Anyone have a booth at an Antique Mall?

Awwww thank you.

It's www.facebook.com/LDesignsDecor

Our weekend went really well. We finished a few pieces for our booth. And had some good sales.

I just got an email from a lady who wants us to strip an old church pew she has and stain it for her. So we will go price that out on Wednesday. And I had another lady inquire about an antique high chair she has that she wants to get a facelift So we will start that soon.

So far I'm really excited. Business is starting to pick up for us Hopefully it continues!

And earthymomma, I'm with you. As long as sales get better and better I won't complain

Very cool!

Have you done much of this type of work for clients in the past? Does she know how much time it will take?

The pew? or the highchair?

The highchair will be no problem. The pew on the otherhand will be quite a task. I already told her that once I see it if I didn't feel comfortable doing it (time consuming) then I would have to pass. And if I think it would just be too labor intensive then I would pass because the cost would just be ridiculous. She is fine with that. And she said she's willing to pay whatever it takes. So we shall see. I'll go see it at some point this week when we can get our schedules together.

Cool.

Sometimes customers have no idea how much time and expense is put forth on a project, and have unrealistic expectations, especially with the cost. I've met more that a few who think that a 12 foot pew can be completely refinished in a single day, and expect it to be done for $75.

I am happy that you are doing well!!!! Go get 'em!!!

For those in the resell business, here is a great tip:

If you ever pick up an old wood item that retains it's original stained finish, but is dirty, they can be easy to clean.

I use 0000 steel wool, and hand cleaner, like Goop or Go-Jo. Make sure you buy the hand cleaner without pumice. This hand cleaner is what mechanics use to clean oil off of their hands.

Just dip your 0000 steel wool into the Goop, and gently rub the wood surface. It will remove years of grime, dirt, dust, smoke, grease, etc. You will be amazed at the difference and how well it will clean the surface without damaging it.

I've met a lot of folks who think that they need to completely strip and refinish a wood piece, but in reality, all they need is some Goop and steel wool. It is kind of like someone wanting to completely strip and repaint an old car, when all it needs is a wash and wax.

Cost is about $2.50 for the Goop, and $3 for steel wool.

Remember that you want fine steel wool, 0000 is preferable, and hand cleaner without pumice.

I would say that the Goop and SW is probably the most valuable tools I have, and use it not only on wood furniture, but all types of items. The guys at the auto parts store chide me because I buy so much Goop! I use 6 small tubs a year, at least.

Thanks for the advice/idea Clovis! Some of the last pieces I've picked up are covered in this awful brown paint/stain... Literally globbed on (from different places to boot) but I will def keep that in mind for some of my other pieces!

The SW and Goop won't remove coats of paint, but it will often remove paint splatter.

I bought a table a few years ago, and it appeared that someone had used it as a paint set up station. It was covered in paint mist from a spray gun and splatter from a paint roller. Several people said that "you are going to have to completely strip that table top."

An hours worth of 'elbow Goop' and some SW, that table top looked great!

Thanks for the tip Clovis!

Well, this past weekend was atrocious for us again. Lots of other vendor friends stopped by to say it was horrible for them also, so at least we know it's not just us! So we will only go Saturday this weekend, and save the $36 we would spend on Sunday's rent, we can't keep paying them to sit out there and just barely make the money back! The heat index was over 100 degrees all weekend, and loading and loading in that is rough, but doable if you're making a couple hundred bucks each day....not bearable for $50! And this weekend is tax free school supply weekend, so we will not be selling any of those! Even though they never pay tax with us (we have to pay it quarterly on our total sales), they expect some kind of discount this weekend.
To counteract the local sales drop, I spent 8-10 hours each of the last 2 days listing things online that we had been taking there. They're low $ items, but enough to make a small profit there vs just sitting and making nothing at the flea market. Getting your money back out of something, with just a tiny profit is better than sitting on the item getting no money!

As a little background, our area has always been low income compared to the rest of FL, and our county's unemployment rate has gone up each of the last 2 months, as well as being declared a disaster zone twice in the last 6 months due to weather events, so we are assuming that a lot of people just don't have any money right now, and hope this will change by the end of the year holiday sales time. We all heard a lot of people say they liked an item but "only have $2 till payday" or $3, etc.

Shannsmom,

Sorry about the poor sales. I really am.

Do you have any good indoor FM's in your area, especially those run like an antique mall?

There is a vendor at our IFM that rented 5-6 locked cases @ $45 each per month. They have filled those with seemingly every DVD and video game under the sun.

Their prices aren't cheap, but they aren't out of reason, either. DS games were marked $7 to $10 each, and I think DVD movies are $3 to $5 each. The cases are well organized, and so full that they make you want to look, and I don't buy that kind of stuff, LOL.

The sales clerks tell me that "those people sell a ton of stuff."

I'd love to see you be able to add $1,000 a month to your bottom line.

Is there anything within a 100 mile radius of your place that might do well for you? I am always surprised how many 'long distance' vendors there are. There is one vendor selling the cheapest Chinese made junk you've ever seen, and they drive to our FM from Chicago, which is a 6 hour trip. I'm sure that they are restocking up to 20 other FM's when they come.

If you have the merchandise, it may be important to get it to the right marketplace where you can sell it with higher margins.

I stopped by my biggest booth today, and could tell I sold several items. I didn't add anything because I found a nice set of shelves by a Dumpster a few days ago and am going to move it in next week, when I can get a friend's van and the friend too to help me. That was nice to see.

