And a brief departure while we tidy up in the corner

Wait a sec, wasn't I working on the website? Wasn't that going pretty smoothly? And then, SMACK! Let's throw a couple of obstacles in the path just for funsies.

OK, then. Having spent the last month intermittently listing about 200 CD's out of the 600 that have come into our home as a result of our in-laws moving into an independent living facility down the road, I find that I'm packing and taking said packages to the post office just about every day lately. Quite the impressive collection - and quite the range in price that I've found as I've explored as I went through the listing process on Amazon, where I'm an established seller.

It amazes me that I can take what is a hobby/business, and become extremely distraught with it. One day this week I had a customer on Amazon who had placed the order for a CD box set, and then sent a message that he was leaving the country by the end of the week and needed to upgrade the shipping to overnight the item. The hoops - the incredible hoops - of having to cancel the transaction yet noting the conditions concerning the cancellation so I wouldn't be "dinged" as a seller, upgrading the shipping, then relisting the product and notifying the customer to go ahead and make the transaction again, was aggravating. Not the least of which was the realization that the credit given by Amazon for the overnight shipping charge fell far short of the actual cost. Couple this situation with another on the same day where a customer received a CD which was by the artist they wanted, but it was the WRONG album. (That was a refund. Shake my head and thank my help for the - help.)

I was rather rattled by having both of these events happen in the same day. Lost money on both transactions. Did a lot of running around in trying to salvage my "seller" game face, particularly with the incorrect order - that stuff burns me!! How could I have not looked at the order more carefully?! (Beats own head against wall.) One saving grace is that my reactions in both instances rewarded me with very good feedback by both customers - believe it or not, I really think that's worth something.

So you may have noticed reading earlier that I've got 400 CD's that I was unable to list for sale. That's not saying I didn't go through the process of researching and discovering that they were not sellable. Each album was looked up, the price found (and found to be pennies) and put aside as "what do I do with this one now"?

I miss my garage.

Anyways, I took a small selection of the non-listed CD's to a local trade/swap/sell music store. The owner was impressed with the musical quality of the discs I brought. And then offered me $3 for 2 of them. So this is going to be harder work than I had hoped it would be. At this point, I'm thinking: "library donation". I am pretty worn down by this aspect by now.

And where the heck did all the energy that I'd been devoting to my website go? Pffft.

Workin' on the website

Nobody's harder on yourself than you. Boy, don't I know it. Having made several starts in good faith, going as far as sifting through entire boxes of inventory and picking out the pieces that I wanted to add before others, I then did - nothing.

Well, not exactly NOTHING. We hauled the tub of stock upstairs so I could start taking pictures. It's a big box. Takes up a lot of room; not an attractive addition to the living room. This was at the end of April. And you know, Life happened. (No excuses, other priorities made themselves known and we took appropriate action.) Life is still happening, what do you know? But I'm making the motions now to start adding more items to the eCrater store.

I have been in touch with another antique dealer friend of mine, someone with similar interests, and offered to carry some of her items in our store too to diversify her business model as we have. Of course, the offer was made right when I stopped doing work on the website, which compounded my feelings of guilt. But now I'm starting to schnibble away at the project; I'll never consider it work as long as I have the passion for the items we collect and offer for sale, which is the best part of all.

(I'm a little weary of this "baby steps" stuff, though - sheesh!)

And, from my friend's items added to the website, I present the double egg cup. This one is from Wedgwood Edme, in the "Conway" pattern. From the website description for the item: "The double egg cup from Wedgwood has several supposed uses. One is to protect a second soft boiled egg and keep it warm while the first is being held in the smaller of the two cup openings. Another is to provide a secondary type of consuming the soft boiled egg - in the larger cup, the soft egg can be scraped out of the shell and mixed with salt and pepper, and eaten with a spoon. In my house growing up, we thought the purpose was to serve juice in the large cup - and when we were done, the cup was turned over to serve the soft boiled egg in. (That seems to have been a use particular to our family!)"

Enjoy.

Breaking news (or what passes for it)

The Dade City Spring Antique Faire has been cancelled due to lack of response by dealers.

The message left on our voice mail said that they'd try again in the fall, and our check would be returned to us.

Hunh.

Ready for Dade City

Unbelievably, we have 2 weekends off between shows. The last of the season is the Spring Antique Faire in Dade City, setting up Friday April 8th, and ending Sunday afternoon, April 10th.

We're hoping it's a better experience than the last show in October, which was ill attended by dealers, and augmented by an art show whose participants came and went at their whim, which affected us all as a whole. Shudder.

