"Man" Over "Machine"

Not literally, of course. 

It was something my partner, Jeannie, said. We were planning--executing, actually--a "sip 'n' shop" event last month, when, at the eleventh hour, we realized we didn't have the wine! 

I asked her if I should run over to BevMo! for a couple of cases of red and white. I also threw out such merchants as Trader Joe's, Costco and Sam's Club. 

That's when she said it. She said, "I thought I'd stop into Fox Liquor right near our office/store, and ask Albert  what he can do for us. I practically slapped the palm of my hand to my forehead. Of course!

That's the problem for small business owners. People just don't think about them...er, us. I am happy to say that Albert gave us a good deal. And a good time was had by all :)

Marketing Research We Did Without Even Trying!

 

 

 

In the three years that we had our "big" store, The Living Room Emporium, we got to know a lot of customers. In the process of getting acquainted, we would, naturally, ask how they found us. 

There's your marketing research.

Here were some of their most common responses:

"I was driving up here from Los Angeles and just googled ________."

(the blank was either "vintage" or "antiques" or "furniture" usually.)

"We saw your billboard and it told us to turn on Camp Plenty."

"My neighbor told me about you."

There were more, I'm sure, but the most interesting response was: 

"I saw it in that magazine."

Okay, that's not the interesting part. The funny thing is, when you asked the new customer which magazine, he/she had no idea. Wow. That really made us sit up and take notice. All of a sudden, it seemed as though, no matter which magazine carried our ads, people saw them.

But there were a couple of more important points that registered with us: 

We learned that "our" magazines were working, because our ads only appeared in the Santa Clarita Gazette, Canyon Country Magazine, Santa Clarita Living Magazine and Santa Clarita Women.

We also learned that when advertisers try to track the response they're getting from their ads (if they are in multiple sources), it's faulty research, because customers can't necessarily give you an accurate answer as to where they found you!

Well, we knew we were becoming more expert in our understanding of the vintage market, how to merchandise and decorate a store, gaining business savvy ... but we didn't know we - Jeannie Sutton & Martha Michael - were also becoming marketing experts!  

 

The Apron of Yesteryear

The History of "APRONS"

 

I read this in an email sent to me by my cousin, and it reminded me how much I enjoy retro aprons...   I don't think our kids know what an apron is. The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few and because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons required less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.  From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the autumn, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner. It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that "old-time apron" that served so many purposes.

 

Is a Storefront a Thing of the Past?

We had a store until about a month ago. Well, we still do...kind of. (This post will also explain why we haven't posted in a reeeeaaalllly long time.) The Living Room Emporium, while a mere 700+ square feet, was pretty much a regular storefront. We had minimal hours, weren't open weekends, for instance, so we were never that conventional. What we found over the three years since we opened was that the storefront was, by far, the smallest part of our business. And getting smaller. So, what we did was what a good portion of our customers are constantly in the process of doing: downsizing. We now have a mini version of our store in our office space next door to (what used to be) our shop. Oh, The Living Room Emporium is alive and well. And not paying rent now:) We are open when we are at the office working at our magazine business, which is most weekdays. And we are always selling off our vast quantity of merchandise online. Why did we do something so drastic, you ask? We found we just didn't need it. Besides, not only were our customers going online to find things they wanted to buy, but many of our consigners started to sell things themselves...they didn't need us anymore. It's been an interesting transition, and it causes me to pause in thought: what is the future for physical brick-and-mortar stores?

What is an Estate Sale?

