

[VampyreByte]

Good to know! Thanks. I'll be making my stand so It'll be tested as its being built but I will definitely check the card reader and look in to email transfers (haven't even heard of those)

 

[acpart]

Here's an article I wrote a few years ago about vending at a reptile show:

How to Vend at your first Reptile Show | Gecko Time

Aliza

 

[VampyreByte]

Awesome! Thanks Aliza. I probably should searched first.