Hey folks!

(Note: this rant is in the context of pitching gadgets, not magic. I'm also not a pitchman. Nor do I have any significant amount of experience pitching. That being said, I don't know if what I'm about to say will make sense either lol. But, I am curious about an observation and would like to hear your feedback).

Having been here a while, and reading all the stories, I've often wondered if in today's fast-paced, technology driven, attention deficit society if the art of pitching products is almost at it's end in the traditional sense? By that, I'm talking about setting up a booth, and hawking your wares.

Do you agree or disagree?

I'm sure there is still room to carve out a niche, but it seems to me, that most of what is being pitched in today's world are high-ticket items (think home and garden shows or QVC).

It just seems to me that the fun (and dare I say, profitability) of pitching small, cheap gadgets under $20 has now come to the end. The ubiquity of almost everything being available online seems to have taken away the pitchman's tools of having a "unique" product and the ability to have a captive audience. Granted, a real pitchman can captivate an audience even in 2020. But it sure seems that it would be a huge challenge to do consistently compared to 20, 30, 40 years ago.

What say ye?

I both agree and disagree..

Yep! Times are getting harder to pitch your wares out in the open! But with the changes of times like the web and social media platforms.. I feel other opportunities are coming!

Just this weekend I was talking with an old pitch friend I run into often and agreed on how its getting harder for us as folks are holding on to their hard earned money like never before.. and also attendance has been lower than usual..

He usually sells out before the day is over when hawking his miracle cleaner but this has not been the case recently.. I myself only did a few yards per day these past weekends at this Fleamarket.. (much less than previous years!)

Not sure if it's just locally but..

I smell a recession coming!

Or huge opportunities for those willing to change with times!

I would love to find a "part time" type of gadget that I could go to farmer's markets and/or flea markets with on the weekends for some easy side money. I thought peelers would be good (especially at farmer's markets), but I just don't see that happening. For a while, I had a unique product that is not available in stores (https://bucketstool.com) that I took to a large farmers/flea market here in Ohio. I had a sweet looking booth with banners too. But people were too cheap to spend even $20 for this product. Granted, it could of been a bad choice of product too. Everyone "thought" it was cool, but didn't sell more then 10 of those things over 3 straight weekends.

I thought about pitching shammy's too, but again, I think people at these venues like the "entertainment value" of it (seeing a live demo) rather than actually buying the product. Especially if they know they can buy it online for cheap.

Anyway, I think with the availability of retail as well as Amazon and Ebay, it's difficult to find a great product that would work at these types of venues.

Then again, maybe I just need to put together a more engaging pitch like this guy! LOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YefKg5rdzQo

LOL! Love the video...!

Actually, here's a product you don't see in stores. I've only found 1 place on Alibaba, and you can get them for about $8 each, but minimum order is 3000 units. Anyway, it goes by the name of Safe Slice or Pump n Slice. Plus it's a good quality item. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivH9A8A0-hM

I think this is a winner if you could source it cheap enough.