Trying to Hold our Own

What kind of a title for a blog post is THAT? Oh, it's about diversity, not putting all of our eggs in one business basket, and trying several different approaches to see what works best for us. We think we have whole heartedly determined that indoor shows - even the Coliseum in St. Petersburg - are not ever going to be the best return for the money for the likes of us Time Travelers. They are expensive to sign up with; on the order of three and four times the cost of an outdoor show. Yes, we get the shelter and comfort from the elements; but it's a nailbiter to get to that break-even point on the cost of the show, and we've yet, after three years of attempts, to find the magical mix of finding what it is that people want to spend money on at our booth. If anything, the detailed records that we have been keeping have been showing that average sales are tending to go down, requiring higher and higher volumes. It's very difficult.

The website at the moment is in a dormant state. There has been a lot of chatter on the support forum about how the Google feeds have changed lately, not in our favor as independent vendors, but towards the big-box (and no-box) stores, like Target, Amazon, and other retailers with more clout. That would mean advertising dollars. Yes, I admit I'm in the doldrums on that front, what with the intense work that the eCrater site involves; but I'm still faithfully adding items on a fairly regular basis, as just doing that helps to keep the store in a more prominent position in the Google feed. (Of course, I have yet to spend a single penny on AdWords or any other type of advertising!! Note to self: get to work on another Squidoo lens, or two, or four.... mutter, mutter, mutter.)

Which brings me to the antique shop we have booth space in. I've linked to it a couple of times in the past - Patty & Friends. Bob and I are truly enjoying the sense of community that exists by going in to the store once a week or more, checking on our two booth spaces, sprucing things up; catching up on dealers' news, and of course looking at everyone else's booths. Sometimes I swear we are all supporting one another, buying each other's wares. (Hmm.) We secured a prime spot in the store when the season was slow, counting on being in the right place when business started to pick up again. That is proving to have been a good decision. The secondary space in the store has been less productive, but we are letting the entire shop have a full year of experience before we make any further moves.

The next outdoor show we have booked is not until January 2nd, 2010!!! There have been other shows around but this thing called Life gets in the way of participating in them all. Bob's Other Job has its demands too, and darn it if that position isn't the one that pays ALL the bills and keeps us with a roof over our head. So - the shows we book are the ones that we're able to do.

I think the overall tone of this post is not so happy and optimistic; I hope, though, that it comes across as realistic. We look for the business opportunities as best we can. We try not to be foolish. We're cautious but we're still trying new things (this year it's the antique store space). For myself, this mirrors how I'm feeling about the nation's economic picture at the moment. We aren't backing down. We aren't retreating. We aren't planning on "making a killing" either. We are hoping, instead, to hold our own.

The photo is of a B & C Limoges blank of a teapot form, dating between 1900 and 1907. These are usually seen hand painted with detailed floral designs and gilt edging; yet sometimes the blank forms were left unpainted for the sheer beauty of the shape itself.

A special addition to the website store

I'm very happy to add this beautiful, 1930's era Wedgwood Blue Dip tea set, in the St. Louis shape, to the Time Travelers store at eCrater. Items such as this come up rarely at auctions such as Bonhams and Sothebys, and we're thrilled to have found the set and have it on offer. It's in perfect shape and was obviously in the care of a loving collector before we came across it.

This link takes you directly to the item in the store.

Still in the process of transferring files from the eMac to the new laptop. Yesterday spent a LONG time moving all the photographs of items in the inventory over; important, because I still want links to work on tools like Squidoo and this blog, so I need the source files in the right places.

I rediscovered another resource for my Wedgwood knowledge in the course of going through my old bookmarks, too; and that's a comprehensive listing of the color names and visual representations of the Jasperware that Wedgwood has ever issued - what a wonderful tool. It's the Wedgwood Jasper Color and Date Guide, and there's the link to it.

Whew! What a lot of work for a morning - time for a cuppa tea :-)

Laptop is Working for Adding Items to Store

So maybe I'm the only person excited about this - but I'm up and running with my new laptop computer and am starting to add items to the eCrater store with this new tool. First on was a piece of Bunnykins tableware, a Don mug of marching bunnies going to camp.

It was also my first experience uploading photographs from my camera to the laptop, which went well. Putting the photos into a folder was the most challenging part (I kept confusing "tags" with "folders", duh).

Nice cup.

'Tiquing and Bargain Hunting In Pittsburgh, PA

Last week we visited family outside of Pittsburgh (in Ambridge, PA) and got to see riotous fall colors, experience chilly weather and then Florida-like temperatures. In addition to seeing the city itself, we saw Falling Water (and drooled at the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright), ate some strange salads and sandwichs, and SHOPPED.

