Anyone have a booth at an Antique Mall?

Tuesday Tip, if anyone cares:

Labels:

For the first several years that we were in the reselling business, we bought small packages of self-adhesive labels at W@lmart, Meijer and Target. For small quantities, those labels should work fine for you, and they are fairly inexpensive.

As our business grew, we needed more labels. I was spending a fortune in white labels in little plastic containers. On a whim, at an auction, I was able to score a good sized box of white labels on rolls, for a mere $5.

At first, I didn't think we would like the labels on a roll, but since then, I prefer the rolls over cut sheets.

The labels that I bought at the auction are called "Z-labels", made to run through a Zebra brand label printer. You can find them on ebay, and they can be cheap if you watch for them, especially from the sellers just wanting to dump surplus stock.

We like a 1" X 2" white label. I do not use removable labels. I want the labels to stick as much as they can, much to the dismay of many buyers. A label that is difficult to remove or is destroyed when peeled vastly reduces our chances of having thieves switch price tags. This limits our losses tremendously. I have found that the Z-labels brand sticks very well.

I just bought another batch of labels in June. I bought about 18,500 labels for less than $46, delivered to our door.

Hope this helps!!!!

Great tip Clovis. After my initial purchase of tie-on tags ran out, I've just been using cut up scrap paper and scotch tape. I guess those are easy to remove but I write a description on the tag so I don't think the "thieves" could do much with changing tags.

__________________
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring - Carl Sagan

Labels have been a topic in our home lately. Thankfully we haven't had any issues with people switching tags. I do use the little hanging tags. But I've been wanting to get some logo branded tags. I don't really fear of people switching tags because the girl that rings everyone up at our mall is VERY good about knowing the items and prices. She has a CRAZY memory. If she questions ANYTHING she calls me. Which is great. One day my husband wrote some tags (I usually do it), when he made a trip there and she called me thinking the customer had written their own tag. LOL So now, to stop confusion I'm the only tag writer.

I know as a consumer I HATED the sticky tags. Because they were hard to get off and at times have ruined some pieces I've gotten from the auction. So with my painted items I would HATE for it to mess up the finish on an item.

But I'm wondering where I could get tags with our logo? Maybe it would be cheaper to get a stamp made with our logo. I would still handwrite the price, description and item number. But it would be prettier with the logo stamped. I guess I'll do some searching today!

Danyell, there's a lady I follow on Instagram that makes custom stamps! I will tag you on her page :-)

YAY! Thank you! Is that what you use?

First day of my sale wasn't so hot, literally. The high was like 53 with periods of rain, mist, and cloudy all day. I only had $200.00 worth of sales today.
No rain forecast for tomorrow, so let's hope it's a better day!

Ever been to a garage sale where they used DUCT TAPE (yes, the gray stuff) for price tags? Bet they wondered why nothing sold.

If you ever need to remove sticky labels or tape from something, we've had success using a hair dryer. The trick is to let it warm up first, and then gently start removing the label.

My other favorite is Zippo lighter fluid. I use lighter fluid on items where the fluid won't bother the item, like a shovel or wrench. I'm telling ya, that stuff works wonders!

FWIW, I'll be sitting on a beach or next to a pool for the next week or so. Looking forward to coming back to read all of your replies to this thread!

Just be aware that the zebra labels are for a thermal printer. If you expose them to sufficient heat, they'll turn black. In Arizona, "sufficient heat" includes leaving them in a hot car, a storage building, or direct sunlight ... your mileage may vary, but it's something to keep in mind. LOL.

BTW, I use a thermal printer now for shipping labels. Bought a dymo 4xl (made by rubbermaid) direct from the dymo.com website. They're on sale right now and IMHO well worth the money. It's cheaper to operate than an ink jet printer (no ink costs at all!), it's lightning fast (I printed 40 shipping labels in under 2 minutes), and it's reliable as can be. And the labels are cheaper per label than ink jet labels.

I don't yet, but I do have plans to ordera custom one from her, for now I use a cute "reduce/reuse/recycle" stamp I got at hobby lobby and write my business name on the front with that, then all the pricing and regular tag info on the back!

Well this month has been horrible slow.... I don't think we've sold $30 worth in the past 12 days :-//. After not getting much new furniture done the last 2 weeks I have some new items to take in today. Hopefully those and some rearranging will drum up some sales for us

Well, our first yard sale was horrible! But it was our own fault, no real signage and I waited till Friday to post the Craigslist ad, so we ended up on the 2nd page. Also, DH decided to take stuff to put in the store that morning, so it left limited space for yard sale items in the truck. We had 3 tables of stuff...it was sad! So I took the $12 we made and decided to be happy with that since our preparation was terrible! We did, however, drum up some business for the store (which is closed on Sundays, when we were having the yard sale in the parking lot there), so DH got a repair job out of it, and I got some cards and flyers handed out. And instead of just sitting at the tables, we spent most of the time inside organizing the store, and getting a lot of things out on the shelves, so it was not wasted time. So, next time we will advertise ahead and put out some signs and more merchandise, and hopefully it will do better. DH pointed out that if we had gone to our regular flea market booth, we would have had to pay $18 for a table to make that $12!

