Pet Peeves when selling in an Antique Mall

I wonder how many of you sellers make their sales through Antique Malls, I operate numerous booths of various sizes through a single Antique Mall in Southern California. Now I am willing to put up with many things, people can call me every name they can think of under the sun, they can spread gossip about my private life and make stories up to fill in what they don’t know, and they don’t really know anything at all because my private life stays private, except of course my thoughts and comments about buying and selling that I post on here, as you have noticed though I don’t really enter into details of myself or my private life.

It takes a lot to get me to tipping point where I finally lose control. Well here’s a story of the one time I really lost it with another dealer.

I took in a couple of pieces of furniture to replace sold furniture into the mall. I tidy up the booths and make them look at least presentable, I then go round and tidy up the other booths that I operate, giving them a quick clean etc.

I walk back to the rear of the store and happen to look down and on one of the pieces of furniture I had just put in and piled on top of this furniture was product from another booth. I had just gotten through taking the misplaced products back to their rightful booths and since the furniture was not in the store until I carried over the threshold of the store that morning like a groom carrying his new bride over the door of their first home!

I was so angry, I went down and had to walk round and calm down, My anger level was off the scale. I we still so pissed at it, not just because the only dealers in the store were the dealers that every calls the crazies but because they stood there waiting for me to find it and when I looked round and they had their shit eating grins on their faces laughing.

I calmed enough to go into the owners office and told him to fax the sales report to me and then finally lost my cool.

I told him that I have had their shit up to the eyeballs and I was sick Of their games, explained that this had gone on since before dad died and that I would tidy the booths and look round and find rap from other booths dumped or thrown where I had just cleaned and that it was only the crazies that were in the store and that this time it was blatantly obvious because they dumps it on something that I had only just brought into the store.

This is just one pet peeve, it drives me crazy, people should have the decency if they find something in their booth that belongs to another to take it to the correct booth, don’t dump it into another persons booths and don’t do just because you have an irrational hatred of someone.

You can tell that it made me angry, it took place on Monday morning and it is now Wednesday evening and I have just calmed enough to say something.

I made it my new year resolution to not put up with crap from others and stand up for myself! This is just a start, from now on I refuse to deal with people that I have either shirked away from or ignored it. Time to be strong and stand up to these people!

Another peeve from antique malls is when they don’t contact you when you sell large items or items of high value and then you arrive after traveling to the store only to find out that you will have to go home again and bring in a piece to fill the gap or spread out other pieces to make it look okay until you next come in. It is so frustrating.

Well off to continue calming down lol, thank you for letting me vent this, my single follower!

I love the hypocrisy of people!

I just can’t help it,  I have to love those people that make claims and then you catch them in the act of doing something they always tell people that they don’t do!

 

I was driving to an address where they claimed that they were holding a sale tomorrow,  I wanted to make sure that I knew where it was because the street is split over three blocks and part of the street is inaccessible from the rest.

So I drive down from the end of the street thinking it was in that first section,  nope, numbers were still in their 600’s.

The next section is tiny,  there is only either one or two houses in this section.  It is actually offset from the longer portion I had just driven down so I turn into that little section and there is Jim,  remember him, the Gossip who will make up what he doesn’t know and fills in blanks and guesses.  Guess I could always call him National Inquirer Jim from now on, lol.  A good name for him since he has made names for everyone else LOL.

Now he always said that he doesn’t earlybird sales.  I had my suspicions from slips he made about where he had gotten things but I had never seen him.

This time I actually catch him in the act.  He was getting back into the car and just stared as I drove past.

As it turns out, it was a location that holds sales regularly and I have never bought anything from them.   They are as expensive as buying from a thrift store.

So I had to laugh.  Explains why he is never out early.

So, I never actually bought anything today and two of the sales tomorrow are ones that have sales all the time so it makes tomorrow quicker and easier to deal with.  Guess it will be visiting thrift shops to bulk up the furniture for sale.

 

Black Friday, dead Thursday

Well Thanksgiving is here once more, sales for this week will plummet while everyone focuses on standing in line and buying gifts for their loved ones. Sadly for the most part those gifts do not include antiques and collectibles, it includes new fun toys.

The antique stores are quiet, no not quiet they are closed Thursday! The mall I have booths is having a sale, but as usual they will offer discounts to customers and we will sell the same number of items and get less. Usual routine each time they have a sale.

Oh well, how does the phrase go…

…Gotta roll with the punches!

Online business has improved at least for the first past of the month, it will help subsidize losses within the business this year which declined in May and sat in the quagmire since then with very little improvement.

I’ve started updating some of the tables I use. I don’t overload them so I thought I would purchase a couple of those folding tables that fold into a single unit instead of taking my heavy swap meet tables with their separate folding legs. Easier to pack into the Cargo van and take up less room. At the end of the day that is what really matters. I invested $80 including taxes in two five loot long ones and will make life easier, with those, and if necessary the two card tables, it is likely that I will have plenty of table space for what I need and I will invest in a couple more in a couple of weeks. Then I can store the big heavy show stuff. I have decided it is time to modernize and make things easier. I need an easy set up.

I will not sell my older show stuff. It belonged to mom and dad when they first started the business and if I need them they will be there and be ready for use.

Hello world!

I love buying and reselling, sometimes I actually made a decent profit and it makes it all worth doing. This blog is really about some of the things that I see and the people that I see and just general observations of life while I am doing my thing.