Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Slow Times During the Year

You may be feeling a bit down in the dumps about your booth sales these last couple of months.   Don't worry.   Things should pick up for you.  This is a typically slow time of year.

Booth vendors would do well to keep the ebb of flow of the year in mind.

During the slow furniture months, you may not sell many large items, but smaller items will get you through.  It's a good idea to plan for that.  If you are very willing to have occasional months when you don't even make your rent, then it's fine to specialize in only large pieces.  It's possible that the sales of your other months will compensate for the off times.


If your booth business is more of a month to month thing and when you don't make a profit, you have little in reserve for finding deals, then you need a back up plan.

The thing is, even though April and May may not be great for sales, they are fantastic months for yard sales. If you don't take advantage of the peak yard sale months (Spring and Fall), you'll be scrambling at other parts of the year to keep your booth full.  And you'll pay higher prices during the off months, too.  You need to save up for the months when there are plenty of good deals.

Even though your big furniture sales may slow down, it's not an entirely dead time of year.  Smaller things do OK.  The things that sell are mostly items that people don't have to think too hard about.  Impulse purchases. 

You've probably made plenty of purchases like this yourself...   You see a cute little table.  It's around $50, give or take.  You think it'll work well in one spot.  If it doesn't, you have a feeling you could use it somewhere else.  If you change your mind about it down the road, you could get rid of it without too much regret.  You make a snap decision to get it.   Those snap decision purchases will sell!


During the slower times,
it's great to have plenty 
of nice things in your booth
that sell for $75 or less.  


Meanwhile, try to resist the urge to slash prices on your large furniture.  Better times are coming!  It's wise to keep the big picture in mind.