One Ass Thoroughly Kicked!

Well, so much for good intentions, I guess.

Last week got eaten by the booth.  In a good way, mind you, but it didn't leave any time for anything else.  What I thought would be a two day job turned into three and a half, but it was worth the work.  The place looks great!  The Christmas stuff is gone away to storage until next year, except for a few vintage items, which will stay in the booth.  Vintage Christmas sells year-round, so I like to have a few things out at all times.  It might be the thing that draws someone into the booth.

All the shelves are cleaned and dusted, not to mention totally restocked.  I had good months in November and December, selling lots of holiday items and a bunch of other stuff as well.  Once the holiday stuff was stowed away, the shelves were almost bare!  It was shocking.  Now the booth is probably 3/4 "new" stuff.  I'm already getting deep into my winter stock, which is a good thing.  Stuff is leaving the house and heading to the booth where it should be.

I rearranged my main booth, shifting a table and shelf unit to make better use of my peg board wall.  I shifted all my religious items to my wall space to draw attention to them.  I'm wanting to phase out of glass stuff, or at least cut back on it, so it went on the shelf unit that used to have the religious stuff.

I shifted a couple of small pieces of furniture out to make them more visible.  I've gotten too comfortable using them to display items instead of trying to display them so they'll sell.  Now they're a bit more prominent and don't look like just a part of the booth furniture. 

I bought a couple of new shelf units from another dealer.  They're old store displays and really sturdy.  By shifting thing around in my main and my media booths, I was able to fit them in without making it look cluttered.  In fact, there is actually more floor space in both booths now.

Finally, I created two clearance areas.  In the main booth, when an item was a slow-seller, I would it to a bottom shelf.  This would free up the "prime" real estate for newer items, but still leave the other items accessible.  Every week, one or two things off the bottom shelves would sell, so I think it was worth keeping them around.  Still, those shelves were getting pretty crowded.

I've dedicated one whole shelf unit to clearance now, with items marked down to move out.  A few bottom shelf items got worked back into the regular stock, just to give them another chance.

Last summer, I made a great bulk buy of computer books and Spanish instructional tapes from the school systems adult education department.  They've been steady sellers.  I've made my money back three times over on them.  But despite selling tons of them, there's still a lot left and I'm kind of tired of looking at them.  I made a clearance table for them as well, and they are flying out the door!

It was a lot of work, but a new year calls for a new booth, right?  It jump-started my sales right out of their post-holiday lull, which is a good thing.  Winter weather can wreak havoc with sales, so every little boost I can create is a good one.  They're calling for three inches of snow today.  I'm hoping it won't derail the sales train too badly.

Or at least not as badly as the booth derailed the blog last week.