I have a ton of family south of Tulsa! :-) and that's awesome someone is doing well!

The mall nearest my house where I have a booth called me yesterday and told me that an opening had come up, and it was mine if I wanted it. Not only is it in the same section of the building, which is air conditioned (the main area isn't), it's RIGHT NEXT TO my current booth, so moving everything will be easy. It will also cost a little more than twice as much as my current space, BUT I can also stock about 5 or so times as much. :buds:

I met one of the people who ran that booth; the other one had a health emergency and needed to pull out ASAP, so I may be able to start moving my things over as early as this weekend. I will need to paint (the cubicle's wall is currently turquoise; I bought some eggshell paint at the ReStore) and hang curtains to cover up an unused door, but otherwise, I'm good to go.

:thumb:

Like I said, I gave notice at one booth that has been a money and time pit, and I'm going to do the same at the one that's 40 miles away. It won't be easy, because I really like the people who work there, but I can still drive up there occasionally and pay them a visit.

AC will be nice!

Sales have picked up a little, but we aren't setting any records. I'd love to sell another $300 before the month ends, but that would take a miracle. Right now, I'd settle for a strong Saturday.

The booths are full, with some of them busting at the seams. One booth is a little short on stock, but by no means bare.

I've talked to several people that own businesses in the area, as well as many other businesses. EVERYONE says that sales are slow.

Hoping for a strong Saturday. I have more than enough stuff to sell to have a $300 day. Time will tell though.

If ya' all don't mind me spouting off with more of my blog type posts:

Attractive booths get attention, and look great to the general shopper, but I do have a word of caution, if you don't mind.

Sometimes, IMO, a decorated and staged booth can be a detriment if you are not careful. I think there is a fine line between having an attractive, cute and staged booth and having one too attractive, cute and staged.

If a booth is too cute and too perfect, the average shopper will walk by, glance at the booth, and walk by, without looking at anything. I believe that the shopper looks at it as a dainty place, and if they pick up anything and buys the item, they are in effect, messing the place up. Who wants to be the blame for messing up a perfect place????

For instance, there is a new booth directly across from our 'main' booth. It is beautiful in it's display, and not one item is left undone. I'm not talking about a clean, well staged booth, but one where every last item has a perfect place. She has a table, set with linens, napkins, doilies, chargers, plates, napkin rings, cups and saucers, and a centerpiece in the middle of the table. When I say that the booth is perfect, I am not kidding. It looks like the place you would want to bring the First Lady to have tea and crumpets if she came to town, and wanted to meet with you about promoting literacy for children.

The vendor does have nice, clean, high quality items, and overall, her prices are reasonable. Not bargain prices, but fair enough for the quality of items she has.

Now here is the funny part: My wife was working our booth last week, and was hidden from this vendor's view. The vendor was showing off her booth to a girlfriend, and said, "it is going to take a while for people to learn that I'm here. The problem is the FM. I've only sold $22 this month." Then, as she pointed at our booth, she added "and I can't wait until we get some other people with nice booths to make this place better", and said it in a condescending tone.

Well, she's been there three months, and I'll venture to guess that she'll be gone in less than two more months, but it wouldn't surprise me if she moved out this Saturday.

The problem is that her booth is too well decorated, and too perfect. IMO, a vendor needs to display pretty and interesting things in such a way to get the shopper's attention, and cause them to come look at the item, but not to overdo it with decorating. One extreme is to have a booth be a dumping ground for junk, and the other extreme is to decorate or stage a booth too perfectly. There is a middle ground somewhere where the item is appealing, attractive, and easily reached by the customer.

Customers want to dream a little with the items that they buy, and when you think about it, aren't most items that we buy promoting an image or dream that we have in mind?

When you set a table with a black floral cloth, with matching cloth napkins, plum napkin rings, and the perfect color of chargers, in a way, at least the way I see it, you are taking the 'dream' away from the customer. I know that this idea sounds insane, but there probably is some truth to this. In the customer's mind, they see that the perfect napkins can only be used with that table cloth, but if they had been neatly arranged elsewhere in the booth, the customer can imagine that those same napkins might match the purple table cloth she has at home, and another customer can imagine using them as fabric, and sewing them into pillow cases.

Another mistake this vendor has made, IMO, is that she hasn't moved the first thing around since she has been in the mall. Moving items in a booth is critical, and promotes sales of items.

