Reply To: Selling in an Antique Mall – My Journey

[Laura Lynn]

I live in Central Kentucky, near Lexington.  This area has many “Vintage & Antique” malls.  Heck, in this town of only 28,000 people we have 5 or 6 of them.  So how did I choose which mall to have my booth with?

I enjoy visiting the antique malls in our town and neighboring towns as a shopper.  I pay attention to the atmosphere and the lighting when I visit.

One thing that was a concern for me was that if the booth was large, I’d never be able to fill it and have it look good.

When I visited one mall in particular, I noticed that they had many spaces as shelf space in addition to large booth space.

In addition to that, I really liked how bright the store was.  It has a west/south facing store front that has many windows.  (So many of these stores are very dark looking) I asked about pricing.

For shelf space the store I am in charges a monthly fee of $45, plus 10% of any sales of my items.

The shelf space is 4 feet long.  I have up to 4 shelves.  They are a little over 1 foot deep.

I was told there was a wait list… about 50 people in front of me.  I signed up and waited.

You may have the same question for me that my boyfriend had:

WHY do you want to sell in an antique mall when you already sell all the bears you make on your website?

This is my answer… To keep myself from going crazy!

When you work from home all day long it can get pretty lonely.  I love working by myself, but even I get a little nuts from being by myself all of the time.

Add in the fact that there are 2 days a week that my boyfriend plays tennis after work (so he’s gone from 6am until 9:30pm) and that is a LOT of alone time!

Knowing that I can “go to work” for a little while, visit with the owner and other vendors as I spruce up my booth does wonders for my mental health!

I try to arrange to go in on one of the days that my boyfriend has tennis to break up that long day.