Christmas Market Stall

kiss_me_now9

My uni is offering a chance to have a stall on their annual Christmas market and me and a friend have decided to go for it. Atm we're brainstorming ideas and have come up with...

- Chocolate lollipops/shapes in bags for stocking fillers
- Cupcakes or cake pops
- Christmas cards/gift tags/wrapping paper

And stalled there!

The cake pops and chocolate shapes are my favourite idea as a) they're cheap enough to make, b) very quick and easy and c) you get a lot from each batch. The Christmas cards are a good idea as both of us enjoy making them and have some supplies already.

However the woman running it said last year that nearly all the stalls were either cupcake stalls or card stalls, so we wanted something a little different. The other thing with cake pops is they don't have a lot of longevity in them.

We're hopefully able to get a small start up grant so we can get stock/get making soon if we go down the non perishable route. There's no problem with selling food as long as it's not illegal (i.e. alcoholic or laced with drugs) as they have the right insurance/licence (this I made sure I asked as I know how twitchy people get about food hygiene etc.!)

Any other ideas?

LilMissEmmylou

Candles? everyone loves candles right They make great Christmas gifts, birthday gifts and just for the house. I know I buy cinnamon candles EVERY YEAR without fail so my house smells of Christmas (in fact they had the airwic cinnamon and vanilla ones in offer in Tesco last week so I bought one already lol)

kiss_me_now9

Ohh good idea! And maybe soaps with little christmas decorations and glitter in them? Not sure how that would work though. I hope we go down the stocking fillers route, as that in my mind seems to be the cheapest and easiest! Lots of little things at nice prices

Finefoot

I know this sounds really simple, but I sold a lot at the school fete -
socks wrapped in printed cellophane, tied at both ends to look like a cracker.
I also made little parcels of 3 ferr**** ro**** chocolates wrapped in cellophane, tied with a ribbon to hang on the tree.

surflou

Last year we made hampers for our Mums and inside these we put Christmas cookies, mini homemade soaps, homemade chocolates with a Christmas theme and Christmas jam and marmalade. These went down a storm - you could either make the stuff and sell it separately or make up hampers and sell these - the marmalade was amazing, it had Jack Daniels in it and was a big hit - doing it again this year but with flavoured olive oil and stuff included.

surflou

LilMissEmmylou wrote: »

Candles? everyone loves candles right They make great Christmas gifts, birthday gifts and just for the house. I know I buy cinnamon candles EVERY YEAR without fail so my house smells of Christmas (in fact they had the airwic cinnamon and vanilla ones in offer in Tesco last week so I bought one already lol)

Ha ha I did that the other day too, with the new Glade stick things though... we smell of Christmas already - and I'm also starting to do my sample Christmas cooking gingerbread men, mince and custard pies and savoury Christmas pies which all make it smell Christmassy in here!

kiss_me_now9

surflou wrote: »

Last year we made hampers for our Mums and inside these we put Christmas cookies, mini homemade soaps, homemade chocolates with a Christmas theme and Christmas jam and marmalade. These went down a storm - you could either make the stuff and sell it separately or make up hampers and sell these - the marmalade was amazing, it had Jack Daniels in it and was a big hit - doing it again this year but with flavoured olive oil and stuff included.

I love this idea but I think it could work out quite expensive for everything - our budget for stock is going to be around £50 - £100. Though I think we're going to go down the route of selling little bits that can be put in hampers, just without the hampers! The market is on the 7th so we don't really want biscuits/cookies/cakes as they won't last

surflou

kiss_me_now9 wrote: »

I love this idea but I think it could work out quite expensive for everything - our budget for stock is going to be around £50 - £100. Though I think we're going to go down the route of selling little bits that can be put in hampers, just without the hampers! The market is on the 7th so we don't really want biscuits/cookies/cakes as they won't last

Well I have to say the jam and marmalade didn't actually cost that much really, jars and lids are easy to find cheaply in bulk, then its just the ingredients and with the marmalade that was simply oranges, jam sugar and JD lol! The jam can be done cheaply too, Sainsburys do a basics berry mix for £1.00 I think it is and you just pop Christmas spices in there when cooking... loads of recipes on food.com

Owain_Moneysaver

Some universities don't allow candles in halls at all. Even a candle in a sealed box can be grounds for eviction. So that might limit the appeal to the student market.

I think edibles that students can't make for themselves, and silly dressing-up for end-of-term parties, would probably sell well.

Barneysmom

Are there many Goths at your uni, there never seems to be any chocolates to cater for Goths - or hippies.

I'd do something completely different to the normal cards & candy stuff that most people seem to sell.

lincroft1710

LilMissEmmylou wrote: »

Candles? everyone loves candles right )

Er, no, I don't.