I would also like to point out that I believe that this vendor made another blunder: In her mind, she wants the mall to be something that it isn't, and it is reflected in her attitude and tone of voice. Can a vendor bring something new to a mall, and create a market for themselves by showing the customer something different? Sure they can! Thousands of people do this every day, across the world. But, if you have the arrogant mindset of "I'm going to change the face and mindset of this mall because my tastes, decorating ability, and selection of merchandise is so superior", you probably have a whole new lesson to learn about selling in a mall environment.

Attractive, interesting, cute, fun, well organized, but not too perfect, is the key, IMO.

Of course, as is with everything I post, YMMV.

It's true.
As a consumer if a booth looks "too nice" I won't want to enter and walk around.
What if I bump something?
It screams delicate, do not touch!

I would think if you had an odd piece of something it's okay to display it in a more suggestive setting, but I agree, don't over do and take the imagination of the customer away.
.... and don't over suggest ....
Meaning, don't make me feel like I have to buy the WHOLE table setting

Sure, set your antique tea and coffee makers with the cream and sugar dish on the buffet, but don't make it look too fancy where I'm going to feel guilty if I buy just one piece

When something is over staged it also makes you think it is too expensive.
When I do craft shows there are many times I have to tell people it's on to pick up the soap & other products to sniff them. People who are considerate really don't want to misplace items or mess up your pretty display.

I think an eclectic look is always something to aim for. If shoppers wanted something that Cordinatir they would go to Dillard's.

Thank you for the additional comments on my post. I realize now that I could have said everything that I needed to say in about six sentences. LOL.

Something fun:

My daughter loves earning money, and sometimes she will offer things for sale in our booths.

In the past week, I spied that one of our neighbors were having the windows replaced in their stunning 1920's late Arts & Crafts home. It is a shame, IMO, that they ripped one of the most beautiful architectural features out of this home.

The old sashes were stacked in their driveway. I told my daughter to go ask what they were going to do with the sashes, and they not only gave them to her, but loaded the sashes and drove them to our house!!!

I haven't had any decent sashes for resale in years. There was a time that I could get 'moon money' for any multi-light sash with good glass, but couldn't give away a large single light sash. In fact, I once sold three single light sashes for $2 each, and was thankful that someone bought them.

I think that she can mark the single light sashes at $10 to $15 each, and the ultra cool multi-light sashes at $25+. I am tempted to mark the very cool nine light sashes at $45 each.

I very much want to teach my daughter how the real business world works, so I might charge her $10 for gasoline, since the truck is full of sashes, and I will have to make a 50 mile round trip so she can take them to the FM. I don't want or need the $10, but I want her to know that expenditures can eat into your profit, and in the real world, those sashes aren't going to get there for free. This is about getting her to think about business, and that you have to spend a little money to make big money.

For fun, I offered to buy all the sashes on the truck for $100 in cash, but I would be selling them and keeping all the profit for myself. It was cool to see the wheels turn in her mind, and she declined after thinking about it for a few minutes. I upped the ante to $150, but she has decided to keep them and sell them herself.

I love working with my little one on things like this. It gave me yet another opportunity to talk with her about always being 110% honest in her business dealings, no matter what.

In total, if she sells the sashes at $10 and $25, she will make about $470.

I think that's pretty cool!
Teach her to bargain young.

My dad will negotiate prices, but we were hardly around when he did.
My mom was never a negotiator.
My sister and I just don't understand how it works, or rather, we are scared to put it into action.

If your daughter can say no to you and practice with you I think that's great

I was going to pull my booth that's 40 miles away, and when I called to inform them of this, they told me that there's a small booth - really a closet - for $25 a month that will be available next month. I'll just move some stuff there, and the rest of it into my expanded booth. I'm OK with that.

We closed up one case that we had rented at an antique mall. I did so, with regrets, but we can't justify the time and expense when you consider the poor sales.

This mall is near the heart of a downtown, and only has street parking. For years, there was free parking everywhere. A few months ago, the tax-and-spend politicians decided to install parking meters, at a rate of $1 an hour.

I noticed that our sales dropped off significantly when the meters were installed. I believe that many mall shoppers are the type that swing in when they have 20 minutes to spare. If you have to drop a $1 into a meter, just to kill part of your lunch hour, you probably won't even stop.

