Shopping Where You Sell

If you are reading this on Saturday, I am either setting up for the sidewalk sale, working the sidewalk sale or tearing down after the sidewalk sale, depending on what time of day you see this.  If you are reading this on some other day, well, who knows what I'm doing?  Either way, I can guarantee you one thing:  I took some time away from my table to peruse the other sellers' wares and, most likely, bought a couple of things.

Since I'm giving up a Saturday of yard sales for this sale, I need to get my fix somewhere.  Besides, you never can tell where the bargains are going to come from.  For me, being the kind of junker that I am means that I am always on the look out for stuff.  I've learned that it pops up where and when you least expect it.

Which is why every booth work day is also a shopping (or at least browsing) day.  There are about a half dozen or so booths that I check out every time I'm in the store.  These are booths that pretty consistently have good stuff at prices that leave me a lot of room to play with in terms of making a little for myself.  Sometimes, I even find a treasure to keep.

I also almost always end up doing a bit of shopping when I am walking the aisles looking for my items that may have been left in another booth by a customer.  I try to do that once or twice a month.  Usually, I have better luck finding my misplaced stuff when I'm trying to get somewhere specific, like the bathroom and am not actually looking for them.  You'd be surprised what you can find out of the corner of your eye  when you're just passing by something.

Of course, I always make a point to hit the store booth, which contains items from the unmarked rooms, plus things from vendors who have been evicted or left owing money.  The store will hold their stuff for 30 days to give the vendor a chance to pay their bill, then they'll sell it to cover the back rent.  They pretty much always mark it down.

It's a two way street.  There are also vendors who shop my space pretty regularly, on their own hunt for bargains.  I've honestly never been one to make a big deal about someone buying something off me and then flipping it for more money, even if it's a lot more.  If I underprice something and someone else makes a killing off it, that's on me and no one else.  I know vendors who will pitch fits when this happens, hollering that they've been ripped off.  At the end of the day, if you got the price you put on the item, then no one ripped anyone off.  What someone else does with something they buy from me really isn't (or at least shouldn't be) my concern.

Since some malls actually have vendors who are also shoplifters, I try to keep myself well covered when I shop other booths.  I wait a day or two before repricing things, so that other vendors can see them on their reports.  I also put them immediately in my storage space in a bag with the receipt in the bag.  After I price and place the item, I'll file the receipts with my records.  (Record-keeping is a post for another day!)

 There are plenty of months during the year when they're aren't any yard sales happening.  You still need to keep your stock up and fresh, so you need all the extra sources you can find.  Your own mall can be one of those places, although I would imagine it's a little easier in a flea market type mall, rather than an antique mall.

Do you shop your own mall?