Playa Vista Farmer's Market - a dogmatic success

Everyone knows that Los Angeles rains all the time, right? NO

Well Dogmatic Treats was rained out of BOTH of the LMU Wellness Wednesday Farmer’s Markets that we signed up to be vendors at. However, on Saturday December 8, we were able to sell at the Playa Vista Farmer’s Market…and it was a blast.

We had everything ready to make the trendiest booth and arrived bright and early at 8 am to set up. By 9 am, people started trickling in. Overall, we observed that the Playa Vista Farmer’s Market attracts families with young children, college students, and young couples. Many bring their dogs even though the “No Pets Allowed” sign was directly in front of our dog booth.

If the managers of the market enforced this rule, I am not sure how successful our booth would have been. Most of our sales came from us offering the passing dogs a free sample treat and then the owner being surprised by how much their furry best friend enjoyed it. Multiple customers expressed their surprise when their dog ate it so quickly, prompting them to buy a box or two. Out of all the dogs that tried our treats that day, only one dog, a small Pomeranian, did not like the treats. A pretty good success rate! We tell customers that this is because these are simple treats made of only four ingredients – all of which are very popular flavors that dogs enjoy. There is nothing secret nor artificial in them. Only freshly baked with love.

Another thing that helped our team was our payment method; we accepted cash and venmo. Many people asked if we accept cards, but were thrilled when we offered venmo as a payment method. The other booths I bought things from (avocado toast, cheese, a candle, and a pear) all took my credit card as payment so I was nervous this would hurt us. However, us offering venmo seemed to give us an advantage over the other booths as we seemed more modern and up to date.

(photo from left to right: Lindsay Beck, Makenna Defaccio, Ashlyn Rose (me). Photo taken by Summer Yim)

I loved how much people wanted to talk. I am a very social person and very passionate about this business start-up, so all conversations came naturally. People loved hearing about the research and how we came up with the product, how we can make a tasty treat with only 4 ingredients, how we are donating all profits to The Lange Foundation, and how we were group of LMU students from the M-School trying to make a difference. We followed some of the dogs’ Instagram’s, and invited a few customers to our poster session as well.

Lastly, a highlight of the Farmer’s Market was the positive reaction we got from our customers even after we had left. Without asking on our end, Mochi Tong and Harry the Hairy dog posted on their own dog accounts how much they loved Dogmatic Treats. Purely earned media!!

Here are just some of the other satisfied pups of the day…

Overall, a very successful day! 16 boxes were sold and many pups were happy. Also, a very special thank you to Martha Hall. Martha was a woman we met when handing out samples at a dog park before our official product launch. She loved our treats, asked to buy a box becoming our first customer, and told us how she is the old manager of the Playa Vista Farmer's Market! She gave us her contact information and became a mentor teaching us the importance of making connections, and how they can come from very unexpected places. She got us a spot at the market and helped in waiving the expensive entrance fee. We only had to pay the 12% of profit of the day to the market helping us to donate even more to the Lange Foundation. Thank you.

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