Whew! Went through a rather long spell there of some malfunctioning on the blog, which made it very difficult to post… pretty much missed the entire Christmas season of posting, but I will be sharing a few of my decorations and such albeit after the lin. Anyway, things are getting back to almost-normal now, so thought I would begin to get caught up on posting!
First up, here’s the latest news from the world of antique booths. In the past few months, we closed two of the three booths that we had – Memory Lane, and Brass Armadillo. Although I loved both of these stores on a personal level, from a business standpoint we just were not getting “the vibe” and so were not making much money. We have been at this now for just over a year and I feel we have learned a lot… but not enough to keep spending money on rent that we couldn’t earn back. Perhaps we’ll grow back into multiple booths one day, but by simplifying and condensing our efforts down to one booth at The Picker Knows, we are able to really focus on figuring out what works as far as a mix of inventory – and the store is close to home so it’s easy to run over there and do some fluffing or restocking whenever it’s needed.
Speaking of inventory, we also made a decision recently to refocus a bit and stock more furniture. This has proven to be quite successful, as we take advantage of several resources for acquiring pieces inexpensively and then flipping them – either making some minor repairs, or just giving each piece a quick clean-up before putting it in the booth. We try to have a mix of “real antiques” at higher (for us) price points vs. more inexpensive pieces that are suitable for the furniture painters who are out there seeking their next project. You might notice from the photos that yes, we have indeed moved into a larger booth at PK – and we have been “in the black” every month at this store, so we’re quite happy there for now.
We still have a few interesting “smalls” in the booth, and of course for the past month or so we’ve had quite a few vintage Christmas items. We’re on track to have our best month ever at The Picker Knows in December, and we’ll be using our funds to make sure we’re well-stocked as Tax Refund Season gets underway at the end of January.
If you are local, or visiting in the Des Moines area, please come see us! We are booth #211 at The Picker Knows, 1208 Grand Ave. in West Des Moines. We’ll be having a “green dot” sale with some very good markdowns, from December 26-31.
More soon,