Gainesville was Bloomin'

OK, so I obviously don't know anything about the economy - it would seem that people are perfectly willing to spend small amounts of money on antiques and collectibles (in Gainesville). It was a lovely show, well attended and promoted, with a good number of vendors, though not as many as we had hoped to see. The show was situated in an outdoor shopping area, like a cluster of small buildings, with covered walkways and park areas that connected them. On Friday and Saturday, the shopping center itself is a busy place and so there were plenty of people coming and going, and we had lots of ambient traffic. Sunday, however, was a different story; all but a handful of the stores were closed, and even though there were signs on the street directing traffic to the show, it was very lightly attended - a real disappointment.

But, having said that, it was our best show ever. It also had our highest cost to us, given the 2 1/2 hour drive to get to it (the gas prices are only getting higher and higher, and we paid $3.66 a gallon to fill our minivan's tank); and we had to pay for one of the two nights' stay in a hotel, the first being covered by Bob's hotel points that he'd accrued. Throw in the cost of eating out versus being able to dine at home, and you can see that it's a different kettle of fish to do these out of town shows - they pretty much HAVE to be lucrative, or you'll be hundreds of dollars in the hole. If the weather had turned, as it threatened, then it would have been a bust. So, we were lucky, very lucky.

We got to talking to some other dealers who do this as their full time jobs, and got some more insight as to how people keep their costs down. Tips on where to find new stock (we should be looking at more flea markets, which abound in our area), and were warned away from certain auctions, which advice we took with a grain of salt, since we already keep our bids at the lowest end and drop out early if they climb too high. We're also fortunate to have so many garage and estate sales constantly going on where we live - there really isn't ever a time when we're strapped for places to find more items for inventory.

OK, whacked out story of the show: one couple, who sleep in their van during the show so they save money on hotels. Um, toilet requirements? They keep a piss pot in the vehicle, and empty it sometime (somewhere? I was afraid to ask) during the day. She claims to wash her hair using a particular brand of baby wipes; uses the same as a sponge bath for her body. I'm afraid that my eyes glassed over in horror as the stories went on - we shared a table at a restaurant for dinner one night - their one extravagance during the shows. It was a view of a lifestyle that neither Bob nor I have any desire to sample, and we did get kind of quiet talking with them after that admission from them. Baby wipes. Hmm.

Things of note at this show - nobody paid with high value notes ($50 or $100 bills) - more checks were written. It was the first show where we offered the option of payment by credit card, and we made several sales because of it (though I don't think it was ever a deal-breaker). Still trying to figure out how to process those sales through the TIAS website, which is an enormous worry for me at the moment. I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night, worrying about this very issue.

(I am less than impressed overall with TIAS - from their twice daily reindexing of their database which prevents someone from getting a good search result. You type in an item that you're looking for, and the search results in garbage! Reply heard back from the CEO is, "Too bad!" Nice! Thanks for answering! And I haven't done any credit card processing until now because I was a bit afraid about how to go about putting the transactions through the site. Lo and behold, last night I tried to do the first one using the manual transaction slip from the sale, and the TIAS site is asking for the customer's billing and shipping information. Well, I don't know about anyone else, but if I'm paying for anything "live" with my credit card (as opposed to on the internet), all I expect to do is give my card and MAYBE my phone number to the merchant. I would never think of supplying my address in order to make a simple transaction - it defeats the whole purpose of the convenience of offering credit card sales. You can see that I'm quite upset that I might have lost all this revenue, and I hope that TIAS will surprise me with a happy answer back this time. Not expecting it!)

So, what sold at this show? Most everything - jewelry, again - low priced, nice costume jewelry pieces. Nothing precious or high end - and we can't keep enough of it in stock. Have now sold out of the menus from the S.S. Normandy that we acquired from Mort and Anita Trautman's cruise. Books. Glass. Teapots. Teacups. A McCoy string holder. A monkey bank (people love animal shapes!). Some silver plate. It was a well-rounded show.

Here are some pictures of our booth at the show. A photographer from the Gainesville Sun newspaper came by on Sunday morning to take some photos of us, and said that we'll be in Thursday's edition. If we show up, I'll link to the edition!