We decided to concentrate primarily at the bottom of the food chain, and aimed for thrift stores. This would seem to be a booming retail sector throughout the nation as people look for the best ways to stretch their dollars, promote recycling, and in many cases make charitable donations to worthy causes. There were stores we stopped at where we struggled to find a parking spot, so successful this retail model has become.

I had sworn to myself that this was not going to be a hunting and shopping trip. We have so many treasures already! I even packed a relatively small bag so I wouldn't be tempted to tuck those very items in amongst my belongings. Well, that plan went out the window within 24 hours of our arrival in the area. Bob started out with an internet search of the area for thrift stores - rated by consumers, no less - plugged the addresses into the GPS dohickey, and we were off. Sigh. Irrepressible is the word. Who am I but to go with the flow (or stay at home and watch the well fed squirrels rushing like mad with their nuts in the backyard)? So I flowed. It was easy.

So we found bits and pieces - jewelry, Wedgwood, a teacup, some kitsch (our favorite). It did require the borrowing of a duffel bag in order to get everything back home. And I should know better than to think that a trip to a new place won't include a hunt for us. And yes, I enjoyed it as much as Bob did; well, I think my fun center gets filled quicker than his. I do get burned out, and I'm the one to ask for the hunt to end. I didn't meet any resistance, though.

A Transition

I'm writing this post on our new laptop. Now begins the joyful process of transferring our files, photos, music (it feels like our entire life, sometimes) from our eMac, way past its "best by" date, to this machine of the Evil Empire. Thank you, HP. So far, so good. I hope that I'm back to adding some of the treasures into the eCrater store soon; especially as there are not as many shows for us to participate in so far this season.

Digesting the Sunshine City show

It took several days of recuperation following the 2 1/2 day show. I guess we're out of practice. Bob was plum worn out - Friday he put in a full day at his regular, paying job, while trying to set up. It was maddening. I'm thinking that if another show requires a Friday set-up, we'll hire a porter (that would be the young, strong types at the venues, usually provided by the promoters for hire) to do the hauling and Bob can help me as he's able. As it was, I didn't handle the two-fer career day well at all and showed no grace under pressure, I must say. Feeling sheepish? Baaaaahhhh.

Of course, we were set up in plenty of time and the booth looked fantastic. Of course!! It must have been my artist's tantrums that did the trick there. Er. Or not.

We were in a very good traffic spot, in the aisle straight ahead from the entrance. I do wonder what the official door numbers were for the show. There were a couple of moments during which the place felt great and mobbed, and others when we were wondering where everyone had gone to. Another marker that I make note of is the appraisal fair - we've been at this show when the appraisals have been so stacked up that they've had to assign waiting numbers to people with items, then call out on the P.A. where they are up. That hasn't happened for the last 3 Sunshine City shows.

Which is my overall way of saying that, once again, we didn't do spectacularly well here. Comparatively, though, we did just as well as last year and the year before; so, given the economic picture, that is very fine indeed. It does feel, however, that we can't seem to get the "mix" right. This time, we tried bringing more jewelry and less glass, ceramics, and porcelain, yet our sales figures were exactly the same.

One thing of note: the value of our higher sales is way down. We didn't have a single transaction over $30.00, whereas in the past we've had much higher single item sales. So people definitely are spending less money in our booth this year than they did last year, but we are doing more transactions. (Aren't math and statistics fun?? I'm so glad I didn't flunk out of high school altogether!)

I did enjoy the air conditioned environment by being able to dress up a little bit. I wore a dashiki that I'd brought back from a vintage clothing store in the Haight in San Francisco on our last trip out there, and a filmy beach cover-up (with plenty underneath, thank you) along a similar vein. I thought the outfits really captured the vintage theme of the show, and I had many positive and admiring comments about my wardrobe. I tried walking around the show like a Pied Piper, but didn't get any rats to follow me back to the booth...

Today I'm revamping the jewelry display at our Patty and Friends booth to try to glam it up. Never a dull moment, specially when you're working with rhinestones. Ah!! Pun alert!

Necessity, creation, etcetera etcetera...

This coming weekend is the Sunshine City indoor antique show at the Coliseum, a beautifully restored dance hall smack dab in the down town of St. Petersburg; readily accessible from the highway and main streets; free parking and air conditioned!! Again, it's early for the season, but it will be a good barometer of the economic condition we face for the coming year in our business.

We've changed our approach already in restructuring the allocation of space devoted to different types of items. It would seem that for the time being, ceramics and glassware are taking a back seat to costume jewelry. We therefore have concentrated more on trying to make our displays innovative and different from our neighbors'. We already purchased more of the standard glass top cases for earrings, plus scratched our heads as to how to make the affordable and fun bracelets more accessible for trying on. (A breakfast tray holding an array of bangles makes them much more inviting to try on than keeping them behind a locked case - after all, most of them are priced less than $20 and we can easily keep an eye AND ear on them. They make quite a clatter while being sorted through and tried on. So they are secure but still accessible.)

