Selling at Flea Markets: 7 Steps to Achieve Success
Selling at flea markets is a good way to earn part or full-time income because you don’t need a lot of money to start one. Also, flea markets are mostly held only on weekends.This allows you, the aspiring entrepreneur to still have regular jobs on weekdays and sell at flea markets on weekends or whenever you have free days.
Selling at flea markets might not need a lot of money to start and have a low barrier to entry, but don’t underestimate the knowledge, planning and effort needed to make it a successful business.
Here are a few steps to achieve success in selling at flea markets:
Note: These information were based from my years of regularly visiting flea markets as well as befriending some sellers. Some information were also derived from website articles devoted to flea market selling.
7 Steps to Achieve Success Selling at Flea Markets:
1. Know What to Sell2. Know the Flea Market Business
3. Get the Proper Legal Documents
4. Marketing Your Flea Market Selling Business
5. Setup Your Payments Processing
6. Setup Your Financial Accounts
7. Avoid Making These Mistakes
Final Words
The Details:
1. Know What to Sell
The products being sold at flea markets have changed over the years. It used to be that the products being sold at flea markets are only cheap used items like small toys, trinkets, small furniture or anything that can be priced from a few cents to a few dollars.
Today, there are flea market vendors that sell toilet paper in bulk, dishwashing liquid, excess factory inventories, and so on. There are even vendors who sell pricey collectables, art and so on.
Therefore, unless you are just selling at flea markets for the pure fun of it, treat selling at flea markets just like a business and sell only products that actually sell.
You might have to spend time scouting flea markets to see what products are selling and who are buying them.
Don’t be too excited in selling. Learn the business first to maximize your chances of success in the business. Remember, you would need to spend some money and a lot of your weekend time pursuing this business. It would be foolish to let your money and time go to waste.
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2. Know the Flea Market Business
Besides knowing what products to sell and who are buying them, you should also know more about your flea market business:
2.1 How Much and Where to Get Capital:
This is the first thing you have to study. Selling at flea markets is not an expensive business to start, but, if you’re already financially struggling, you might be better off finding a part-time weekend job that requires no capital to begin with.
You can also solicit funding, but it would be hard to raise funding if you are unable to convince your investors or lenders that you would make profit from selling at flea markets. Persuading investors or lenders to fund your business is an altogether different selling skill.
2.2 Who are Your Competitors?:
Can you make a profit despite the presence of competitors? Do your competitors for example, have better products or have cheaper prices? You have to overcome these if you want to have a chance at success in selling at flea markets.
2.3 Pricing:
As already stated before, pricing is an important factor in your success, besides attractively pricing your products to attract customers, you should also consider if you would make money from your pricing.
You and your competitors might race to the bottom by lowering your prices continuously to beat each other. But at the end of the day, you would have to consider if the product you are selling is worth selling at all based on your profit from it.
2.4 Location:
Do not underestimate the importance of location. There are flea markets that attract more foot traffic than others depending on the location. There are even flea markets that are best for selling particular products.
2.5 Booth Placement and Security:
Just like flea market location, the location of your booth is also important. There are booth locations that attract more foot traffic than others.
Another thing you need to consider is security. With the rise of organized retail theft, your booth should be safe from such crimes.
2.6 Starting Small:
It is advised that you start out small before going all out despite your excitement. Starting out small minimizes your financial risk and also the mistakes and problems you would likely have.
It might even be possible that you’ll realize right at the onset that selling at flea markets is not the right thing for you. Starting out small enables you to test the waters first.
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3. Get the Proper Legal Documents
Many flea markets are so small that at most, all you need is a permit to sell from the flea market owner in exchange for a monthly rental fee.
There are also flea markets that are operated by the local governments. At most, all you need is a permit to sell and pay sales taxes and you are already allowed to sell at the flea market.
Depending on your city, state or country, you might also need to apply for a business license before you can sell at flea markets.
Depending on your business setup, you can either apply as a sole proprietor, partnership, company and so on.
Your business setup would become very important when you scale up your flea market selling business. This includes hiring an employee or more employees, splitting up profits, adding more locations, and so on.
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4. Marketing Your Flea Market Selling Business
Just like all business, your flea market selling business can benefit a lot from marketing. But don’t worry, you don’t have to spend a lot of money just to market your flea market selling business.
Nowadays, a lot of people use social media for free marketing. But before you spend a lot of time posting your marketing content to as many social media platforms as you can, study your products as well as your flea market location and booth first.
Does a particular social media platform fit best your flea market selling business? For example, Facebook has a marketplace, Instagram is good with image content, YouTube is good with videos. Which one of these social media platforms are best suited for your marketing format?
You might even consider creating your own website and/or e-commerce site and decide that you are better off selling only online. Perhaps, you might want to keep both your flea market booth and e-commerce store at the same time. You can even e-mail prospective clients.
You can even sell at popular e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy and so on. Many sellers are even selling full-time using these e-commerce platforms and have no physical store whatsoever.
To kill two birds with one stone, you might sell online while at your flea market booth. This greatly reduces your downtime during sales.
