4 Lessons to share. Flea Market. Other Side Of The Table.
Today (Sunday), I went to the Flea Market in Porto. While it was not my first flea market, it certainly was my first in Portugal.
And until today, I had never been on the other side of the table!
The picture below taken of my first flea market’s stall. None of the goods are mine. I was the lord of sales and ensured safety of the goods, high performance from the sales team, and inspiring the team (and the buyers) from time to time with my energy. (Ok, this is just a joke. I was simply helping out.)
This is the full-team with the 3 ladies, who were the top sales person ever, more or less.
I have 4 lessons to share out of my flea market experience, which can be applied to my everyday life. Hope you will learn something too. #
Lesson 1 #
Patience is golden.
“Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.”― Molière
Anecdote from the flea market experience. We started our “operations” at about 2pm and closed down at 7pm. The price tags were fantastic (in our opinion) with over 75% of goods being of above average quality (some of them were as good as new, especially clothes and definitely, perfumes) and we had a diversified team of sales people (Korean + Indonesians).
Yet, our first hour was painfully slow, with no sales and barely being able to attract customers.
Patience. Your time will come. Be alert and watch out for the opportunities.
Our sales started to pick up after 5.30pm. We sold most goods during the last 90 minutes.
Disclaimer, we still have plenty of clothes to sell :(
Lesson 2 #
It is a flea market for god sake!
People who come by are attracted by a few things. From my observations,
_Cheap.
_Novelty/Out of the Ordinary.
_High Utility.
We sold a painting canvas (100% new) to a couple whose son/daughter needed one. Of all the goods in hand, the painting canvas stood out by being cheap (we sold it well below market price and don’t forget, it is a damn new one), because it stood out, and because it was very useful/purposeful & relevant to somebody else. And yes, it was solving the “needs” of somebody else immediately at a reasonable price.
(I realized that we were overly generous on the painting canvas’ price though).
Therefore, be useful & relevant to other people in your surroundings. That’s how you add a little or a lot of value.
Lesson 3 #
It is not easy to be a sales person.
Now, I can partially understand the pain of sales people in stores, roadshows, etc.
However, my team were mostly reactive rather than being proactive (or aggressive).
These are some reasons why,
- We are not depending on the sales to put food on the table.
- We didn’t care much about making money but cared about going back home with less goods.
- We are in another country and therefore, follow how other sellers were doing.
We are different by being ourselves.
Lesson 4 #
This is built upon the previous point. Cultural difference matters as well in sales - determine whether it is good to make the first step to approach potential clients or to wait…
Flea market is a casual & relax opportunity to get rid of some old belongings and to make some money at the same time.
Being proactive does not really help, and might be “scary” or culturally/socially not accepted.
It can be annoying. If it annoys me, I should definitely not do it.
Golden Rule: One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.
Our prices were so low that people did’t bother to bargain. As a reminder, I should experiment with higher prices, if I ever have another try at the flea market in Porto.
On this note, if you wish to “have less things”, it might be time to embrace minimalism