I've been doing this craft booth business for several years now and it's such a big mystery to me where my Muslim consumers are hiding. I've done shows at American craft fairs/festival and I think I finally have an idea of what it is that my American buyers want and buy from me. But I've been trying to find what the Muslim buyers wants for years now at other Arab and/or Muslim booths and I still can't get it.
For example, yesterday I had a booth at my local mosque in celebration of Eid al-Adha. I did the same booth in August for Eid al-Fitr and I didn't even make my table fee ($50). Back then, I brought my Arabic country buttons and magnets, my Arabic Alphabet Animal poster, my Arabic, Farsi, & Urdu cards and some jewelry items. I sold two cards ($5 each), six bookmarks ($1 each) a number of buttons/pins ($1 each) and one earring set ($5) and a few other items.
According to the American Muslim Consumer Conference, held each year in New Jersey, the US Muslims is a newest consumer niche that is on the rise, but why are they not buying from their own? For the Eid booth this time, I decided to concentrate more on kid's products. I made girl's purses made from felt fabric. My own daughters loved them and talked about how nice they'll be for collecting coins on Eid. Traditionally, kids are given coins when they wish someone an Eid Mubarak (Happy Eid). I thought they would be a huge hit. Didn't sell a single one.
I also decided to make little colouring books that had Islamic images of little kids praying, along with mosques, mosaics, the Kabaa, etc. I made 24 and sold 2.
I took hand sewn felted pillows, crocheted barrettes, cupcake toppers (with Eid Mubarak on them), a Happy Eid banner, hand silk screened baby bibs, beaded subha prayer beads (gifts for dads) and earrings (gifts for mom) and Islamic scrabble tiles necklaces. I basically had a table with over 200 items on it and sold 19 items, mostly in the $1 price range, but again, not making my table fee. And five of those items were rings that my daughters had made. Yes, I stooped that low and took my kids. I thought they would help with the cute factor.
What did I sell the most of, you might be asking yourself? Candy treats bags. I know! I was just as perplexed! Here I was charging for treat bags that the mosque was giving away for free. True, my treat bags were nicely made with ribbons bows and had Eid Mubarak on them, but still, I had only made one and ended up making five more to sell to kids while there (thank goodness I took the supplies with me!).
But most surprising of all: again, I didn't sell a single Arabic Alphabet Animal poster. This one I just can't seem to figure out for the life of me. I débuted this poster back in February, but had been working on it for over a year. I compiled several focus groups of local Islamic moms, went to the two Islamic schools in my area to talk to the teachers and even created a huge marketing campaign a few months after it came out. I had never done a marketing campaign in my life, but I thought I would give it a try. I created postcards via Vista Print and mailed out 250 of them to various Islamic schools, mosques and organizations across the US. Did not get a single response.
I went back to the drawing board, created a personal letter that described my journey, took two of the animals on the poster and made them into colouring sheets and put all three pieces of paper in nice big envelopes so that the colouring sheets were not folded. I took apart the 250 names on the mailing list, focused only on Islamic schools and spent days tracking down the names of the principals/directors of 75 schools so that the letters were personalized.
Again, did not get a single response.
Not even from the two local Islamic schools that were part of the focus groups. Why? I have no idea.
I don't want it to seem that this blog post is me complaining. I'm really did enjoy seeing so many great friends at my mosque booth and my business is doing very well, alhumdu'lah. For the first time in the 3 years that A Crafty Arab was created, I'm actually going to be in the black. It's not a solid black, but more of a greyish tint, but I'm happy none the less to finally be able to keep money in my bank. But my biggest consumers are the English speaking Americans. Between my Zibbet site, my own website and the brick and mortar businesses that I'm in currently, my customer base is 95% non Arab speakers and non Muslims. And yes, I’m talking about my Arab, Farsi and Urdu products alone, not including my English sarcastic cards or other crafts that I make for my American booths/stores throughout the year.
Why is that? Your guess is as good as mine. And for now, I’ll still keep trying to market to Muslims, trying to find that secret formula to get them to support a local entrepreneur. I hope to one day figure out the mystery of how to reach my Muslims consumers and getting my handmade products into their homes.
If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.
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