If Mother's Day (the thing I always asked for on Mother's Day, a day of flea marketing) doesn't bring in some sales, I am seriously considering closing out. Our town does have tourist traffic during the summer, but I'm not sure I can handle much more of this. And my poor friend who did go in on the booth with me hasn't sold ONE THING.

jlxian not sure where you are but if you get many summer tourist it might be worth holding off. I know everytime I go to any new town I LOVE to hit all the non chain stores. People will spend a bunch of money on vacation that they wont normally spend.
How long have you had your booth? May want to find out whose booth has been there the longest & compare what they have to yours. Not saying copy them, just try to evaluate what they specialize in & how its displayed. What ever they are doing must work in your store if they have stayed 5 yrs or so.

jcat, I've had this booth a year. My mood has been pretty raunchy for several days, and no doubt colors my ideas about whether to keep the booth or not. I'll hope for that to lift soon and see what my outlook is then. Thanks.

Seems to me if I had a booth Facebook groups would be something I would work heavy. Someone wanted to buy it, tell them to pick it up at the booth?

Cures the folks at the house and having to meet them with one stone?

I'm just checking in here after not doing do for a while, and hate to hear everyone has had a rough April. Add us to that list, too, our Amazon sale dropped off dramatically (where we earn most of our money), and we haven't been to the flea market too much, 3 or 4 days for the month. The sales there were okay, not great, but enough to give us cash to keep buying. We did spend a lot of money at a friend's store that was closing, got great deals and are now just waiting for people to buy it all :)

We can find no rhyme nor reason for the drop in sales, but it is frustrating since it came at a time of higher cost of living and then, just to add icing to the cake, the flea market raised it's rent by 20%....vendors are cutting back the number of tables they get and how often they come there....it's been 2 weeks since they told us all about the rent increase, and yesterday when I went to pay them for Sunday, they tried really hard to talk me into coming Saturday as well....they don't normally beg for business! I don't expect sales to be good this weekend, due to the flooding we had this week, so many people are cleaning up. But maybe they will come there to replenish things, you never know. Oh, the flea market also issued a "no rainchecks" order, so you can no longer cancel and roll that rent to another day, so we will just go and hope for the best. However, with them suddenly being so hostile to vendors, we did rent a booth at a market in the next town over for the 17th, along with some other vendors, and may start going there once each month.

As usual we all have to adapt and hang in there. I hope it picks up for everyone, though.

My Amazon account hasn't done well in the past few weeks either. Good to know, in its own way, that it's not just me.

Went to pay booth rent today and as I suspected I had only sold $3.25 worth of stuff in April. The market owner told me that "April is always a terrible month" and says it is because of people having to pay taxes and because they are just then able to get outside in their yards and do work that needed to be done from the winter. Maybe he's right. It's hard to be encouraged. I hope Mother's Day sales show improvement. Anyway, I wanted to share this market owner's thoughts about April sales with you all.

jlzian, those reasons sound legit, at least to me!I know I have been outside a lot more, and not on the computer, or shopping, so if others are doing the same, that could explain the drop in online sales so many people are experiencing. Our local sales have plummeted, too, but we just had all that flooding and well, the place is just a mess! The flea market owner said he suspects it will be weeks before people are out to replace all the clothes, games, etc that they lost, but we're really hoping it picks up sooner than that.

I haven't been antiquing since Christmas.
First I was broke
Then came spring
The weather is wonderful
And I suspect when it's too hot to breath outside I'll be looking for something to do that involves getting out of the house, but not outside

I think the heat of summer will help, too. When people just want to go someplace cool where they can spend a good chunk of time. Hope so, anyway!

One of the people who works at one of the antique malls where I have a booth also works at Lowe's in the lumber department, and he says he knows where everybody is right now.

It's true, I've been there

Clovis any updates? Are sales turning around yet?

Sales are nothing but horrid. It feels like October, 1929 all over again.

The FM is as dead as a door nail. Very little foot traffic, and sales are unbelievably slow.

We had a minor bump in sales on Mother's Day, as to be expected, and today wasn't too bad, considering it is a Monday.

As of today, we are off about $600 for the month, according to my guesstimates. Even if the month turned around today, and went back to a normal month, it is very difficult to make up $600 in sales.

Memorial Day weekend should really help. Sales are typically great on MDW, judging by history. Let's hope that it holds true for this year too.

We are taking two loads this week, even though our booths are already busting at the seams with good stuff. I want the booths to have good merchandise that is priced right when people return to shop.