Gainesville Heirlooms and Blooms Festival

This weekend will be several "firsts" for us - an out of town show, the Heirlooms and Blooms Festival in Gainesville, Florida; which means that we'll have to cram a suitcase amongst the booth goods (plus snacks and drinks), and hope to god that we have brought what we need to the show; plus it's a three-day event, so I've got to make certain that my trusty checklist has actually been gone over and that we have enough small bills, bags, and wrapping paper - how's that for optimism? - for the entire run. We actually put the shade canopy up out back last week so we're sure that it goes up without a problem, and we packed the canopy in with the frame - what a brilliant idea! - instead of taking it off. The last time, the canopy was sitting on a shelf in the garage, and we had the empty frame with us at the show. Dope slap to the head! Plus, I've got gallons of water and bungee cords to anchor the whole business down to the ground, because we're expecting that we won't be able to drive any stakes down and will be setting up in a glorious parking lot. You kind of have to expect anything, and hope for the best.

Can you tell I'm a bit nervous? Traveling away from home, doing a long show, not knowing what the business climate will be - it's a whole bunch of uncertainty, my least favorite aspect of life. I like predictability, bring it on! I love certainty, my good friend!

Instead, I'm doing what I can to prepare for this beast. Restocking my jewelry inventory (from my own castoffs) - a scramble as this is a reliable source of sales for us. I noticed at the Tarpon Springs show that another dealer was using a throw pillow to display her selection of pins - and had remarked how much better they were selling from there than from her cases. So last week I hit the charity shops and found a sweet, ivory lace-covered pillow - I believe it was meant as a ring pillow for a wedding ceremony. My pins look very enticing on it, and it's freed up all sorts of room in the display cases for more earrings.

Another idea I had was to pull together some faux greenery to put in the planters and vases that we have for sale, since this is a garden-themed show. That way we can feature them on the tables and be in keeping with the spirit of the show. I'll take some photos if this effect is well received, and post them here.

Fingers crossed that Gainesville opens her welcoming arms to Time Travelers this weekend.

thud

And that was the sound of the recession officially hitting the Time Travelers' business, I think. Today was the last of the Anna Maria Island Privateers' Thieves Market, and it was a dismal place. Absolutely crammed with vendors. Overflowing with people walking around. Note: not shopping. I'm pretty certain that only the food vendors did well today - from all accounts, none of the other merchants like ourselves did at all well.

It certainly was a sobering day.

Compared to the same event held in February, we did about a third of the business. Now we could argue that many of the seasonal residents have packed up and gone back north - except that there were SO many people there today! (OK, so most everyone was wearing a bathing suit; we are on the beach, after all.)

I guess that these are the tough times - whether it's the beginning of them or this is a hiccup, or it's only going to get much worse, well, you got me. I know that we are not going to be going to all the garage sales, estate sales, auctions, and rummage sales that are currently going on, because our inventory levels are just fine where they are; and I'm not too keen on putting out much more money if so much less money is going to be coming in from now on. It just seems to make sense to me right now to batten down the hatches for this ride. I keep a sharp eye on what we've sold, so in any case if we start to really run low on anything, I won't NOT go shopping.... but for now, I'm going to leave the treasure hunting to the other people out there. The treasures will just have to hunker down and wait for me to find them later.

In a couple of weeks, we'll be doing the Heirlooms and Blooms Event in Gainesville, which will be a three day show for us! Another first - a small booth space (10' x 10', just large enough for our shade canopy), so we'll bring fewer tables and hopefully have to replenish from our stock that we'll bring along to the show. Also a first in that it will be our first overnight stay away from home for show. I wonder what we'll forget to pack and bring for this one!

Shortly after that show we'll be doing another out of town event at the beginning of May at the West Palm Beach Antique Show. This is a monthly event that we'll be trying out for the first time, in the hopes of making it a regular stop on our show calendar. For this particular show we'll also take the opportunity to visit with some family on the east coast (they'll get to see what's left of us at the end of a day after a full day spent at a show!). It's not a pretty sight.

And the week after that, we'll be trying out an indoor event (this is a year of firsts for us, after all), at the Black Pearl Antique Show in Port Charlotte. This is also the first time for this show, so it's pretty exciting to get in on the initial event. This is a one day show and we'll be able to drive down and back in the same day - whew!

(You know, I really thought that the season would be over for us by now. See how much I am learning!)