Clovis, I hope you enjoy your beach/pool time, and come back restored as we all get ready for the holiday selling time!

Well I finished up my fall sale this afternoon. I only made $400.00 in 3 days, which sounds good but I usually have about a thousand in sales on a weekend.
The next town over rents out spaces in the parking lot of an antique market on Saturdays.
So there are MANY yard sales that set up over there. I'm sure that drew a lot of my business this time.
I have my spring sale during my city wide yard sale, so I get lots of traffic then.
I think in the fall I will have my sale at my house on Thur and Friday and take what's left and set up in the antique mall on Sat. It's only $20.00 to sell there.
You have to have customers to look at your things, so I'll go where there will be a bunch of them at once.
I have a couple pieces of nice furniture that didn't sell at my yard sale this time and I got online and posted them in FaceBook yard sale groups and sold them real quick.

I have a booth at a place that's not really an antique mall, since they allow things other than antiques (like crafts, homemade things, and newer items), but pretty much the same concept. It's not very high traffic of a store, but enough to be worth sticking around. I sell in it my hickory syrups, my former ebay and amazon inventory (since both banned me around the same time), and some homemade stuff like laundry and dish soaps.

Aw that's a cute idea. But at our mall we can't write on the back. Only can write on the front So I have to squeeze everything on there without it looking messy. LOL

That sounds great. I love making laundry soap. Been on the same homemade batch now for over 6 months and it cost right around $16 to make! Awesome!

It has been dead in here without Clovis. LOL

How was everyone's weekend?

Our booth has been doing quite well. Which is great. Our sells via FB have slowed down a bit. So I guess it balances out. LOL

We actually were told that our booth will be moving at the beginning of the year. They are moving to a busier location. But I'm not sure how an antique mall will do there. They are moving to an old Walmart so it's a big location. But to be honest, I'm kind of sad to be leaving such a historic location to an old Walmart. The charm will be completely gone. I think thats what makes our location so awesome is that it is in an old Cotton Mill and the floors are all original. It's so beautiful. But maybe we will be busier. We aren't sure if we are going yet because I know the rent will be a good bit more. We will find out the new prices on Nov. 1 and they are planning the move on Jan. 1. They want us to move with them, but it will be almost an hour away from us. Now they are only about 15-20 mins away. So we aren't sure. I guess we will just have to see what the new booth rent will be.

Anyway....how is everyone else doing?

That's awesome your booth sales have picked up Daneyell!! We had the worst beginning of the month to date this month, BUT we did a complete turn around in this last week! So very thankful. We even got a couple great pieces at the flea market yesterday and I was already able to refinish it yesterday evening.

Our mall is renovating a back portion of our huge building and is planning on making it an auction space. I am really excited! I would assume that would really help increase sales and increase knowledge of our location.

The baby is finally sleeping again (thank you Lord :-) ) so I am back in the swing of things! Have a custom order I'm working on currently, a mid century modern style secretary and then I'm going to tackle a few coffee tables.

That is awesome about the auction house. Ours has one as well. But the changed the dates they do them. And we have the kids every weekend they have the auctions now. LOL So that makes it difficult.

I have a few coffee tables I need to work on too. I've had them for a while. Just trying to think of how to do them. I always do cream. LOL I want to do something different.

Hello, everyone!

I've missed you all!

We had an awesome vacation, and we are already back at it.

Yesterday, I went to a restaurant equipment auction, hoping to pick up some smalls and unusual items. I was disappointed in the quality. It may have been a huge auction, but generally speaking, the stuff was heaving worn and dirty.

I love going to auctions. I really do. It was a thrill to walk into that auction and hear three outstanding auctioneers calling in three different rings. But as I mentioned, the stuff was too dirty for me, and prices were high. FWIW, I've done well at these auctions. I'm not a buyer of restaurant equipment, but sometimes the odds and ends are great for reselling.

I stayed about 15 minutes, and bailed. I went to one of my favorite places, a thrift.

I was able to pick up quite a few things, including an arm load of fabric, some fishing equipment, a reel mower, a Coleman camp stove, an arctic lined Carhartt coat, some sewing patterns, and some quilting magazines.

FWIW, one of my fun finds was a JC Penny gift card. I knew that when I found it, that it was probably worthless, but when I called the 1-800 number on the back, I found that it has $35 loaded on it. While I should make better money on some of the items I found for ebay, the gift card is the most fun of them all.

Our sales have been slow this month, which is disappointing, especially seeing them after we got home on vacation. It is kinda depressing!

Our ebay sales have been a blessing though...we've sold quite a few things that have been lingering for months. I am thankful!!!!

I wish that I knew how to turn the FM sales around. I have an urge to go on a buying spree. New merchandise always creates interest, especially if it is a good deal...but I need to watch our burn rate and cash flow.