For a short while, I thought the economy was normalizing, at least to a degree, but am now beginning to think again that people are simply too stretched to spend money. Property taxes soared here a few years ago under a 'tax and spend' Republican governor, and we've lost the manufacturing base we used to have. One single plant in our town once employed 1,200 people just a few years ago. There is a tremendous downward pressure on wages, not to mention gasoline at almost $4 again, and sky high grocery prices.

Hate to hear the bad report Clovis.
Our spring weather has been amazing. There were several local craft shows last weekend & all vendors fussed about the lack of foot traffic.
Memorial Day comes early this yr so maybe you can pick up some lost ground. You still have another Saturday after Memorial Day.

I have been reluctant to post on this thread, as of late. I am afraid that I am turning this thread into "The Clovis Diary", LOL..

Anyway, here goes: We had another dreadful day of sales. Tuesdays are our worst day of the week, so it is expected. When things are this bad, you hope and pray that a well healed contractor comes in and drops $200+ on tools that I have in the booth. You hope that the local First Baptist Quilter's Guild drops by and purchases every fat quarter you have, all 280 of them. You hope that someone from the American Legion finds your Maxwell House coffee, and buys 8 cases, since it has 2015 dates.

So far, this month, no luck on any of those.

Just a few years ago, I could almost buy anything and pay any price for it, with no worries. Someone would be along shortly to buy it, and give you a profit for your work and risk. There hasn't been a single time in the past year, during a buying opportunity, that I haven't had a little voice in the back of my head saying "Will that sell? Really, will that sell?"

I talked to 5 vendors today, and they all agreed, this is the worst that they have ever seen it.

I like your diary :)
It gives us a guide on what to expect during the good and bad times.
At least you know it's not you.
We had a mall advertising a bunch of booths up for rent a few weeks ago. Must be hard times around here as well

Thank you for the kind words, Sarah.

Clovis there are many that read your post & take something good & helpful from your words. Think of all who are considering jumping in & have only seen people talk about the good times. If you only talked about those days where you had $500 in sales or turned $1 into $100 everyone else would begin to ask what they are doing wrong!

Thank you, jcat, for the kind words.

There are always ups and downs in business, and the reselling business is no exception.

I've seen slow times in this business, but I have never seen it this slow. The first 6 months of 2013 almost destroyed us, but by July, 2013, business really picked up. The rest of the year increased steadily, and I truthfully thought that the economy was starting to get out of the woods, so to speak. I felt that I had pricing power again, meaning that I could start marking items closer to their real value, instead of playing the 'get it gone' game.

I simply don't know what to make of the whole thing. I really don't.

Love your posts Clovis! I get so many things from your posts, not just information. Camaraderie is probably the most important for me!

I read an Op-Ed piece this morning that said statistics claim retail sales in April were flat everywhere. The gist of the Op-Ed was that people don't have any disposable income. The woman running the flea market next door to where my husband works told him that she thinks sales are bad because of gas prices. I guess it must be true about sales being flat --- although I certainly spend my fair share (and more, no doubt) at WalMart. :o

I have not checked my booth since Mother's Day --- actually I'm afraid to. Nothing had moved prior to the weekend, anyway.

Fingers crossed the warmer months are better for everyone, flea markets included.

Keep your posts coming everyone!

I hit 2 of my booths today, and am going to pull one of them at the end of the month. Granted, it's just an endcap for which I pay $35 a month, but so far this month, I've had $6 in sales.

It's just not worth it.

Later, when I was at my other booth, I ran into a lady I know who it turns out used to have a booth at that same mall, and she withdrew it for the same reason - insufficient sales. In addition, last year that mall flooded (which had never happened before) and since the river's getting high, I'm concerned that it might happen again.

Interesting that you are pulling a booth, these days.

We are thinking about pulling one booth at the IFM too.

My wife wants to pull it. We aren't selling much out of it. I argue that our sales are down in that booth because we haven't been putting the stuff into that booth like we used to.

This thread is what made me find this forum!! ;-)

I am actually trying my hand at this for the very first time! Rented out my booth this past week and will start moving in tomorrow! I am extremely anxious and excited! I'm doing a variety of smalls, repurposed/upcycled items, and refinished furniture. Met a few vendors this past week as well and they said they've been doing extremely well!

I'd love to see photos of y'all's booths? My brain is working overtime trying to come up with stellar staging ideas lol

I gave my notice at the booth, and they want 30 days so it will be at the end of June. That might be an advantage, because from now on, I just won't add anything, and will have less to haul out 6 weeks from now.

Pinterest has unlimited staging ideas.

