Once again, I've sprinkled in some fun spring display inspiration photos to get you in the mood for a big spring booth transition!
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REARRANGE
Your booth is fairly cleaned out. This is a good time to see if you can give your booth a whole new look by moving some of the large things around. When you bring in a bedroom chest and put it in your booth, it doesn't need to stay in the exact same place until it sells. If it hasn't sold within a month, you might move it to a different part of your booth. Let it be viewed from a different angle with a different set of accessories. For whatever reason, sometimes just moving things around will bring on a wave of sales. Anytime you transition your booth, it's a great opportunity to shake things up!
WHY is this step after SORTING?
Since you are transitioning for spring, as you rearrange, you need to know which pieces will be best to use in your key display areas. If you have a black desk and white dresser in your booth, you may assume the lighter colored white dresser would be better than a dark desk in a key spot. However, after sorting through what you have, you may notice a grouping with desk items in black, white, and yellow that is starting to look pretty nice. Then, you may spot a few other yellow items to add and before you know it, that vignette may say SPRING better than any of your other groupings. It's hard to know what you'll be able to create til you have grouped and sorted. And just like you put your best foot forward, you make sure your best displays are in the most visible areas in your booth. See this post on The MONEY WALL for more about this.
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PUT THINGS IN PLACE
Having items in groups will make this easy. If you have a desk in your booth and you have a pile for desk items, then that's an easy match. Other placements won't be quite as easy. Luckily, your booth is not a house. You don't have to decorate a booth in a way that is entirely logical. Everything on a desk does NOT have to be desk related. You'll be stacking a bit. You might end up putting a chair or stool on top of the desk. That certainly isn't like anything someone would do in their home. :-D
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| Vintage Bunnies Collection Source |
Edit as you go. If you found 15 items that would look good on a desk, you probably don't want to use them all. You will likely make more money selling the desk that all the small items on it. Put just enough accessories on the desk to make THE DESK look great. Leave enough empty space on and around the desk so that the desk can still be seen and each item on it will look good.
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| Never pass by a rickety bike with good vintage lines. Simply spray paint it, add a basket and market it as a garden bike! Source |
This is a good time to mention a pet peeve of mine - clutter in booths trying to sell furniture. I often see booths with their furniture covered and pretty much hidden by an overwhelming pile of smalls. If a table is covered, then it should be no surprise to the vendor that the table takes a long time to sell.
I'll illustrate this using myself as a customer. I go into a store looking specifically for tables. I see a table in a cluttered booth. It looks interesting, but I have doubts. Is the table top marred? Is it wobbly or rickety? Is it warped? Does it look pretty under all that stuff? The only way to tell is to get all the stuff off. That means asking the sales person to completely clean off the table. If it turns out the table isn't all that great or if I decide that I need to think a little while longer, I'll feel embarrassed about making them go to so much trouble. Never mind. I'll just keep looking. It probably wasn't all that great anyway, otherwise they wouldn't have covered it like that.
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The lesson of my story - Set up your booth with a clear vision of what you MOST want to sell. If you want to sell the furniture, then make sure your displays makes the furniture look great. If you are a vendor whose main income is from smalls and the furniture is there mostly for displaying those smalls, then feel free to cover as much of the furniture as you like. I suspect the vendor in the above photo makes more from selling smalls than furniture. Her turquoise table may be priced to sell, but it may be priced a little high in hopes that it won't sell fast. It's there to help the smalls look more appealing.
There are many vendors who do just fine selling smaller items. You'll notice that some of the inspiration photos here are more about selling smalls than furniture. The key is knowing which is your specialty. If you are split down the middle and get sales equally from furniture and smalls, then make sure you don't cover the furniture.
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| This was actually a Christmas display, but with a few minor changes, it would be great for spring! Source |
What to do with the items you didn't use in key displays -
After you set up your vignettes, you probably ended up with things from each of your sorted piles that ended up not being used. Put your leftovers in less noticeable spots in your booth. If you have plenty of small items, hopefully you have a shelf or two in your booth for the extras. Things can still sell from those less visible areas, but they probably won't be your prettiest displays. A shelf for extras should NOT be on your money wall! As you put your extra things on the shelf, try to keep them in groups if possible. As accessories sell from your key vignettes, you'll be able to easily find other accessories from the leftovers to fill in the holes.
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This is the last post in this series about booth transitions, however, I have a couple of posts coming up that will focus on some finishing touches. I can't wait to share them - they are perfect for spring!!! Stay tuned!