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5. Setup Your Payments Processing
Cash would never become obsolete no matter what futurists say. Afterall, one of the major capitals needed for funding digital transactions is actual cash money.
Keep a large amount of change money in small denominations so you could always transact in cash. You can change large denomination money into small denominations at banks.
However, more and more consumers are using debit, credit, and other types of plastic cards to pay for their purchases. You must also accommodate these plastic card paying consumers to increase your sales.
Nowadays, finance technology have progressed so much that all you need is a smartphone with an attached plastic card swiper to accept plastic card transactions.
There are even technologies that eliminate plastic card swiper technology altogether. Smartphones these days can accept payment transactions using virtual barcodes and apps.
However, do keep in mind that you would have to pay for transaction fees which could be a flat fee and/or a fixed percentage of the sales transaction.
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6. Setup Your Financial Accounts
To fully monitor and control your finances, you should separate your personal and business financial accounts. You should have separate bank accounts for both your personal and business use.
You should also use finance softwares and apps to record your transactions. Many of these softwares and apps are affordable or are usable using the freemium model.
But don’t think you need to go high tech all the time. Even simple technologies like a plain calculator as well as pen and paper ledger would do just nicely.
Don’t think that just because you deal with small profits from your flea market selling business, you don’t need to record your financial transactions. A good business can greatly benefit from good finances recording.
A good inventory and sales list would tell you which products are selling and not. This enables you to improve your product offerings.
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7. Avoid Making These Mistakes
7.1 Not Adapting to Changing Flea Market Selling Business Trends:Not all flea market products sell all the time. Some are cyclical and some are but just passing fads. You should be aware which products are these.
But mostly, its the flea market product staples that continue to sell at flea markets year in year out. These are: small items, jewelry, holiday decor, vintage items, small furniture and toys.
Even where to acquire these products takes some studying. Many initially sell products from their homes or thrift stores, before expanding to garage and estate sales.
Some even buy from online discount e-commerce platforms such as Facebook Marketplace and eBay. Some even sell items they find at curbsides and even at garbage bins.
Knowing which products are bought and discarded would give you a good insight of what products to sell and at what price.
7.2 Giving Up Too Soon:
It takes time to become an established flea market seller making decent sales. It takes learning and experience. Giving up too soon even before you’ve mastered the selling at flea markets business would be a waste of your valuable time and money.
7.3 Not Being Prepared Enough:
Flea market selling is not only about putting your products in your flea market booth and then waiting for customers. You also need to:
Check if your rental booth comes with display tables and other accessories. Besides display tables, you would also need pop-up shelter in case it rains. You also need chairs, table covers and extension cords.
Other items you would surely need are bug spray, business cards, cords, calculator, first aid, food & water, hand sanitizers, large mirror (if you’re selling clothes and other accessories like jewelry)…
… You also need: pad/notebook, paper towels, pens, price stickers, safety pins, scissors, shopping bags (for customer purchases), sunscreen, tags, tape, wet wipes, and so on.
7.4 Not Being Customer Friendly
Nothing loses a sale more than an indifferent or even a hostile salesperson. You should keep in mind that you’re selling at a flea market to earn money and not to pass the time.
Stop passing the time by for example, playing games in your smartphone. Try to attract as much customers as you can every chance you get.
A warm greeting or small talk can turn an indifferent buyer into a paying customer. Even a smile can turn into a sale.
You could also arrive early at least an hour or two before the flea market is officially scheduled to start. Many flea market shoppers like to browse early and by being open early, you show that you are looking after your customers.
Put a price label to as many of your products as you can. Many flea market shoppers are price sensitive but don’t like to haggle, most likely they would buy your product if the price label they see agrees with their budget.
Shoppers would also like to see your full product selection for a specific item, so you should group similar items together.
Nothing turns off shoppers more than merchandize clutter. Besides, they are not likely to sift through your clutter in the hopes of finding the product they want. They’ll more than likely skip to the next booth instead.
7.5 Not Trying to Stand Out
Remember, the product theme of most flea market products is all about small products at cheap prices. This is the reason why shoppers go to flea markets.
If you don’t make your flea market booth or stall stand out from the rest of the other booths and stalls, shoppers would most likely be indifferent to you and your products.
In essence, you need a gimmick or a differentiating factor, which is what every successful business has.
You can use eye-catching and colorful signs, designs and advertisements to make shoppers notice your booth or stall. Remember, flea market sales are usually small so each customer sale counts. Attract as many shoppers as you can to earn more.
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Final Words
Selling at flea markets can be profitable either as a part or full-time income, but you really need to treat it as a real business in order for you to have a chance at success.
You need to know the right products to sell, know the flea market business, prepare the necessary legal documents, do effective marketing, setup you payment and account finances and avoid the common mistakes of selling at flea markets.
Selling at flea markets is not an expensive business to start and has a low barrier to entry, so there is a strong possibility that you would have a lot of competitors who are also selling similar flea market products just like yours.
But remember, your main intention for selling at flea markets is to make profit and not to pass the time. You should make it a priority to be as friendly as possible to your customers to attract sales.
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How to Make Money as a Flea Market Vendor
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