The next few weeks will be a whirl wind as I prepare for my first market. My nights are spent making brochures, designing business cards, painting, waxing, sanding, cleaning, and planning. My mom, Nina, has helped a lot with picture taking, pillow making, furniture scouting, and even a little painting. My husband, Jas, has helped with some of the sanding, all of the lifting, and has begun to help me with some of the booth details.
While all of this is going on, I have still been trying to learn as much as I can about this business. During April the Curbside gang hit the road and travelled to Round Top!
My mom and I were both excited about this trip because it is a week long gathering of antique dealers, store owners, crafters, garage sale enthusiasts and junkers all coming together to buy and sell everything awesome under the sun. I decided that this would also be a great way to research and gather information about markets, shows, my customers, my competition, prices and the quality of the furniture makeovers that were being sold.
First stop... Junk Gypsy!
This was fun, pricey... but fun. I learned a lot about styling, marketing and branding from these gals. I drooled over their store: The Junk Gypsy World Headquarters. The store is fantastic, the land they built on is picturesque. And their style is contagious. So contagious that many ladies were dressed head to foot like gypsies, almost like a costume party. The Junk Gypsy ladies have a shrewd head for business and marketing. The line to the cash register wrapped around the store. T-shirts were $40, so these girls were making a fortune.
Next on the list was the tent city of Round Top!
The tents of Round Top were not a disappointment.
In the next part of this series, I will show you some of the displays and point out many of the lessons I learned.
No comments:
Post a Comment