So I've optimistically revamped almost all of the jewelry cases, and we plan to revise our pricing on items as we unwrap them as we set up for the show.

I'm looking forward to a break.

Tell me how you REALLY feel

I've been dancing around the subject of the outcome of my attempted fundraiser for the Red Cross to support the victims of the disasters in Japan. Elsewhere, I have coached my words in civility, in serenity, and in benign acceptance of the dismal response.

The bald truth: on the day, including the $20 that my mother in Canada will be sending me, we raised a total of $59. One was a purchase from an item on the table, and two were donations by customers of the change from their transactions in buying other items we had for sale.

I was really at peace with how it had turned out. I couldn't have predicted how it had turned out; but in fact, I had hopes that almost every single person coming through the booth would read and be moved into action by our well-placed and carefully worded signs about the donation; I had hoped that the table would be picked clean by noon.

It was not to be. Indifference, vague smiles coupled with glazed-over avoidant side glances, and the sideways-crab-like shuffle away from the table that confronted people with the challenge to make a donation, however slight, to benefit the Japanese people in their time of challenge and need.

I was alright about it until about an hour ago. I was running some errands, and got to one business where I had to go through returning an item (a process which I dislike having to do, but it was unavoidable). The customer service rep is one who has worked with me in the past and who has this broad, unmistakable streak of compassion that runs through her like a swift running river. A large soul, if you will. For some reason, I found myself telling her of what had happened. And the tears started to flow.

The truth is that my heart feels broken. I had hoped to have the love and compassion that we and our fellow dealers who'd donated items to the table returned in kind by generous and enthusiastic purchases and further cash donations. It's hard for me not to feel discouraged. At the same time, I commend the dealers who helped to make the lovely table display possible, and their spirit of giving.

I think I'd like to go hide under my rock, thank you very much.

Gathering Momentum for Saturday's Fundraiser

Today I paid a social visit to my fellow antique dealer, Lisa. We did a lot of catching up since we haven't seen each since Christmas - she's been working in a shop, and I, well, haven't.

I told her of my initiative to raise funds for the Red Cross for the Japanese victims of the earthquake and tsunami. She donated an item for the sales table - thank you!!

Then the owner of the shop next door came in for our opinion on a great piece of retro bar-ware she'd come across. (Super piece.) Lisa told her of what I'm doing this weekend, and Rebecca immediately went to her shelves and started handing me Japanese-made items to put on the table to raise funds as well.

So many heart-felt gifts; and some from a perfect stranger. It was difficult for me to hold back the tears of gratitude. (OK, so I didn't hold back...) For all the bad we see in the world, there is so much good as well. I hope that we raise a bunch of awareness AND monetary donations to send to the people of Japan. I still have a couple of days left to gather some items together.

Antique Alley a Success, and a Charity Fundraising Drive Coming Up

What a glorious weekend it was. So comfortable, and everyone, it seemed, was in a good mood. Even though sales are generally lower than they've been in the past, I wouldn't dare complain - we performed admirably. Changing up our inventory selection slightly - I'd acquired what seemed like an enormous amount of crafting and sewing lace trim and applique odds and ends - they made an interesting addition to the booth. An acquaintance of ours had come by some Victorian glass doorknobs, and they sold quite briskly.

It was great to have these items that were out of the ordinary from our usual inventory - whatever is unique and unusual is what sets one dealer apart from another at these shows.

The shift in merchandising, with more emphasis on jewelry offered in simple, low volume displays, is also working well. My hunch that people become overwhelmed at the sight of too much wonderfulness seems to be true - pare the offerings down and the sales actually increase. The challenge is to keep stock easily accessible to refill once an item is sold. This time around jewelry sales accounted for 38% of our volume, and we devoted about a third of the booth space to those items, so for this show we seem to have figured it out correctly.

Personally I struggled with the crowds a bit, and was uncomfortable :-( A couple of days afterwards and I'm starting to calm down. Darn this state of anxiety.

Coming up this Saturday is the "Antiques In The Park" show in Gulfport. I've been acutely aware of the disaster in Japan, and really wanted to do something relevant and create awareness of what the local community can do to help provide much needed aid. The idea sprang fully formed to have a table of collectible items that are all made in Japan - and we are going to send 100% of the proceeds of the sales of these items to the International Red Cross Response Fund. I've already signed the Third Party Agreement (the legal stuff) so I can collect money on the Red Cross' behalf. I've even been able to recruit another dealer into donating some Japanese-made items to sell from the table, too.

The magnitude of the disaster is so overwhelming. I felt I had to come up with a creative way to raise our local community - and indeed, the antique dealer community - awareness of how we can send whatever help we can.