My mom and I share a flea market booth at Do Drop In in Beebe, Arkansas. We use this booth to sell items that we win in auction lots that aren’t antique. Sometimes during auctions we have to buy a lot of items to get one awesome item, so a flea market booth is perfect for those extras.
Here is a Google Maps photo of Do Drop In that’s a little out of date, but you get the idea of what kind of shop this is. It’s an old building with railroad tracks right across the street, so the whole building is filled with the sound of clanking glass every time a train goes by.
Mom and I try to go to Do Drop In on Sunday afternoons to take more inventory and “fluff” our booth. Most customers are amazed at how much stuff we pack in there. We share the largest booth in the building and we make sure we use every square inch of it. Our thoughts are that we can’t sell items if they’re not at the booth, so we pack it full! I’ll try to remember to take my camera next Sunday so I can show a photo of what neatniks call a mess. 🙂
We’ve had antique/flea market booths for around 8 years now and have been fortunate that this hasn’t happened sooner. Mom took a large skillet to the booth last weekend and had it priced $14.99. When we got to the booth yesterday, Mom noticed it was missing, yet found its price tag crumpled up in the floor. After checking our tickets, she figured out what happened: A customer switched the price tag with a tag from a skillet that was priced $6.99. This was a first for us because customers typically just steal what they want. I guess the skillet was too big to steal so they did the next best thing to get it cheap.
We are also used to occassional breakage because our booth is so packed, but this time we found 4 items broken. As my mom threw the breakage away, she mentioned it to the lady at the cash register. The lady informed her that a SQUIRREL got in the building!! The owner of the shop offered to pay for the items, but we didn’t take the payment because it’s really not his fault. Although I do wish I would have asked HOW the silly thing got in there in the first place — and how they caught it! Never a boring week in the junk business!