Remember the budding paperwhites: look at us NOW!!!
Note: It's about -40C today with the windchill, but sure looks like spring in here. I don't know how my poor truck started in that obscene cold this morning, but it did. AND the heater worked!
Meanwhile, back at the market, there was one lady very pleased to have finally tracked me down. A while ago, she'd bought some very distinctive earrings from a store which suddenly went out of business (wow, was I surprised!) and for a year and a half she's been looking for me. Told me she was talking about the earrings to a friend just the other day and now she's found me again. Bought another pair of the same style of earrings, took my card this time and promised to be back.
In between lots of customers and pals stopping by to chat, I made these four chokers and an adjustable bracelet, all which are currently out on approval:
This particular customer has very specific likes and dislikes, and the easiest way to make things he will like is to as much as possible narrow down a selection of beads he does like out of all the new ones I get in and then riff on various combinations thereof. He didn't like any of the multiple skull designs I made last week, so this week I used only one skull.
Something else is coming up: another big move for me at the One of a Kind Antique Mall. You know the tired old mantra, "location, location, location"? Of course you do -- and like all cliches it sucks that it's so true. When I first started selling at the Antique Mall, my showcase was right up by the front door and sales were pleasantly steady. In a long overdue expansion from one to three computerised cash stations, I was turfed out to make way for a wrapping station, and ended up just a few feet around the corner lost amongst at least a dozen other showcases -- and where my sales have tanked bigtime.
May 1st, though, I will be in this shiny white showcase right next to the cash desk. Yes, when the place is particularly busy on weekends people will be lining up right in front of and blocking the showcase to anyone walking by, but every single customer in that store will be standing in line there for a few seconds to one, two, five, ten, maybe even fifteen minutes with nothing better to do than to look at Nancy's and my jewellery, collectible beads, antiques and junque.
Every. Single. Customer. Talk about location. Same vendor number: 800. Nancy's is 847.
I'm standing to take this picture just inside the front door of the mall right where my old showcase used to be.
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| To the right of and just past that guy walking down the aisle is Booth 800/847, which is mine and Nancy's. |
John and Jack, the two owners of the Antique Mall.
Dapper Jack behind my new showcase, 800.
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| (No, the rifle is a reproduction) |
Thanks for looking!
4 comments:
Glad to hear you're getting a front showcase back. That must have hurt to lose it. And what a nice feeling to have a customer look for you and find you. Congrats!
Thanks, Joanne, Yes, it's going to be great to be up at the front again. Making/taking apart a necklace with your faceted 6mm Indian agate beads at the moment. I'll send you a picture when I finally get it looking right. Are you going to have a "customers' creations" page on your new website???
I still haven't figured out what to do with the blog, which is where I had my customer creations. My new site has very basic blog functionality, so I may be abandoning the blog. I could create a section on my store with pages of customer creations. Still so much work to do with little idea how to do it.
Do you have a Pinterest or FB page where you could post their pix? If nothing else, existing customers would see what other people have bought and how they're using them and that should spur more buying. I get a lot of traffic here coming from Pinterest in particular.
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