Well as of Saturday we had officially paid booth rent for the month! With only having had stuff in our booth for less than 10 days of the month I was just hoping to clear rent and we did! We may even end up with a small check :-)! Feeling very blessed! This upcoming weekend is the malls actual grand opening ( they just opened April 1). There has been a ton of advertising for this event along with a parking lot flea market that's going to happen. Hoping to get a ton of projects done this week (I do a lot of upcycled, repurposed and refinished items) and that this weekend will be immensely successful!

Clovis, it is such a good thing to teach your DD about expenses and operating costs at a young age! She is going to be so far ahead of other people lol! The grandson of the owner of the flea market we rent booths at hangs out at our booth a lot and even though he is 18, he has no concept of this. He'll ask how sales are and if we say "eh, just okay", he'll say "well, did you at least make booth?" and if we did, he thinks that's great. We've tried to explain to him that that just made $36 for his family, we're still sitting at $0 and we can do that at home on the couch! He has no concept that you have to pay for things in the beginning to be able to make money. He is a great, polite kid, though, and we've tried to help him see how to make money, we used to give him a list of things we would buy from him if he found them in his 12 hours of wandering the flea market each Saturday, and tried to explain that he needed to add in a profit margin for himself and consider what his time was worth for finding the items....it never sunk in, though. He's in the perfect position to make a fortune flipping things but just doesn't want to put the work into it. Sadly, he just finished 12th grade a few days ago but did not get a diploma, he has to go to adult high for 2 classes, and has decided to put it off till the fall. He has brought some of his friends to hang out at our booth as well, and none seem to be motivated or have enough understanding of things to get ahead. Now, our 12 year old DD, is just like yours lol! She is quite good at finding things to resell, can haggle down the item to a price she's happy with and also get most things she wants for herself at a great price. I wish I were half as good a shopper when I was even in my 20's! But she also takes into account the cost of doing business, and even sets herself a little budget to buy things to flip when she wants to save up some money for herself. She even offers to pay part of the booth rent if she is going to put things on the table, and if she wants to get rid of toys or clothes or such, but doesn't want to put the work into getting them ready, she says up front that she only wants half the selling price since I am doing the work. I know I'm her Momma and a bit biased, but I think she is going to go far in life!

My $27 a month booth is bigger than I thought! It doesn't have much square footage, but it's shaped in such a way that I won't have to move a lot of things out. I don't have to move it all until the 15th, so next week, I'm going to take care of things.

I cleared out the smaller booth at the new place and moved it to the new spot right next door. It's a work in progress, that's for sure!

And not only did I not make rent at 2 of my places, my sales were only about 1/3 of the rent. Good thing I have my Amazon store to make up for it.

How is everyone's sales?

We've had a mixed month, so far. Several slow days, but have been blessed by good sales in the past few days. It is wonderful to have two weekdays that are as good as any weekend day's sales.

We've got a long month ahead of us...let's hope that the rest of the month is okay!!!

We sold $11.50 worth in May. Nothing so far in June. I posted new pictures on my facebook page.

Congrats Clovis on some good recent sales!

Stinks, doesn't it?

I got my downsized booth taken care of, and my upsized booth too. I'm selling things out of the bigger booth, too - and I'm VERY happy about that, because that booth rents for $136 a month. It's an exhausting process, and one I'll be going through to a smaller degree at the end of the month when I pull my 4th booth that isn't doing so well.

Sold 2 items on Amazon today, too! :hobbyhors

This past week has actually gone really well! I think things are continually picking up, seems the grand opening did it's job :-). We sold 2 larger items and a handful of small items, only about $20 shy of our rent being covered for the month already (our months start on the 5th)

Good job, earthy!

Last weekend was decent for us, and yesterday was pretty good! most of our friends at the flea market said they had pretty good days, as well. I think what's helping us is that school has been out 2 weeks here, and the kids are driving people nuts lol! We (and our friends) sold every video game system we had, and someone even tried to buy the one we had taken in for repairs! Now, the heat is causing people to be a bit rude and difficult to deal with, but that's the price for making money sometimes, isn't it? We have only been able to set up on Saturdays so far this month due to family obligations, but the rest of the month will be able to work Saturday and Sundays, so we can get back on track. Funds have been perilously low lately (due to sales being so low), but we did get a chance to make 2 great bulk buys, and they have paid off well in just the last week...that makes you kinda refocus and get back on the ball. Plus getting past all the birthdays and events of the last 2 months makes me feel more refocused.

