Venturing into Retail - Antique Stores

Bob's decided to take the plunge and put our wares into two local antique stores. The first is a locked cabinet space in Patty and Friends Antiques in St. Pete, a business that's been established for a long, long time in the area. The cabinet has narrow shelves with short spaces, so we've had to think small in setting the retail area up. The store is in the process of doing a lot of upgrades cosmetically, so it's nice to be part of a refreshed retail environment.

The other place we've literally set up shop in is in Hannah's Antiques and Retro, which is in the Grand Central District of St. Petersburg, close to the revived Kenwood neighborhood, with its beautiful Arts and Crafts era cottages. We've got an open cabinet space there close to the check out area, with stock scattered throughout the shop as well.

We've had a small sale at Patty's already, and it's going to be a challenge to keep the areas in these stores looking fresh, interesting, and relevant. This is pretty much Bob's area as I am sticking to my guns of concentrating on the website (which had two sales in a single week once I restarted working on the site - wonderful).

I'm continuing to work with my health care team and trying to become more productive, as at the moment I'm able to do about one task a day. (Not really what I'd like to be able to do.) Medication adjustments, wait and see, patience - not my best virtue.

The photos show our current set up at the Patty and Friends store, showing how we are trying to utilize as much of the space as possible.

Evolution of this Blog

Trying to stave off those feeling of guilt for not having posted for so long! We had a fantastic show in Dade City - the best we'd ever done - in spite of having had the most challenges to date. First off, our wonderful Live Oak tree that provided so much welcome shade and retro "Old Florida" feel to our booth was gone! As were at least two others, upon suspicion that they might have harbored some dread tree disease :-( :-( :-(

And the second day of the show, Sunday, was not the best of weather - intermittent showers, and gusts of wind. It all cleared up around 12:30pm, and then we had to start packing up at 3. But in spite of these downers, we did very, very well.

We also got to get to know another couple of dealers a little better, by going out to dinner with them. We pretty much yapped and laughed and screamed and finally remembered to order our food before the kitchen closed. I think we were all surprised by how much we enjoyed ourselves.

That show, at the end of April, was the end of the season for me. I've been working slowly but steadily on the website again, after a break of (gulp) four long months.

And I've been so quiet on this blog front, and so much has been going on, kind of like this extremely strong undercurrent that's been commanding all my attention and energy, yet it hasn't seemed to be the correct venue to address the subject here, either. But I've come to the conclusion that in trying so hard not to address that very subject - my personal elephant in my very little room, if you will, I do myself more and more of a disservice; and I also don't give my the credit for the struggle that I am, indeed, winning, in spite of my own expectations at times.

So that's a lot of words for trying to say that I think I'm slightly changing the character of this blog: to focus just as much on this antiques and collectibles business called Time Travelers; but now also to address how I manage to maintain (or not) the business while at the same time taking care of my mental and emotional health.

For you see, I haven't held a "proper" job for several years now, due to some troublesome issues. This business is the most responsible venture I've been able to apply myself to, and I'm so grateful for it. But there are days, if not weeks, in these past four months, when it's not been possible for me to attend to the business in any way.

I guess I'm trying to say that I'd like this blog to become more about what it's like to manage our business while I live daily with the issues of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. (Whew! There, I said it.) It casts rather a different light on the whole consistency of the business; the continuity; and yes, the integrity. I'm more determined than ever with Time Travelers to keep moving onwards and upwards, even as sometimes I make entirely backwards strides in my mental health :-\

Whether or this blog keeps its readership will be interesting. But in the name of authenticity and professional and personal growth, I think it's the right time to take this turn...

St. Petersburg Antique Fair (groan...)

Last weekend we did Jeff Francis' alternative offer to the Tampa and Sarasota shows of 2008 that he had to cancel, held at his warehouse property in St. Petersburg.

I could say a lot of things about this show, but will keep it short: the worst one we've EVER done. Hardly any dealers, hardly any customers, and on Sunday we made one solitary sale.

OK, I'll expand a bit.
Awkward location. People had a lot of trouble following Jeff's directions to the show.
Poorly promoted - so poor dealer participation, and poor customer turnout. It's tough to hold randomly scheduled shows like this - at different dates and locations than his previous shows - and expect to get a good turnout. But I can't for the life of me figure out why he wouldn't at least put an ad in one of the trade journals to attract vendors. More vendors means more rent income for him, and more money to spend on promoting the show locally... it just wasn't going on.

It left me in a real funk, with a sore back, and it took two days to really get myself off the sofa, to mull over this coming weekend's show. It's the "Trash To Treasures" event in Tarpon Springs and last year we were surprised to discover it was basically a flea market. This time we're prepared with the right quality and price of merchandise so it SHOULD be an OK show for us.

I no longer expect great shows.

First 2 shows of March done

March has been booked solid - we're doing shows every weekend. We started off with The Thieves' Market on Anna Maria Island on Saturday the 7th, the last of the season there for us, as April is too hot already and the snowbirds will have flown home for the season. It was sparsely attended by vendors as the date had changed from the usual 2nd Saturday of the month (due to some community scheduling conflict with another event). But the crowds came, fairly early on in the day, and we did a steady business in books, jewelry, and some ceramics.

As ever, it's a pleasure seeing the other vendors that we've come to know from the previous season, and to see visiting vendors from other shows who came by to check the show out for the following season. Bob and I both enjoy the sense of community that we've already discovered from just one cycle of shows doing these shows.



