A Bit Under The Weather, We Are!

Well, I missed posting something new yesterday...Joanne's been sick for a few days with a horrible cold that she's caught from who knows where...everyone's got it or had it or got it again! And she spent Friday night on the recliner sofa and we both spend the day in our jammies there yesterday! Literally slept the day away.

I am on the bridge of getting sick. I can feel something in my chest and throat and there's some coughing and a thick sense of exhaustion. So, we both fell asleep on the recliners last night with the TV on. Today, Joanne feels she's over the hump of this plague-like disease and I'm just moving a bit slower than usual.

Our plan yesterday was to head out and look for a curio cabinet. We are in desperate need of one and we thought there might be one at the co-op to purchase with a lock and an alarm already and I'd have to move it all of about 2 feet to my space, but alas, the dealer wasn't interested in selling.

So, we have to put our plans off a week or so...I may be at an auction working next week, so that puts us in a pinch...but, we'll see what happens.

Till next post...I leave you with a few shots of our space as it is now...any suggestions?

Browsing

Thought I'd take you for a bit of window shopping at my co-op.

I Think We've Branded Ourselves

As a freelance writer, I've had the opportunity to work with some organizations that have branded themselves and their products. After taking a marketing class elective in college (I was an art major) and learned a few things about being consistent with your business message and I've tried to focus on that for our own business, albeit however small.

When starting out with our reselling, we put our stuff on line using Etsy, a site that sells only handmade, vintage or crafts and art supplies. The costs for doing this are much, much less than Ebay and are more economical for a small seller like us.

We purchased a banner graphic (via an Etsy seller) for our Etsy Shop and Facebook page and took some time in picking out the font and design. Something simple and to the point without a lot of flash.

Although we've not done business cards, we'll be sure to use this as our design.

We also use string tags for all our merchandise wherever possible. On the back we were printing "Rozenjoze Serious Junk" and then putting the item description and price on the front with our booth ID. I was cutting some pieces of decorative card stock and pasting them onto the tags to jazz things up.

To make things go a bit faster, I found some reasonably priced stamps and inks to fancy them all out. And to really make it all professional, we purchased a self-inking stamp with our name and this blog address. We want people to see that we're all about honesty, integrity and good info about collectibles and antiques. We also want to stand out and think this helps us do just that.

Organization and Double-Duty

I'm still working on the direction of this blog, but think one way to go is some helpful hints on how to resell, what works for me and maybe start some dialog, so I can learn from my readers.

When I was laid off this past fall of 2011, it was just natural for me to want to push a bit harder to find a space to sell our wares. I was home, we had easy access to buying, I had the time to work on gathering, cleaning up and pricing inventory. With this time off, came the ability to scope out a few places, see what they charged, what the traffic was like at various antique malls.

Once we were in full swing, I needed some supplies and a plain cardboard box wasn't going to work for me. I needed a tool box! So, off I went one day to the big box store that we have nearby and scoped out what they had in the way of carry-alls for my supplies.

Establishing that I'd take this to and from the co-op, I thought I'd need something with a tray to lift in and out for hooks and brackets, scissors, and such. It also couldn't be super heavy, so I could manage moving out of the house, into the car, out of the car, into the co-op and getting through the narrow hallways of "stuff" to my space without much trouble and then back again.

I got this (the cat was already here):

It's a stackable box with legs and doubles as a step stool! I love anything with a double duty! Made of heavy duty plastic, it has a nice, sturdy handle and is light enough even with my things inside, that I won't necessarily be awkward with it as I carry it to and fro.

A half tray for all the small stuff leaves enough room for all the other essentials, such as our magnifying glass, sticky and string tags, our stamp, tin with business cards of others, measuring tools, a small divided box holding paper clips, tacks, a pen all in one place, hook and loop tape, sticky stuff for hanging things, scotch tape, etc.

Itching to Thrift

***This AWESOME Photo is from DuPagemamas.com - a thrifting blogOk, it's been a few days since I was in a thrift store, but I'm itching to go again. Actually, Joanne and I have been searching for a curio cabinet and we ran into one in Bethlehem, PA the other day for a quick look-see. Nothing.So, I'm thinking I may take a ride and see what I can find. There's a used furniture store in Allentown and a few thrift shops in Quakertown where our Co-op space is...so I may start there and work my way upwards to the Lehigh Valley. Or I could work on down to Souderton to the Care & Share, where there furniture is a bit pricey, but they also have a great thrift shop. What are you searching for these days...? Now that the holidays are over, I'm thinking there may be some clean out in the next few weeks as people settle in with their Christmas presents and start donating. Whatcha think?

Possibilities and Goals

This year is filled with possibilities for us. As I search for a full-time job with benefits, I'm working at the antiques and collectibles. Joanne is working on staying healthy, both physically and emotionally. With metastatic breast cancer & atrial fibrillation, her mental ups and downs can be difficult and play on both of us. We hope to rise above them, so here are some of our goals for our business: 1. Being more organized - making sure our inventory is ready to be priced and easily accessible for updating our space.

2. Using our time wisely - we tend to (okay, more me than her) be a bit fragmented. So, trying to stay on task can be a challenge. This goes with all tasks such as our shopping/thrifting, chores at home, etc. 3. Staying atop of the paperwork - sales taxes, income taxes, income and expense reports, inventory calculations, records of mileage, etc...it's all boring stuff, but it's really important to be sure we're making money or at the very least, breaking even.

4. Being more adventurous in our purchases - we tend to stick with lower purchase prices for fear of making mistakes. It just might be time to make those larger, more expensive purchases. Biting the bullet and spending more may be just the boost our sales could use. 5. Possibly expand our space. We don't want to move quite so fast, but our small area does limit us on what we can sell. Right now, we'll work on getting a curio cabinet to lock the smaller, easier things to swipe, but our idea is to not stay in this teensy place, but to expand and offer our customers some of the great items we have to pass up because of our space limitations.

Something you want to say? Good, bad or otherwise, leave a comment or email us at rozenjoze@verizon.net with BLOG in the subject line.

New Year...New Challenge

Happy New Year ... Welcome to 2012! What's happened to the time as I've gotten older? Seems like the days, weeks, months and years fly by in the blink of an eye!

Well, hopefully this year will be better for everyone. A friend of mine says it's the Year of the Dragon; full of health, wealth and the roaring joy of living! I sure hope so and we are working hard to make it prosperous!

We are still selling out of our space at the East Broad Antiques in Quakertown and December was a learning experience. We made our rent and some profit, but experienced some loss in the manner of shoplifting. It's rough. Nearly $40 of merchandise lifted!

Currently, we are in the process of seeking out a curio cabinet, but it has to be quite specific to our space...no more than about 14 inches deep, 25 inches wide and squared off, not angled sides. The cabinets have to be locked and alarmed.

So, this has been a challenge to find one that's reasonably priced within these parameters.I have faith we'll find something soon, but keeping my fingers crossed that we don't lose anymore items from the space.

With the new year, we are committed to more posts here about our searches for vintage treasures and if there's something you're looking for, interested in and want to know more, just ask us and we'll see what we can do to get what you need!