A Bazaar Way to Earn Holiday Cash
My 2 daughters, after producing between them 5 beautiful grandchildren, decided there was no room in their homes for the baby furniture, car seats, tiny shoes hardly worn, elfin-sized clothing and all the other paraphernalia that goes with the arrival of children. They also decided that the only place everything could be stored conveniently (for them), was my house.
After stumbling over these items for over 12 months, moving them to clean house, shifting them from here to there to gain access to my closets, it was time for action. And then I saw the sign - Baby Bazaar - "sell your unwanted furniture and clothing - birth to 6 years old" it said. The answer to my prayers - I made the arrangements and at 6am one Saturday morning, my husband loaded everything into our trailer and set me up at the Bazaar. In true entrepreneurial style, I had priced everything (after much research), made impressive signs, created a display stand and even remembered to bring lots of small change for the large bills I was undoubtedly going to be changing, as my goods were snapped up by eager buyers. Then I saw the professional baby bazaar Moms.
Within 5 minutes I knew I was totally outclassed, so I sat opposite them for the next 4 hours, watching in fascination as these two young women beat the retailing crap out of me. This was a slick operation. They unpacked three times as much stuff as I had, and had it all set up in 10 minutes, including 2 large and complicated prams, dozens of toys, not new but in excellent condition, and still in their original boxes, 2 cribs complete with mattress, sheets and those darling quilts with bears all over them. Get this people - they had an electronic cash register! A cash register! And a power pack to run it. And clothes - all kinds of babies and childrens clothing. Shoes - boxes of them. If all these shoes belonged to their children, they must have given birth to centipedes.
I finally had to ask - and what I found out astounded me. These young women were both stay-at-home Moms who needed to supplement the family income. They resourced the baby items from a range of places - garage sales, flea markets, friends and acquaintances, word-of-mouth, ads in the local paper etc. They knew their market, so they bought low, and sometimes traded to get the items. Then they readied them for sale - washing, mending, repairing, painting, packaging, pricing. In our area, so they told me, there are at least 6 baby bazaars, fetes, markets or other public selling events, each month. The events are mostly run by school, church or charity organisations, so the cost of the tables is fairly low. Apart from this, and the purchase of the cash register (which they saw as a long-term investment), there was very little overhead.
Their goal was to earn enough money every year for a family holiday at a beach resort, and to cover the cost of replacing their children's clothes. For the past three years, they had achieved that, taking a huge load off their husband's shoulders, and relieving the pressure on the family budget. It worked for them because the one thing they had spare was their time, so they turned this into extra income.
So if you have spare time, initiative and the ability to talk to people, this could be for you. Isn't free enterprise wonderful!
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