I noticed the local thrift store started staging a few sections. Very pretty displays.
They also seem very proud ($$$) of those displays.
They wanted some $20 for a beyond tarnished, oh what would you call them, buffet warmers that are kept warm with the candles on the bottom.
I'll give you $10! (But I'd feel like a jerk haggling with a not for profit thrift, and the lady scares me)

Clovis, I am sorry that sales are down so much for you, but I still love reading your posts, as Jlxian said, it is the camaraderie that helps us all, I think.

We tried a new flea market last weekend, and were so excited about it....until we sat there and didn't sell a single thing! Our friends from our regular market went as well, and they sold 5.00 worth of stuff, not great after paying 18.00 for the booth! For us, it is also an hour drive each way, so we won't be going back. So, back to our regular one this weekend, even though we are mad about them raising rates. We have also come to the realization that we will have to go most or all weekends this summer, not only 1/2 or less as we had planned (100 degree days there are just no fun!), I am a bit saddened by this, but we must do what we must do.
Last summer is when sales tanked for us, but our online sales kept us afloat. Online sales are down this year, so I am a little concerned. As far as this coming weekend, we have done really well every other Memorial Day weekend, as much as $1,000 a day, so I am hoping it will be good. We will run a sale, though, since so many people here are still recovering from the floods and don't seem to be spending much.

I hope things pick up for everyone, and soon!

I didn't even think about this weekend being a holiday! I better get to my booth and do a little tidying up and maybe bring in a few things I've been delaying on selling.

Welcome Earthymomma. As you can see a lot of us are discouraged these days. I hope you have good luck with your booth! I have posted a few pictures of my booth (a few months back, you can scroll back and see, I hope). I'm not very good at staging. Please share pics of your booth when you get it all set up!

Thanks!! I sure will, spending this week taking over loads and getting ready for this weekend. I'll take some pictures this afternoon and share :-)

Sales aren't booming at my booths, but my Amazon.com account is! I've sold 5 books in the past 24 hours, and 8 this week! :nanner: I normally don't sell that many in a month! Guess I must have what people want! :)

Yesterday, I shipped a book to Italy, and I just found out that earlier today, I sent one to a county jail. Keeps things interesting, I guess.

We restocked today. The booths are fulling, and some are busting at the seams.

We had a good day of sales, but we have a long way to go to have a good month.

Praying that this weekend is profitable. Memorial Day weekend is typically very good for business, and let's hope this year is no exception.

Okaaaaaay, well, we will only have 1/2 of this weekend to sell, but I hope it is good for all of us! When I went in to pay for our booths for this weekend, they had rented them someone else, she looked down her nose at me and said "since you didn't come last weekend"....several of us regular vendors went to the other flea market, and since I had followed the rules and called ahead to tell them we weren't coming, that should not have affected this weekend, so it seemed like they heard we were at the other place and were punishing us. She asked if we were coming the next 2 weekends, and when I said yes she got a lot happier...seems childish to me, but since they are in charge and seem to be our best avenue for sales, we will play the game they dictate.

Anyhoo, I hope everyone does really well this weekend, I know we all put a lot of thought and work into our businesses and could use a good month of sales!

lol - talk about uncomfortable!
These days they better be happy to have vendors

Yes, they should be! There were LOTS of empty tables today and one other vendor said there were lots yesterday as well. We've noticed more empties since they raised the rates. It was not a bad regular day, lots of small sales, but it was abysmal for Memorial Day weekend. I'm glad we got what we did, though!

Went to add a few items to my booth today (just moved on on Tuesday) already sold a handful of items and it's still fairly sparse in there lol but encouraged of sales in general! Attachment 29847Attachment 29848

A few pics :-)

My husband and I visited one of the other local flea markets on Sunday and when we were leaving I asked the owner how his business had been. He said April had been awful. He said they do get a lot of travelers because they are close to a highway exit. Their rent is 3x what I'm paying now, not feasible for me to move there. There were a lot of people in the market while we were there.

Earthymomma, your booth is looking nice!

Sales have been picking up a little.

I was hoping for a BIG Memorial Day weekend. Sales were on the soft side. What is funny is that sales for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week have been higher than sales over the weekend. I am thankful!

We are going to close out one spot at an AM on Friday, and I am thinking about closing out another booth at another AM next month. Sales are just too slow to justify the work, cost, etc.

I believe that the indoor flea markets are taking a serious bite out of the foot traffic at the area AM's.

OH! I forgot to add that my husband visited his brother over the weekend. The brother has a flea market booth where he sells building supplies and is doing VERY WELL. This is in a town south of Tulsa.