This is part 23 of our series: 31 DAYS of Setting Up Shop! You can find the entire list of days, in order, on our Setting Up Shop Index Page. I'll add each new entry to this list as it is published.
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{how much to bring}
The question of how much to bring is a difficult to one to answer.
So my answer is always the same: More.
I have a particular vision for the shop, as I know you probably do for your booth or store, so my first goal is to make enough to fill that space. The problem is, you can always add more. A crowded table looks much much better than a sparse one. The last thing you want your customer to think is that they have seen everything you have to offer, just by walking by.
On the contrary, you want your merchandise to be layered, styled and displayed in a neat, but intriguing way. You want to have so much to offer, that someone has to stop and poke around for a minute, just to make sure she hasn't missed anything amazing.
This is partly why I decided to invite friends to join me in the shop-opening venture. If I could do pretty well on my own, imagine how much we could achieve if we were working together. (And from what I have seen in the product previews, I was not wrong!)
But besides the fact that "MORE" is my general answer to the big question, I do have a few tips.
1. Keep your display in mind. If you have room for 12 hats in a display, make sure you have at least 12 hats. The eye is drawn to multiples of similar items. And the customer likes to see that she has lots of options when choosing.
2. Keep the price of the item in mind. Make more of the little things, and fewer of the large-ticket items. More of your customers are going to be able to buy small items, so make sure that you have plenty of "smalls" that match your style.
3. Keep time in mind. I like to make production runs of 3-4 big items, or a dozen (or more) small items at a time. Time is always running out on an event, and it's easy to get lost in making a whole bunch of one item. For example, last week I started making hand-lettered "vintage" signs, and suddenly I wanted to make nothing but lettered signs for the rest of my life.
But I stopped at 6, worked on a couple other things for the shop, and then went back and made about 5 more signs. If you don't keep time in mind, you could very easily end up with 4 dozen half-finished somethings, and no finished product.
4. Keep your supplies in mind. Sometimes the availability of a supply is what determines the number of a certain product. For my glittered star ornaments, I made as many as my glitter would cover.
For the signs, I used all of the salvaged wood I had been collecting.
And for my vintage book-cover clip boards, I found out quickly that I could only make as many as I could with the limited amount of clips in my area. Make sure you know what your supply limits are before you half-make a bunch of product.
So that's how I have determined how much to bring to Gathered: a Vintage Marketplace.
Display, price point, time, and supplies.