An influx of men's cuff links, tie clips, tacks, and rings into our inventory made us realize we should probably showcase this category on its own rather than mixing them in as we had amongst the other jewelry items. I wanted a display solution that would accommodate all these various types of items in a single place, so that a pair of cuff links could be shown with the coordinating tie tack close by. I would not have thought that a ring display would be the thing had I not seen another dealer (and then another, and another) using just this display item to do just this. I think it does wonders for showing the best the of the jewelry while hiding all the fiddly bits like the chains and fasteners. The finished case is shown in the photo at the top of the page.

Another display issue that came up was long, dangly earrings. The standard earring cases are great for most smaller pieces, but BIG, mega hoops, elaborate pieces from the Disco Age (long may it rest, but sell in our booth!), many fine ethnic examples of worked silver and brass simply get lost in a tangle when forced into those cases, even into larger sections. We've tried laying them out flat on the tables, and it just can't do a piece justice when it's supposed to be hanging down to one's shoulders. I needed to be able to hang these beauties up without having one hide the one below it. And I didn't want to buy the usual acrylic earring stand - boring! Overpriced!

I used my search engine skills and found directions for making my own earring display - which sounded Oh So Easy. One quick stop at your local craft shop (yeah, right!!) would be all I'd need to do to produce a cheap and pretty display for our long lovelies. Well, it took several stops at some various stores, but I did it! I found a reproduction of a luggage trunk (overkill - a smaller, briefcase sized object would have sufficed. What I found was life sized.) on clearance at a home decorating shop. I had to repair the hinges as they were ripped out. Screwed those in and hot glued them in place. Hot glued a bunch of places on the article because the entire case appears to be made out of paper board.

Then I hot glued strips of fabric ribbon across the insides of the case. Then I nailed them down because I could picture the glue giving way in the middle of the show. I think the overkill, given the size of the case, was probably a GOOD thing. Anyways, now I have this homemade, funky display unit for my long, dangly earrings (I fit 75 pairs into the thing during its dry run at home). All are earrings that would not have otherwise made it easily on to our sales table for the show. I took a picture of that, too. I spent $12 on creating this mahhvelous display.

Enjoy, and please don't laugh too loud or spray coffee over your keyboard looking at my handiwork...

First show - *GASP* - of the season

Ah, autumn in Tampa Bay (or, more precisely, Dade City), where it still feels like the inside of a pair of pleather pants after a night of salsa dancing.

I'd say doing an outdoor show in September is pushing the season by at least a month. It's sweltering, it's a crap shoot with the weather (which we utterly lost this time), and people who choose to walk around a parking lot in this kind of heat are just plain crazy. Well, perhaps not as crazy as the people who choose to set up their booths and stand there before them...

Big bro Steve, though, did great business at the show. Our photos sold well. I did well studying last year's sales figures and we took the correct items for the show. It made for a relatively easy set up - fewer items of china, porcelain, and glass; and more fiddly things like the jewelry. It made (thank goodness) for easier cover up and break down when the storms came. We gave up and went home early on Sunday after the third storm had just started; I had already changed once out of my completely soaked clothes, only to go through it again. Neither of us was mentally prepared to do it one more time, and frankly, it takes a toll on the stock that is not weatherproof. A couple of torrential rains came through on Sunday, and Bob and I had preplanned how we would move the tables for quick cover up, and had the tarps to the ready. Some other dealers were not so fortunate, including the man across from us, who had books lying on the pavement on blankets. When the ground turned into a stream, he lost a fair amount of inventory. But, as he noted, he had plenty more where they came from. (At this remark I shook my head mentally - I can't abide throwing any of my hard found treasures away!)

At one point we were down to a single table all piled with bits and pieces of items that hadn't yet been packed away, under our tent. Bob was methodically wrapping and packing the bigger stuff, and I was trying to make sense of what was left on the table so it wouldn't get all tangled up upon unpacking once we got home. We pretty much had just a straw basket of earrings and a tray of bangle bracelets that I was trying to get put away. In the midst of this chaos a Mexican family - mom, grandmother, and 3 small kids - started rooting through the basket and trays. We sold 5 items in the last 15 minutes to them, while we anxiously looked at the approaching clouds. It was one of our best sales of the day.

Now we have a 2 week respite before, thank goodness, an indoor show in St. Pete. It's still quite early - the local population will not have swelled to its seasonal numbers yet - but we'll be comfortable in the air conditioned splendor; and it will be an opportunity to show off what we've collected since the last season.