Yesterday we did another one day event, Antique Alley, up in Bellair Bluffs. It's an outstanding show that is well advertised, very well attended, and we were lucky that the weather was perfect (a bit breezy, but that was welcome, and I had protected our booth as best I could, so we suffered zero casualties). Bob did the - yawn!! - very early set up, then a panic as no sooner than he had the booth all but set up than he was offered the empty spot next to us as well, as the promoter had a no show. Someone had prepaid but then became ill and was unable to use the space. Talk about a scramble - he pretty much had to tear down an entire side of the booth space, then spread everything out to fill up that extra spot AND unpack absolutely everything that he had brought. It's not as if the van was packed with inventory ready for a double spot!

I joined him several hours later, having been able to sleep in, have a leisurely cup of coffee, snuggle with the cat, and read the paper at home first. By the time I arrived the early shoppers were out in force and the place was buzzing. Although sales are still way off compared to last year - every single conversation that I overhead was about the economy, the economy, and more of the economy - people still shopped, but spent less. High value sales are not the norm for now, and we've adjusted what we bring to the shows to reflect that.

Another strange thing we've noticed is that people are more apt to negotiate for "your best price" - and then walk away without making a purchase. I don't think there's an intention to buy, but there's still the desire to go through the motions of making the deal. I swear I could even see the emptiness in people's faces as they went through these motions. I could tell, as we would go through these little dances of price negotiations, that there was no sale to be made; but still the dance would go on.

Then there was the lady who licked my pearl earrings (is this a check to see if they are real or what flavor they are?) who left lipstick on the display card and of course, did not buy the earrings. Someone told me that elsewhere at the show the same woman was licking silver plate dinner ware. Ewww...

So, more shows to come. The website will continue to languish as we concentrate on the live activities this month; then as the summer heat descends, I'll turn my attention back to the eCrater store.

Just glad that I'm doing as much as I am.

I've been mighty quiet...

But it's been a mighty quiet season.


And I haven't been well. (Less said about that the better.)

There are fewer shows to do, so fewer opportunities to get out there and show our beautiful stuff. The folks are not as willing to part with their harder earned - and less valuable - dollars. We've seen a shift in what people are attracted to this season, as well. They are loving our single old photographs, loving the jewelry, and mostly price checking everything else we have on offer. (Personally I think they are looking to see what the items they own themselves are worth.) Foot traffic is also down compared to last year.

It's tough times.

The eCrater store, if I could pay more attention to it, would be tickling me pink. As it is, it's pickling me a very, very pale shade of pink, but only because I haven't been able to put the effort into it that it really needs. We've had sporadic sales there, and I do have a little pile of goodies waiting to be put onto the website. All in good time - I still have some healing to do, and my priorities, truth be told, are a little shuffled around at the present.

But I see that I'll be back at the shows shortly, ready to help Bob out. He's been such a trooper. I'll be able to work on the website soon too. Once I'm up and running, I'll be back up to speed pretty quickly.

I've missed my blog, this world, the newsiness of it all. It's waiting for me, patiently.

A Bummer

We got our deposit for a couple of shows returned with the following letter today. Seems the economic hard times have hit the local show promoters, which is really no surprise - a disappointment, for sure, but understandable. The note from Jeff reads in part:

"It is with my sincere regret to announce the cancellation of all 21st Century Shows scheduled in 2008 and 2009. The sluggish economy, reluctance of dealers to travel to shows, weak customer spending, and continuing increase in the costs of renting facilities, advertising, and energy costs, have forced us to make this decision which we feel is in the best interest in our dealers and customers."

Bummer, like I said. (Interesting to note, though, that it was just last week that we ran into this same person at the international airport in Atlanta, where he was returning home from making a purchase of 10,000 license plates. I know that you have to invest in your business in order to grow it, but maybe he could have managed to put on a few of the shows instead of canceling ALL of the them had he not decided to buy all those mother lovin' pieces of metal? Just a thought.)

So that freed up our calendar a bit, again - there's a show that we had rejected out of turn because it was immediately after one of the 21st Century Production ones, so we'll look into getting into that. And we've been able to book a spot in this fall's Antique Alley show on November 9th in Bellair Bluffs. This is one of those shows that we've faithfully attended as shoppers for years now and have had our eyes on as dealers. Last spring we failed to get called on the stand-by list; this time Bob was proactive and gave the organizer a call to see if any spots had opened up. (The squeaky wheel gets the grease!) And what do you know - she had a dealer cancel due to medical reasons, so in we've squeezed.

I think that we'll find other shows to cobble together the season, but perhaps they won't be what we originally planned to do - I'm not averse to some creative thinking :-)

A Jewelry Purchase

Here's a photograph of a jewelry lot purchase made this week in St. Petersburg. My magpie eye did the choosing, I'm afraid, and I probably passed over some other, perfectly wonderful pieces in favour of these that most definitely caught my fancy.

They range from an Austrian brass belt buckle that's inlaid with enamel and malachite; to a Peruvian stylized bird brooch of hand hammered, oxydized sterling with plain sterling silver overlay; A Taxco pin by Bernice Goodspeed; a figural brooch of sterling and mother of pearl; a Norwegian sterling and enamel bar pin; a German pendant of an Edelweiss flower; a Star Trek-like pin with an onyx stone; an old Mexican brooch of a flower basket with green turquoise stones; a cross-hatched rectangular sterling pin; a cast sterling bracelet with a lovely turqoise stone with fine spider veins - it doesn't show at all in this group photo, and a pair of Georg Jensen earrings that have been converted to clutch-back from screw-back type.

Quite a lovely collection, if I say so myself - and I sure have, haven't I?