We've had a small surge in Amazon sales, as well, which is nice, as it had been slower than normal for the last month. Traditionally, for us, summer is slow slow slow for local sales, and Amazon saves us, but it did not look like it would lately, so I am glad to see the uptick.

On a side note, a couple we have become dear friends with gave us their booth permanently (it is attached to ours), since they now only come once a month, and moved one booth over so they can just rent it when they feel like it. The market owners continue to be discourteous to vendors, so our friends are talking of selling all their inventory and quitting. A lot of regular vendors have quit or lowered the number of booths they rent. About 1/3 of the indoor vendors have quit. The lack of vendors is great for those of us sticking around (less competition= more sales), but the attitude from the owners stinks. As they get fewer and fewer vendors, they get more frustrated and share that with everyone.

We are continuing to have mixed days of sales.

Yesterday, a gang buster day. Today, a Sunday, which happens to be Father's day, our sales were just horrid. Horrid, as in "it has been sleeting for two days, and a major ice storm is coming, followed by up to 8 inches of snow" type of horrid.

Generally speaking, Father's day can be pretty good for sales...but not this year.

Go figure.

A crazy week:

Sales for the past Sunday were awful. Typically, weekend sales are terrific, and traditionally speaking, Tuesdays are just really, really, really slow days.

This week? This Tuesday was a good day for sales. Not enough to make up for the awful sales we had on Sunday, but surprisingly good.

Go figure!

Clovis, you're right, it's a crazy month! Yesterday we did well, a little above our goal. Which was a good thing because today, awful! It took from 7 till noon to make $45! If you take into account that we had to pay $36 for the booths, we made $9. But, if you take into account what we paid for what we sold (yes, we sold so few things that I could actually keep track of it!), we lost $2! Other vendors said the same thing, so we left early! No point in sitting in 102 degree heat for nothing! Also lots of empty tables. You used to have to fight for tables on our row, today we had 5 empty booths to 1 side of us and 4 to the other for 1/2 the day. And the annoying thing....the people who did bother to stop at the tables were offering 1/2 or less of what everyone was asking, no matter how low or reasonable the price was! Haggling over 50 cent items that were new in the package....really!?!?

Sorry to hear that, shannsmom.

I've had more than my fair share of silly offers, and I don't typically man the booth since we are in an indoor flea market, set up like any antique mall.

$3 for a shovel that retails at Lowes for $30? $2 for a $28 sledge hammer? I don't mind cutting a deal, or listening to reasonable offers, but I don't jack with the extreme low ball people. Generally speaking, I smile politely and say "thank you, but I need to stay at $__ on this item."

BTW, we had an okay weekend. Not great, but I can live with it.

Also, my DD sold a window for $15. She is thrilled!!

Earthymomma,

How are your sales??? You mentioned that your opening weekend was great. I hope your sales have continued to be good!!!

Thanks for checking in Clovis, I've officially surpassed rent and still have 2 weeks left before payout. So we will at least get a check this month. I am very thankful. Things seem to be steadily picking up. I finished several larger projects and dropped them off on Saturday morning as well (a metal buffet, refinished bar stools and a full length mirror) so that should help as well :-)

I am on cloud nine!!!!

We had an absolutely fantastic day today!!!! What a blessing!!!!

It is odd to have a great day of sales on a Monday. I'm not sure we've ever had such a great Monday.

My daughter picked up four more sashes from across the street. While it is hard to see this stunning example of a late Arts & Crafts home be denuded of it's beautiful windows, I'm glad that she was able to pick up a few more cool sashes.

Flea markets and garage sales are NOT the same thing.

My 4th booth, the one that wasn't doing well, was paid up until Monday, but I got an urge to pull it this morning, so I drove out there and did it.

