My New Booth - Part Two

In the previous post I shared the news that I was going to have a booth again.  I also showed before photos of the booth I chose.  Today, the 3 main large pieces were moved in and I was able to make it look "like a booth", if you know what I mean.

I hope everyone's expectations aren't crazy high since I write a blog devoted to tips for making booths great.  If you've read much of my blog, you may remember the post where I pointed out that beauty isn't the most important priority in a successful booth.  Don't get me wrong.  A beautiful booth is wonderful, but there has to be substance in it - namely things people want to buy at prices that are not over the tipping point.  So, even though my booth is not the most memorable and won't likely be an inspiration photo for this blog, I am feeling pretty happy with it.


Here's the booth as you move towards it.  You can actually approach from two slightly different paths, so I have two money walls.  The hutch is my big statement piece.  The oak desk is the piece I hope will sell first.  It's big!

Here's the booth straight on.  I'd like a trendier rug.  The carpet has flaws and the booth really needs a rug.  This one is better than none, but I am definitely on the lookout for something better.  I need to bring in more smalls.  I don't plan on smothering the big furniture, but they do need some staging tweaking.  There's a folding bakers rack near the window.  I had intended to stuff it behind the hutch to hold smalls should any of the large pieces sell.  Since I have the room, I decided to open it up and add smalls.  Right now, all that's on it is a silver loving cup urn.  More's coming soon.

The window behind the bakers rack was good for light, but not much else.  The glass was hopelessly stained and dirty on the outside.  The view is a parking lot and gas station.  I needed a treatment that was easy and blocked the view but still let in light.  I tore a drop cloth into strips and tied it onto the rod.  Very casual.  Neutral.  Creative.  Not original.  I've seen this treatment used in all sorts of ways on Pinterest and favorite blogs.

I have kept the staging on all the furniture simple.  This hutch is my statement piece.  I quickly put these plates in place.  This was a super fast stage using what I had.  It's a little too uncreative.  The arrangement is so predictable.  If the hutch stays around for a bit, which I suspect it will because hutches are slow sellers, I'll hopefully improve on the staging.  it'll still be simple, but a little more creative than this.

One item in my booth is large but NOT neutral  This is a retro piece and I felt that painting it neutral was not the right thing to do.  There are always exceptions to "the rules".   I am very willing to break rules when it feels like the right thing to do.  :-D   Oh, the suitcase - I wanted it to be open.  I'd like it to have some fun display inside, but for now, all I had was this sad little dictionary page pumpkin.

The turquoise tiered shelf is empty for now.  I'm not sure what I'll put on it, but it needs something.   Of note in this photo is the copper tin.  Can you tell what's in there?  OLD TABLE LEGS!  I had a table that I wanted to get my money out of. It was a definite mistake purchase.  My hubby could have spent hours trying to make it over.  It wobbled.  The top had messed up veneer.  Even with lots of work, the table wouldn't sell for enough to be worth the time and effort.  Much easier - sell off the good parts. The table had 5 legs.  Two of them have already sold!   The top will be used to make signs at some point in the future.  It has real possibilities for that.  And there's a great leaf that for some reason, is not veneer.  The legs in the copper bin also serve to hint that the bin would be excellent for holding firewood.  At least, that is my hope.

You'll notice I haven't created a theme booth.  I haven't limited colors.  I have things to sell and I didn't want any limits.  I didn't want to feel obligated to paint things to match.  I'm taking what I have and putting them together as well as I can.  I am trying to make the furniture look as important as I can.

So, that's the booth so far.  It has no ground-breaking decor.  It's not swoon-worthy.  This is a low-pressure, functional booth that will hopefully have decent sales.

I hope this post gives you a little peak into my thought process.  I hope it puts you at ease in case you, too, prefer low pressure.  I think it's a pretty decent booth.  I watched as some customers shopped in the area.  They went into my booth and looked around, even though there's still so little in there.  That's a good sign!  And bonus, a couple of customers looked very seriously at the retro console.  One even took a phone photo!

A Short Term Booth

Not every vendor wants to work at a crazy pace all year long keeping up a booth.  Some would prefer to take it a little slower.  A part time booth could be the answer for many vendors.

One option is to only keep a booth open part of the year and use the rest of the year to gather and prepare and relax.  Most malls want a contract for 6 months, so that's what I'll discuss here.   I'm going to work up a little pretend example.  Meet Doris.  She has a booth for 6 months of every year.

Doris has a booth every year from October til the end of March.  That seems to work best for her.  During the months Doris has no booth she is able to devote her extra time to treasure hunting and fixing up.  She spends many Fridays and Saturdays going to yard sales looking for bargains.  She uses her other days to paint, clean, price and sort.

Doris likes to have nice vignettes in her booth, so as she begins to accumulate a nice pile of treasures, she begins looking for themes.   She has storage space in her basement, so she can easily sort things into display groups.  She looks for good color combinations and what items are used for.  Kitchen things are put together.  Desk items together.  Bedroom items together.  You get the idea, right?

As it gets closer to time to open, Doris has a pretty good idea of the order of her vignettes.  She doesn't put everything in at once.  Her booth needs to look pretty darned good for 5 of her 6 months.  The last month (March)  is her clearance sale month and people are more forgiving then.

