Sunday, March 27, 2005

Tips: Running a stall at a 2nd Hand market

Went to Camberwell market in morning. This afternoon, revisited my childhood, cleaning, then grooming my purchase of a pink My Little Pony!! Wheee! This pony is the same age and series (c.1982) as the one my sister had (Blossom, see link). Have been wanting to buy an original '80s MLP for a while now, vainly 'trying' to find the one I had (Applejack in non 'Earth' pose). @ $4 may have paid a little too much for her, but she is vintage, 22 years old MLP. I've seen them at the Chapel Street Bazaar for around $12, so this is not too bad.


Cotton Candy

Figured I'd be able to identify her on the internet and I did in a few minutes. Man, I'm good with a search engine. Could using a search engine to find a piece of information, be a tournament competition? If so count me in [aah smug mode]. Wow, there's a whole community of collectors out there who are experts on MLPs!

http://www.hallelnet.com/von/links/frm_search.htm

Anyhooo, got a bit distracted by that. Had planned to write up :

Tips on running a stall at a 2nd Hand market
1. Don't put prices on everything. If they are too high you appear inflexible, not open to haggling.
2. Be open to haggling. I don't care how much it cost you new. It's second hand now. Do you want to sell it or not?
3. Launder your clothes. I won't bother asking you how much something is if I don't think I can get that stain/mark off.
4. Spend money to make money, hire a clothes rack. I don't want to crawl through a pile of clothes on the off chance I'll find something I like. Nor do I want to burrow about in a box.
5. Put small toys in boxes. I love to burrow about and find a gem of a toy down the bottom.
6. Don't be too tidy/orderly. Present your goods so that people can see what you have to offer but remember you are not a retail outlet. Customers will make a mess of your neatly folded t-shirts and carefully aligned junk. Leave it that way. It looks like you had something of interest and maybe there's more.
7. Use cardboard boxes to transport goods and sell out of them with things like books and CDs
8. Align the spines of your CDs and books so that I don't have to work to find out if you have what I want.
9. After someone asks you the price, observe their reaction. For thing you just want to get rid of, offer a lower price if they put it down rather than haggle. Drop it if people keep asking but no one buys!!!
10. Avoid speaking in a foreign language about something that will make you laugh. It makes shoppers paranoid and it's also impolite. Also on conversations; don't be so absorbed in one that you don't notice a customer waiting for you to shut up and tell them how much something is.

In other words, make it easy for customers to assess and access your stuff!
Time is precious. It's of the essence. The early meerkat gets the MLP :P

3 comments:

Ozfemme said...

I used to live near the Camberwell Market in the 90's - this post bought back a lot of memories. I loved browsing through the stalls while my son slept in his pram. He's ten now. Enjoy your MLP!

Anonymous said...

Wow. You smart. You know stuff.

I wandered into Chapel Street Bazaar a few months ago to pass some time.
I ended up staying for about three hours, just looking at all the cool stuff (junk?).

My Little Pony isn't really my thing, but she is cute. Looks brand new, too!

Lady Meerkat said...

Chapel Street Bazaar is a great place to kill time and go 'Oh!!! I had one of those!', 'How cool is that?', 'Aw isn't that cute?','Check this out', & 'I want one!'... On my budget I enjoy the buzz of finding a collectible gem, something funky, or a good CD after wasting, er spending, hours at Camberwell and op shop crawling* :D

*Never done a pub crawl. Suspect this is better for the body, soul and wallet.