There are differing opinions on the definition of "estate sale." Sure, there's the standard operating procedure we've seen for decades...a couple of perky, energetic grandmas looking like they just walked out of a Chico's catalog swoop into the closets and attics of the recently deceased, analyzing and appraising the family's treasures. Then they spread the goods on well traveled portable tables set up on the homestead, publicize the sale, and devote the better part of a weekend (or two) to man their stations while hoards of dickering, bartering, bargaining members of the public wade through the family heirlooms. But what if an estate sale doesn't look exactly like that? What if you don't have two grandmothers who run the event? Or what if the homestead isn't a good place for the sale? What if the family doesn't want to share in the profits, or have strangers in the house, so they make different arrangements to sell things -- perhaps on a different time frame or at a different venue? If the heirlooms are being sold, is it not still an estate sale? My partner, Jeannie, and I had such an experience lately, when we held an estate sale to thin out our bulging inventory. But it didn't look exactly like the stereotypical one described above. There have been local friends and acquaintances who have commissioned our help in liquidating their grandparents'/mother-in-law's/father's estates, and in every case, there was no option to hold a sale on the home premises of the deceased. Therefore, the items were transported to us and, in some cases, we actually went to retrieve the treasures ourselves. Some of those items placed in our care included a 1940s vacuum, several pristine dresses and coats from the '50s and '60s...lamps, collectibles, and lots of dishes, silver and flatware...antique appliances and vintage hats in yummy hatboxes. When we hold a sale with these items, can it not be termed an "estate sale"? We held a sale, combining those items and others from our store, The Living Room Emporium, and got some flack from a few shoppers who wanted it to be all from the same person. They didn't seem too thrilled that it meant we had a bigger variety than the "stuff" from one house. They felt that it should be one man's/woman's/family's wardrobe, toys and handiwork. If it wasn't, then we shouldn't call it an estate sale, apparently. All I can say is...I've seen far less accurate versions of a true estate sale. Besides, if you can't predict what you'll find at the sale, isn't that the fun part anyway?

Show and Tell

Many things in life are more fun when you share them. To some people, a trip to Europe would be dull without a travel partner...others might never go to the movies by themselves, because it's as much an opportunity to socialize as it is to experience a film. Likewise, a lot of re-sale shoppers cannot wait to tell other friends (who have the same fetish) about the amazing deals they found. There really isn't any point to buy a table and chairs at rock-bottom prices unless you can brag about how little you paid for it. Or if you found that rare piece of depression glass you've searched for over the last decade, you usually tell anyone who cares. The most common story these days (I suspect as a result of the economy and the growing numbers of garage sales and the like) involves the purchase of big, semi-valuable articles/furniture/clothing/collectibles/gems that someone picked up for, oh...about 25 cents. Seriously. The question that always crops up for me is, "Why would you go to the trouble of having a garage sale when you're only going to get a quarter for each of your items?" Anyway, just today I had one customer tell me that she bought an outdoor fountain for a quarter. And another one tell me she bought two vintage coats for under $10 and a pair of shoes for $1.50. Bargain hunters love to tell their war stories...and we correspondents love to pass them on.

Timing is Everything

When you are dealing, or even just shopping, in an industry of one-of-a-kind merchandise, you have to strike while the iron's hot. And it helps to know what is worth striking. If you've been out of the antiques/collectibles business for awhile, it may take you some time to figure out what sells, what's still a valued collectible. If it's been a decade, then you may not know that you can no longer "just paint it white" and see it sell in a flash. If it's been two decades, then you may be crushed to find out that your 12 bags of Beanie Babies won't finance one bag of groceries. It is most interesting to see the effect of timing on the purchase and sale of things. For instance, there may be an unusual wall decoration that you don't pick up when you first see it, and when you return it's gone. Over the last couple of weeks we had several "comedy of errors" moments like that. There was a customer who came in wanting to find a stained glass sun catcher. We only had a few at the store, but a box of them in our garage. The box finally made it to the store, but the customer never did. Then there was the woman who wanted two matching dining chairs. Again, we have quite a few chairs, but needed to bring some from home. The woman stopped in twice before we had the chairs onsite. And there was our customer who wanted a set of mason jars for decoration at her son's wedding. I told her I would find them, snap pix of them, email those to her and bring them into the store. The next day I did that, but she had already left town for the wedding by the time she got my email. While there are more of those experiences than I can list, it makes it all the more exciting when a connection occurs. Sometimes a resident will stop in our shop on the eve of parting with some collectibles, either by burdening a relative who doesn't want them, just tossing them, or having a sale of their own. These visits are often serendipitous, because the bearer of the treasures benefits and so do our customers. We all get to enjoy the one-of-kind collectibles. That's the type of connection where the timing is just right.