I've had lots of people ask how we manage to have so much great stuff at such low prices. Answer: this is a true "small home-based business".
I spend a couple days each week hunting for items to add to the inventory. I find items at yard sales, estate sales, and thrift stores. I keep a log of which stores have sales on which days, and I research upcoming yard/estate sales to plan out a schedule to visit as many as possible in a given day. At least one weekend day (weekends? what are those?) per week is spent at an auction. The rest of my time is spent photographing & adding the items to inventory or creating descriptions and adding them to the website. I also spend a few hours each day on social media - Facebook and Pinterest take up most of the time, with an occasional tweet on Twitter. One thing I've learned from starting this business is that I work much harder for myself than I ever did working for "the man" in corporate America. A standard work day can be anywhere from 10 - 12 hours, sometimes more...and the work week is pretty much 7 days. Occasionally, I will take a day off to recharge. There are plenty of days where I wonder "What the heck was I thinking? I'm struggling to make ends meet! I had steady income and set hours when I was working for corporate America. I must be crazy." But then I remember how much more fun I have doing this than I ever did working for someone else. I love the challenge of finding that cool vintage or antique piece that a customer has been looking for "forever", or the excitement of picking up an item that I've never seen before and discovering it is a popular collectible. It makes the hard work and struggle worth it. So the next time you visit the site and see all the fantastic stuff/fantastic prices, remember that the result is due to lots of hard (but fun) work. And buy that piece you've been looking at every day. You know you want to.
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AuthorPriscilla, Queen of the Kitsch. I'm a true southern belle.
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