I'm definitely starting to see the odd trend as well! Lol I brought in a ton if stuff over the weekend and had very little sales... But tomorrow was an incredible day! Go figure on a Thursday lol

Clovis, that's exactly the kind of offers we are seeing, $3 for a $30 shovel! I am a people watcher, so am always watching and listening to other booths, and I am surprised how many people don't make much more than they pay for their booth. I mean, it's hard to sit at an outdoor flea market in the Fla summer! Yesterday was not great, but at least we cleared $100 for the day. The only people who seem to be making good money are the vegetable sellers, food sellers and puppy sellers. I did manage to flip some coupon purchases, I had gotten barbeque sauce really cheap and sold them for triple what I paid...and sold out :)

I do feel fortunate that we have online sales to fall back on, so many other vendors don't do that for whatever reason. So we have pulled all of our PS3 and Xbox 360 games from the flea market where they can't sell for $3 and put them online, where they sell easily. And of course, now people ask where they are....ummm, you should have bought some at ANY time during the last year and we would bother hauling them back out for you, but you didn't, so we will sell them where they will actually be bought.

Summer is normally slow locally for us, so we're not 100% surprised, but bucking that trend would be nice lol!

I'm glad to see some of ya'll are having good days, it is a nice reward for all the work everyone does!

ETA: A friend of ours got so tired of the lowball offers, he made a sign that said "All reasonable offers will be considered, unreasonable offers will be treated as the joke they must be and laughed at accordingly"!

Shannsmom,

Sitting in the heat in an Indiana summer is too much for me...I can't imagine the Florida heat and humidity!

That sign about offers is too funny!

One thing that I like about our indoor flea market is that once you price something, the price stands. The cashiers cannot make any deals, reduce prices, etc. Of course, this is a double edged sword. Many people like to negotiate, or make deals on stuff. Since we aren't there to negotiate on prices, it turns into a "take it or leave it" scenario. I'm sure that we've lost tons of sales over the years because someone was willing to pay $8 for something, but not $10.

Oh, BTW, great job on the BBQ sauce!

Clovis, we are all about comfort lol! We take tarps to try to stop even the smallest ray of sun from hitting us, and have at least 3 fans. We are currently playing with the idea of fans blowing out on the customers...maybe if they linger over our 750 dvd display, they will see something they have to have? Or, it might make non buyers block the table up from peole who might buy?

I had wondered about the ability to negotiate at antique malls. We have only shopped at one, and it was going out of business, so the prices were 50% of the things that were left, quite reasonable! It was funny, we were buying an eclectic assortment of things to resell, and the mall owner was trying to talk us into buying the mall! We weren't planning on spending quite that much that day!

At our antique markets I know you can take the item up front and ask they call the dealer or sometimes the dealer has given the desk permission to knock 10% off if asked

Here some will call the owner and ask others won't.

I prefer the ones who call myself though that group is father away, they are monstrously huge and way more fun to go digging in!

The one downtown though is very nice, just wish it didn't have so much new stuff and more old stuff, kwim?

That's how ours works or you can request they call for any items above a certain dollar amount :-)

As a general rule, the antique malls will call if they feel as if the buyer's offer is reasonable.

Typically, the FM will not call, but they do make exceptions, especially if the offer is reasonable, and the vendor is open to being called. I am surprised to learn that many vendors don't want to be bothered by a phone call, and have insisted that the FM never call them. FWIW, the FM will not call unless the price is $50 or $100.

I really, really like one of the AMs here. They are great about filtering out silly offers, and seem to negotiate for the better, on our behalf. One day, I had a glass top cigar display box marked $135. The buyer offered $85, which I accepted when they called, but negotiated $95 with the buyer after we hung up.

For those wanting to get into the indoor flea market business and antique mall selling, it important to remember to:

1. Build relationships with the management, when applicable.
2. Never lose your cool with those who work there.
3. Have respect for those employed at the IFM or AM

One huge mistake that I often see vendors make is loosing their temper or being outright disrespectful when dealing with mall owners, managers or employees.

I've seen mall management ask vendors to move out, or end the rental contract immediately. Once, I witnessed an outraged vendor really "let them have it", and the minute that he left, they ended his rental contract, and moved every last item that he had in a booth into a back room. The manager instructed the cashiers not to ring any more items for that vendor, on the chance that an item or two still might be lingering somewhere in the mall.

I've never understood why some vendors act like they own a mall, and I've never understood why so many vendors believe that they have to yell and make a big scene to get their point across.

Being kind, polite and respectful, all of the time, will pay off in spades. When there is a problem, those who work there will be on your side, and they will tend to work in your favor.