Doris rents her booth for $200 a month.  That's $1200 for 6 months.  If she had a booth for 12 months, she'd spend $2400, so that's a pretty good savings.  She'd also have to work a whole lot harder.  Doris is a vendor who does it for fun and a little pocket money.  The part time booth gives her more time to enjoy life while keeping her profits a tiny bit better.  It gives her more time to relax and enjoy her family.  Doris is not on the high-speed-buy-sell treadmill the whole year.

The "Doris Example" is a 6 months on, 6 months off plan.  That's just one option. Some might want to have a booth from August to June - when their kids are in school.

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If you think this plan might work for you, 

there are some downsides to consider. 

The riskiest part is finding a booth exactly when you need it.  You should begin talking to mall owners a couple of months before you hope to start up.  If a coveted booth opens sooner, it might be good to jump on it.  Some years, you may not get a booth til a month or two after you planned to open.  It's a risk.

The booth you get will likely not be in a prime location.  It's more likely to be in an out-of-the way spot with bad lighting.  Don't let that stop you.  A good vendor can make lemonade out of lemons.  If your booth has good stuff, it will sell.  If it's displayed well, it will sell even better.

Some mall owners may not like that moving in and out.  You might seem less serious.  However, if you show them that you are bringing in great items that sell and are a wonderful booth vendor all around, they may be happy to have you on the terms you want.  If all goes well, they will look forward to you returning each year.

Moving in and out of booths can be a hassle.

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Another option is to partner with a vendor friend.  You could find a booth you both like and instead of giving it up, the friend could take over.  Some malls might want you to use the same vendor number.  If so, you'd have to work together pretty well to split profits on payday.

During transition times, it might be nice for the leaving vendor to be able to remove things slowly and the incoming vendor could bring things in slowly.  Or it may be that some things can be left in.  Maybe just the large items are removed when the next person takes over.

Some malls might not like this plan.  The owner may not realize that it's actually to their advantage.  Every so many months, they'd have a fresh vendor with fresh merchandise.  I usually recommend being very honest, but if you are going to use this plan, it might be best to let people assume the two of you are partners year round.  No one needs to know your plan really except the two booth partners.  There are all sorts of options for making this scenario work.

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This whole idea of part time boothing highlights one key benefit to the life of a booth vendor.  It's flexible!  You make of it what you want.  I love that.

Crazy is in the Air!

Crazy is in the air!  I thought maybe it was just in the air around the antique world in Georgia, but apparently, it's in the air all over.  The vintage business is hot and trendy.  Everybody and their brother thinks they need to open a shop, even if there are already 10 shops in the area, which is inconsiderate and just plain stupid. It's also asking for trouble.  With every new shop that opens, the competition gets a little harder, which is stressful.  The over-saturated market is bad enough, but what's worse is the witchy behavior.  I've come across some people lately who are racking up some major bad karma points with their ugly behavior.

My apologies to Veronica Lake, who played a very
nice witch in her 1942 movie, "I Married a Witch"

I've met loads of "fun-crazy" types since I've been in the business.  But 2014 seems to be the year of lunatic, watch-your-back, "OMG,-I-cannot-believe-they-did-that" kind of crazy.

I've seen a few crazy situations locally and have had quite a few Vintage Show Off fans message me privately for advice with truly insane situations. It's so sad.  We should all be having fun, right?

We all need to choose carefully who we associate with. We should all try to do what we love and surround ourselves with people who are supportive.

If you are in a bad situation, but desperately need the money, be very active in looking for a better situation, even if it's not selling vintage wares.  If you desperately need the money, you probably should be doing something a little more reliable.  There's not a lot of money in running a booth.  You know that, right?  

If having a booth is more about having a hobby you love and/or earning a little extra pocket money, then get the heck away from lunatics and go to a mall that's happy and "normal", even if it has less traffic.   Once you get to the happy mall, do what you can to make it more successful.  Pitch in a little!   Help them market. Help promote them on Facebook, even if it's just by leaving comments and sharing posts.  Help decorate now and then.  Be a friend to your fellow vendors.  If your help is valuable and goes beyond pitching in a little, maybe the nice owner will appreciate it enough to compensate you with reduced rent.

Mean behavior shouldn't be tolerated.  I don't think we should just stand by and keep quiet.  Isn't that enabling the bad behavior?  If you stay where things are bad and/or keep quiet when you see wrong being done, then you are pretty much saying you are OK with it.

If it's the store owner or manager who is bad news, keep in mind that as they go down, your booth will go down, too. They may go down swiftly (like in a lawsuit) or they may just see a steady decline, which they will conveniently blame on everything but themselves.

Thankfully, all the owners and most of the vendors I work with directly are good, decent people who try to do the right thing.  If they weren't, I promise, I'd be gone so fast, you'd think my super-hero power was speed.

One more thing just to clarify.  We can't demand perfection.  Pretty much every person on earth has their faults. (If you think a person has no faults, you probably just don't know them well enough.) Even a person who tries really hard to be good will have a lapse in judgement from time to time.  Don't expect your mall owner or fellow vendors to always do what you think is the perfect thing.    The behavior I'm referring to in this post is mean-spirited.  Stay far away from that!