Clovis, weirdly, there are not many indoor flea markets around here, I would think they would be popular with the heat, but nobody seems interested in operating one. Part of the one we sell at is indoors, but people mostly go sit in the AC to cool off, not shop. That is where the barbers and such are, though. DH is always spotting empty buildings and saying someone needs to put a flea market in there lol! We have checked the markets to the east and west of us, one is busy but has a dozen booths full of the same merchandise as us, and the other has no traffic. We cannot venture more than 2 hours away because we have an elderly dog I hate leaving home alone for too long.

But it seems all the crazy online listing is paying off...we made $400 yesterday alone! Of course, it is the first of the month now, so that helps. We also had our best movie supplier call us to pick up a load, so that meant I had to check over 600 movies online by today, so with that and the listing and mailing, we are pooped this week lol! But this supplier often has $20-50 movies (when sold online)in the boxes, so we jump every time they call. A game supplier also called offering us games for 25 cents each, but since we are unloading ours online, we weren't interested. Last weekend several of our regular customers came by trying to sell us back things they had bought, and several of our friends/competitors reported the same thing. So we chose carefully what to buy, whereas last year we bought all cheap deals, and it has been a productive and profitable week. DH would prefer to sell only online, but there are always things we need to move locally, also. So we keep working, thinking, testing to see which direction we will go in.

I am happy that you are selling stuff on line! Is it mostly ebay?

I've found that in order to make ends meet, we need both the ebay sales and the FM/AM. Back when the economy was strong, I think that we could have made it with only one, and not the other. Our original plan was to use ebay as a place to sell higher end and odd stuff, and mostly focus on the FM/AM.

Our sales, for the last part of July, and the first week of August, have been slow.

This week, the county fair is going on, and next week, the kids return to school. Typically, August is one of our slowest months of the year, but last year, we had a very good August.

On a very positive note, I sold a radial arm saw yesterday. I picked it up at an auction for cheap, and was thankful to flip it fast. There is so much more profit in large items, but that saw was taking up some serious real estate in my booth. I have to admit, I was afraid that the saw would take eons to sell. I have a incredibly nice table saw for not much more money, and thought it would sell immediately. Go figure!

It seems that any time that I think that an item will sell fast, it sits and sits, and then sits some more, but the junk that I think won't ever sell, is gone in the very first day, LOL.

I did pick up some great stuff this week, including a huge stack of vinyl records. I've been flipping records for years, but have had a hard time finding good vinyl from the 70's and 80's. This past 'pick' was excellent; the entire stack was 70's and 80's, and some of the cleanest and nicest vinyl I have ever had. We played many of them while we marked the records, and I am stunned by how nice they are!

Just to reiterate my earlier point: My wife was restocking one of the booths, and a guy walked up and was looking at the albums. His purchase? A sole Bruce Hornsby album. I would have sworn that album would have still been sitting there 3 years from now, and even envisioned having to trash the record, and recycle the cover, lol. Other than a Manhattan Transfer album, I would have picked the Hornsby album "as the one least likely to sell."

At any rate, old vinyl can be a great seller. Old country and rock are the best sellers. Don't have high hopes if you have Liberace, Gospel, elevator music, Connie Francis sings the Sound of Music, etc. The vinyl needs to be clean, and watch for mildew and mold on albums, which can generally be smelled a mile away.

Hope this helps, and as always, YMMV.

It was actually a fairly balanced mix of amazon, ebay and a couple of small sales on half.com. Back just a year ago, we could live off of online sales or local sales, so used he excess to buy a lot of inventory. This year it is taking both venues, and a lot more effort. I am happy we have multiple venues, though! Today's sales at the flea market were about double the past few weekends, but still at 1/2 of what they should have been. And more regular vendors were missing in action, that was a little unsettling, but it gave us the opportunity to snag a few great deals for flipping.

We also sold some big items last Sunday and today, big as in space consuming, not price, but I was happy to get the space back!

Glad to hear that you had a better day, Shannsmom.

We had an okay day. We sold the table saw, which was big enough to land a US Navy carrier jet on. I am thankful it sold. Someone got a killer saw for a cheap price. The downside is that while it is no longer filling up one of my booths, there is a 98% chance that someone left it a mess in the booth when they hauled it out of there.

We are 28 miles from the FM, and I really don't have a ton of stuff to take right now, so the booth will probably stay a mess until I return.

We've already sold some of the records we took this week. I love fast flips!!!!

Fast flips are the best lol! We bought some good (new) blu rays and dvds yesterday morning, listed them when we got home and 3 sold before the night was out, I was happy!

Vinyls were the rage here for a long time, seem to have died off now, but we had lucked into some 60-70s era vinyls and those sold well. It was funny to see the variety of people wanting them, young hipsters to grizzled old timers

Glad to hear the positives from everyone!! We had our best week to date!! And a couple fast flips to boot! Looking forward to payout on Tuesday lol!

I still seem to be going through oil lamps like crazy, and Clovis I finally found some galvanized buckets at the flea market yesterday and sticking them in the booth today. Hopefully they will be a good seller for us too!

Good for you!!!!

Isn't it funny about the vinyl buyers? They are either hipsters or gray hairs, LOL.

We sold two vinyls yesterday for $7. I like the fast flip on those records, as much as I like the profit. I am guessing I have .25 to .35 cents each in those. I am hoping some of our vinyl buyers see the outstanding quality those records are, and I hope that we have the stuff they like.