LDF Online Showcase 2023 – Exhibitor Confirmation Letter
LDF Online Showcase:
September 4th – 10th 2023
Access times for buyers:
11am Sept 4th – 5pm Sept 10th
(10am Sept 4th for LDF Members)
Access times for exhibitors:
10am Sept 4th – 5pm Sept 10th
Deadline for Content:
Photos & text August 14th
Thank you for booking your space in the 2023 LDF Online Showcase. We are pleased to have this as a regular event in our diary now & I think this is a great opportunity for international customers & others, who can’t get to our live events, can still get the taste of a KDF show. Although it is online, it is really important that you prepare your website/etsy store (if you have one) in advance of the showcase so customers find it easy to locate the items you are promoting in the showcase. The exhibitors who spend time working on their photos, their website & shipping costs etc seem to be the ones who do best in our showcases.
We also need as much time as possible to input all content onto the showcase. It is a huge amount of work, so we would appreciate you sending photos etc as soon as possible. I am happy to receive photos in batches as they are ready, rather than wait for them all to be ready at once. Deadline for photos & content is AUGUST 14th, but we can continue inputting right up to the day of the showcase, so we are happy for you to send us a few photos after this date if you need.
We don’t expect everyone to have brand new items listed on your Showcase page but it is important that you either have some new exclusive items, or you have new photos of items you wish to highlight to make your page fresh. Your page will be less successful if you just put up the same pictures time after time.
Here are a few reminders & pointers that may help you prepare.
OUR WEBSITE: Our beautiful website will get very busy in the run up to the show. We get at a minimum of 2000 visitors to our website in a usual month, but this increases drastically during the shows when we get up to 10 000 visitors in the week of the show. There is a special page “EXHIBITOR INFO” that you can visit to check information. It should have all the information you need to prepare for the show. More will be added regularly. (to find this page, go to the menu bar & click on SHOWS > ONLINE SHOWCASE > EXHIBITOR INFO)
You will also automatically have a “Business Card” on THE LIST. Please check links are working & we are using the correct photo. We expect you to have a reciprocal link from your site to ours.
CATALOGUE & ADVERTISING: We will once again be producing a limited edition of our very popular A4 show catalogue & will post it to our top 500 customers. This has been a big success with many collectors desperate to get their hands on a copy. The exhibitor list will feature all exhibitors in the showcase but we will also have some advertising space too. These spaces WILL sell out so please book your space now if you haven’t already done so. Form is attached below. Artwork is required by July 10th.
E-FLYER: To promote the show, we have designed an e-flyer that you can send out to potential customers. You can download our E-Flyer HERE.
YOUR PAGE: Please be aware that the showcase will look different depending what device it is viewed on. We do recommend that customers view the site on a tablet, laptop or computer to get a better experience, but it can also be easily viewed on a mobile phone. We are not able to adjust the layout of pages individually, so all pages will have the same template.
Your page in the showcase will include the following (I have attached an example of a page to this email):
Business name, you name & location: At the top of your page, you will have your business name, your personal name & your location. This information will be taken from your contract.
Photo Gallery: All pages can have up to 12 photos displayed. (you may have paid extra for more photos in which case you can have up to 20 photos) There is more information below about what photos you should send us, so please read this VERY CAREFULLY. Most important.. Photos should be LANDSCAPE. If you are not confident in taking photos, please read the other documents attached which may help you.
Links: Under your photos, you will have buttons that connect to your website, email & social media. We will take these links from your contract. PLEASE make sure these links are correct. We will try to test all links & will not add any links that aren’t working. There is also a ‘SHOP’ button at the top of your page above the photo gallery. This button will go directly to either your webshop on your website, or your Etsy store. If you have both a webshop & an Etsy store, please make it clear to us which you want us to use for the shop button. Both your website & Etsy store will also be accessible from the buttons below the photos, but the SHOP button is a quick & easy way for customers to get straight to your main selling pages online. If you do not have a webshop or etsy store, there will be no SHOP button on your page & customers will have to contact you by email or phone to purchase items. This also works well.
Text: Underneath your links will be a write up about you & your work. This can be up to approx. 200 words long. Customers really enjoy reading these & we recommend, that if you took part in previous online shows, you try to alter your text for this show. We recommend that you have one paragraph about the history of you & your business & then the second paragraph can be updated for each online show about new items you have been working on, stories about the past few months etc etc.
OVER TO YOU: Once the customer has left your page on our showcase, it will be up to you to make sure they can find what they want easily. It is important to spend time working on your webshop or etsy store before the showcase to get it ready. Make sure the items shown on your page of the showcase are easy to find in your webstore. They should be listed 1st if possible. Some craftsmen had a special Etsy page created for the showcase which went live when the showcase opened. This worked well too.
Remember that customers may need to contact you with questions or messages during the showcase, so make sure you are checking your email & social media etc regularly.
POSTAGE & PACKING: You will be posting orders to the UK & overseas, so make sure you have prices ready before the showcase so you can inform customers of the costs. Remember both you & the customers have saved money by not going to a LIVE event, so you may be happy to subsidize postage a little to help their costs, but they should be equally happy to pay postage of items. Since Brexit, new taxes & fees have been introduced when sending parcel in & out of the UK, so make sure you have all the up-to-date info available.
SHOWS IN 2023: We are looking forward to the KDF Christmas Show in December. If you have not signed up for this show yet, please ask for a contract soon as it is filling up. Information on the KDF Summer Show 2024 will be sent out in due course.
LDF LOYALTY CARD: We have 52 LDF members who we will allow members access to the site from 10am on September 4th.
SPECIAL OFFERS: Some exhibitors offered a discount to customers shopping from their site during the Showcase. This worked well. It was usually a discount code that could be used on their webshop or Etsy Store.
PIMA: We are hoping to announce an exciting twist to the Perfection in Miniature Awards for 2024. We are just waiting on a few final details so will announce more news on this shortly.
FACEBOOK & INSTAGRAM: We will be posting on our Facebook & Instagram in the run up to the show. We may use photos sent in by you for the showcase to promote the event & you personally. The showcase is a special event because there are items available that are new & maybe haven’t been seen on Social Media either. We ask that you do not show all of your new items for the showcase in advance of the show but announce them once the show is open.
SPAM EMAILS: Please be aware that LDF exhibitors are still receiving emails from various companies saying they can give you advance access to the attendance list for the KDF show or offering cheap hotel rooms. Any email that is officially from LDF will be signed by me or Lola & be sent from the @dollshouseshowcase.com email address. Any emails about the show from other email addresses are SCAMS! Please also be aware that Scammers may try to contact you during the showcase. We recommend that you take a deposit for any orders from customers, especially if you do not know them.
YOUR WORK: The Showcases remains special events because of your fantastic work. Just because the event is online, does not mean that the work shown should be of a lower quality. Customers are reassured that we at LDF always check craftsmen’s work before accepting them for our shows & our Online Showcase is no different. Do not display work that is not up to scratch!
OFFICE OPENING TIMES: The LDF office is usually open between 10.00am – 3.00pm, but if we are out, please email or leave a message. All answer machine messages checked weekly, but emails are generally answered within 48 hours, so if you do not hear back, it means we did not get the message, so please call/email again. The LDF Office will be closed from June 15th for 2 months but we will still be working, so you can email or call us on 07976 715.679.
Charlotte Stokoe
LDF organiser
charlotte@dollshouseshowcase.com
