Anyone have a booth at an Antique Mall?

We are in Columbus, and so far so good! Sales are increasing each month. I am happy with that! ImageUploadedByHomesteading Today1405702007.714871.jpg

Here's an updated photo of our booth

Shanns,

I hope that you have a good day, despite the forecast.

We are facing slow sales next week. The IFM that we sell at is located in the county seat, and next week, the county 4-H fair is being held.

We've been experiencing the most stunning weather ever. It is sunny, with warm days and cool evenings, with almost no humidity. The awesome weather is hurting us. Who wants to be inside walking around when it is so beautiful outside?

Hope you have 10 people with fat wallets visit your booth this weekend, and drop a ton 'o money with you!!!

Aww, thanks, Clovis! I hope your week is a bit better than you anticipate, as well!

I woke up this morning at 3 and it was not raining, and the radar looked clear till 8...at 4 it started thundering and pouring lol! Last night we hooked up the trailer and I packed "rain supplies" and packed all of our office supplies into tubs instead of bags, so we have done what we can. I must say, I am jealous of all yall's indoor booths right now, though lol!

Hmmm, I need to find a place to buy umbrellas cheap to resell!

There are three estate auctions today in my area.

I suspect that items will be sold cheap...but our booths are F-U-L-L.

One of the estates (actually a moving sale) is from a very active ebayer himself, so I suspect that the auction is full of stuff that is too big to ship. All of the pictures in the auction listing confirm that. At the same time, my guess is that there will be some killer bargains on some of those items, which might do well at the FM.

I probably won't attend any of the auctions, but it is killing me not to attend!!!

How did everyone do over the weekend?

How were your sales?

We had a good weekend. Nothing over the top, but I am thankful. This month started out unbelievably well, and has dropped off as the month has grown longer. I am thankful for a decent weekend.

How did everyone do over the weekend?

How were your sales?

We had a good weekend. Nothing over the top, but I am thankful. This month started out unbelievably well, and has dropped off as the month has grown longer. I am thankful for a decent weekend.

My Amazon store is in a bit of a slump; I've been averaging 8 to 10 items a week, and have sold 3 in the past 10 days. I do know that we're going to have a busy time coming up with back-to-school, so I pulled all my classics and other books that I know will be on assigned reading lists and put them on Amazon too.

And I discovered that two of them ("Into The Wild" and "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much") are in the Amazon Top 100! That was quite a surprise to me.

Not sure how we did over the weekend yet. But we haven't made enough yet to cover rent for August. Booooooooooo. But it is only our 2nd week. So I'm hoping that things will pick up. I have had 2 chair orders (chair redos for accent chairs) so that will help. And I set up our facebook page last night and that has stirred up quite a bit of interest. We posted pictures of our booth on a bunch of yardsale type pages in our area and we had lots of questions about particular items and prices and where our booth is located. So hopefully that will help with traffic and sales this week. I'm trying to remain positive. But I did see that the rival antique mall had wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy more cars then at our mall. So we have even tossed around the idea of possibly getting a booth there as well. Not sure yet.

Weekend sales at the flea market were abysmal. At least all the rain made it about 10 degrees cooler, though, and our friends renting 1 of our tables made our outlay for Saturday 1/2 as much. Now, our Amazon and Ebay sales were pretty good for the weekend, it has been a decent month online. We did have a friend (and previous business associate) stop by to tell us he is not liking retirement and wants to open a new store, and will have some work for us helping to set it up, and just may have some space for us in there. Also gave us a number to an out of state buyer who might be interested in buying ALL 9,000 of our dvds and games! We've been discussing new avenues anyways, so we would not be against that lol!

Keep your chin up, friend.

It can be tough to find your niche in the AM/FM business. If you need to move to another mall because you have a lack of traffic in your mall, then I would encourage you to study it well, and make the move if you think it is right for you.

I was hoping that you would report that you had a great weekend.

Do you set up every weekend?

I was talking to one of the antique shop employees a couple hours ago, and she said they've had some busy days this week. We have some big community events coming up this weekend too, so I told her that I would stop by tomorrow and top the booth out.

I hope the events help bring in more foot traffic!

We actually haven't had a bad week, so far. Monday and Tuesday were slow, but we had a pretty good day today. I am thankful!

Are you only dealing in books, and other types of media?

Mostly books, with some DVDs, LPs, and assorted other items.

Clovis, we try to set up every weekend, as long as family obligations or bad weather don't strike. We used to pay the whole month at once, but lost so much due to bad weather, we now go pay every Thursday for the following weekend after checking the forecast, or call to let them know we will be skipping it.

We keep a trailer packed with about 36 big rubbermaid tubs of items for the table, but with sales down, we are thinking (okay, I am, DH thinks I'm nuts lol) that it is time to switch the tubs out with the overflow in the storage unit, so tomorrow will be the big day! We usually have 750 dvds and 450 video games on our first table, then assorted "household" items and a lot of toys on our 2nd table, plus, when possible, we have video games systems and electronics on one of the tables. I do have lot of books in the storage unit I want to get out tomorrow and sell. The price had gotten down too low to be worth selling (4 for $1 on hardbacks!) but has now gone back up. DVDs go thru that as well, it's a continuous cycle, almost like the "1 penny less" game on Amazon lol!

Interesting...thank you for sharing!

We have had a good month, so far, but today, our sales were horrid! We only sold 3 items.

This is highly unusual for us. It makes me wonder if the computers were down, and our sales haven't been entered yet.

The weather is stunning here, with cool summer temps and low humidity. Maybe no one is wanting to walk an indoor market?

We actually had a really good week. Well I think so. LOL Probably not compared to you pros! But we sold a few "big" items. I sold a sofa table (well we did a trade. I wanted $100 for the table but she gave us $50 and a matching end table and coffee table that I can refinish and sell for around $150 that is solid wood. So I think I did well in that transaction). We have more chair orders (just paint & cover the seat in fabric). And we sold some other items. Our booth is getting thin. So we are working overtime this weekend to get pieces ready to go in!

We just set up our fb page and that has helped so much! That's where we did the deal on the sofa table.

And as far as the other AM we are def thinking about getting a 2nd booth. We have enough stuff to fill it and still have a garage full of things waiting to be refinished (my husband can't seem to stop "picking" lol).

So I feel better this week with our sales!

They are doing a big event at our AM today too. So I'm hoping that will bring in lots of foot traffic too! Wish I could have made it to ours last night to fill!

How was everyone's weekend?? Ours turned out to be a pretty good one! Found some awesome pieces at a yard sale for cheap cheap on Friday (some antique oars, dresser, chairs and mirror) and had pretty decent sales! I was getting a little worried there for a while with a mid month slump. We officially surpassed last months profit (by $10 lol) and still have a week left before payout. We aren't making much yet but as long as each months sales get better and better I am extremely happy with that :-). Hope everyone else had a good weekend as well!

Feel free to share your Facebook page and I'll show it some love :-)