We ourselves are buyers/sellers in the Antique Shop type of environment. Experienced in the business since 1995. We buy and sell Antiques, vintage-costume-silver jewelry, designer purses/clothing, high end art, home decor, Crystal, High end Glass, metal signs, re-purposed items, natural semi-precious stones, and collectibles.
We believe creating a central collection of like minded Antique Business listings will increase traffic to all of us regardless of your location. All falling under a generic name most everyone would be searching the internet by, when they are in Las Vegas. Those outside the area can benefit as well from the high profile name being used.
Advertising is the key to any successful business. Larger businesses spend millions. It is factored into their products retail price. Unfortunately most of us in this Antique business tend to forget that, and let it fall by the wayside. Or perhaps it is was not thought through when you started buying and selling. Many expect people to find our business location either by word of mouth, or by passing by. That is thinking that will stagnate your sales, or worse, put you out of business.
Few people are using the old traditional paper phone book ad pages. In fact few are looking at any form of paper printed advertising any longer. The cost of ads in newspapers or magazines have priced them out of reach for many. The younger generation doesn't even know what the paper phone books are. Especially not with the progression of smart phones, tablets, and even vehicles GPS systems found today. You need to access social media, aka.the internet, to survive these days. The younger generations are embracing the wireless, paperless, digital age. If you don't tap into this growing source of customers your customer base will dwindle away.
We personally have run the gambit as many of you have. Renting "cases" or "booth space" in retail locations. We have trucked or hauled our wares to outdoor events, set up tents, or temporary inside booths. Weathered outdoor rainstorms, cold, and the sun, all in the name of selling. Trying every trick to put a seller and buyer together.
Did you ever think about why you did this? Setting up tents at an event? You paid hefty fee's to rent space. You worked your tail off setting up, and tending a booth all day. You did it because of the attraction of the concentrated foot traffic you expected to walk by. It was to put more faces in front of your merchandise. The reason the concentrated foot traffic happens is due to the promoting efforts and "Advertising" the organizers of the event paid out as an expense.
For those of us that enjoy this "hobby", or perhaps even selling as your "livelihood", it must be something common in our blood. We love to buy these types of items. We also get some form of happiness, and income, trying to sell too. The difficulty is bringing a buyer to a seller. If you don't personally do the advertising, you basically need to pay someone to do it for you. What is your budget for that?
Assuming you have quality merchandise. Merchandise that customers are wanting to buy. We are sure you have found that any type of successful retail selling requires two other main things. Location and Advertising.
It comes down to mainly to Product-Location-Advertising-Pricing. Service, and your smiling face are other factors of course.
The two largest factors you need to be concerned about are Location and Advertising. If you need to increase traffic and thus sales, you must always keep these factors in mind. We are going to assume you aren't going to change your products or pricing. Lets discuss the other two.
LOCATION: Adjust your location as best you can. Location is more difficult and more expensive to change. This change has to be within your budget for expenses. This might mean moving to a completely different address, a better location within a shop, or simply arranging your merchandise in a more appealing manner. There are studies and books on even the placement of items on shelves. If you aren't selling, review your selling location, space, and merchandise placement.
ADVERTISING: Regardless of whether you are a stand alone business, or selling in some type of co-op such as an Antique Store or Mall that rents out space to "sellers". Advertising can make you, or break you. You can't afford, not to advertise.
Don't depend on a co-op shop owner to advertise for you. Remember they are in business for the most part to make a profit on collecting rent. Yes some percentage of the store sales too. Perhaps they even have a foot in the business by also selling from a portion of the space? If they have advertised and filled their floor space with sellers, they are meeting their prime objective. Obviously their advertising is working if their floor space is rented. Their advertising may be 'word of mouth', a "client list", or some other such method.
The point being you need to also advertise specifically the items you are selling. Draw customers to your space, your booth, your merchandise. Develop a business plan that grabs the attention of "new" customers. Some type of Advertising. Something you are in charge of that specifically advertises your merchandise. You need to actively deal with Social Media, Email, Snail-mail, Phone contact lists, etc.
Then keep updated, and "work", your customers on a regular basis to constantly pique their interest. Never be satisfied with "status quo". You need to keep drawing new customers to your merchandise. If you rely on the same customers over and over they will eventually saturate to some degree and not buy, or not buy so much. Also remember they are shopping or collecting. If another Shop or another Vendor is grabbing their attention with advertising, you will loose potential sales.
It is your personal job to advertise to sell your individual merchandise. If you aren't selling, review how, and how much you are advertising....or not advertising.
Finds ways to get your location or items seen. If people aren't walking by, or walking in, you need to advertise more. If you don't advertise the traffic will remain the same. If you don't change your location or advertising strategy, you will remain basically at the same traffic level. Traffic level that is directly relates to your current sales.
Find free, or relatively free advertising first. After all this has to be within budget too.
In Las Vegas you are trying to lure the tourists into your location. Business cards on a bulletin board might be a thought. But who really looks at those? I never do. But handing out business cards in social settings is always effective, based on cost. But you have to constantly "work" it.
Keep an email list of your clients and visitors. If you are old fashioned get their mailing address or phone number. Then make it a point to contact all, by whatever means, on some type of routine basis. Show or tell them about something new. This is where emails and social media starts doing manual work for you relatively at no cost. Snail mail (old fashioned mailing with a stamp through the Post Office) is labor intensive and expensive when you consider the cost of paper, envelopes, stamps, and your time.
There is even email software out there that lets you build one email letter or one document, then mass mail it to a huge list of contacts. This software blocks the individuals from seeing the others that were contacted. This insures privacy is met. Do not just send off a plain old email and add a bunch of recipients on the "TO List" without using some such special software.
You can send out snail mail using paper, envelopes, and stamps. But this cuts into your profits by adding more expense. Snail mail and making phone calls it labor intensive too. Move into the paperless digital world of social media on the internet.
Paid ads in Antique Magazines or Fliers in Hotels & Casino's that are frequented by tourist would drive the largest amount of traffic your way. But these options would also come with the greatest price tag and expense to your profit margin.
In this digital age people coming to town are getting on their Smart Phones, Vehicle GPS, Tablets, or Computers, and typing a search on LAS VEGAS ANTIQUE SHOPS. Its the most logical combination of words to search by. Eventually, with advertising, this Website/Blog will rise to the top of the search engines. The words we selected will drive those search engine rankings up. That will drive customer traffic to the website. This will get the listed merchants the attention of customers ready to look and buy. That my friend is the power of Advertising, and the majority of the battle getting customers.
Using this site will only cost you a small amount of time. No expense in dollars. No other media offers you a way to experiment with advertising for free.
We hope to keep this website completely free to post your Business information as well as your Photo Ads.
We suggest you also start your own Facebook Business Group or Page, or a simple website, that you update yourself. Facebook is free, a website is not. But create a digital presence somewhere to help increase sales. And yes this is work and time, and requires constant self training to stay up to speed.
How do we do this for "Free" you might ask? We hope to generate enough income from commercially sponsored ads you see appearing on our web pages off on the right side margin. Yes that magic power of "advertising". We hope you and others visiting our pages click off on some of those ads. It generates us income to offer this service for free, and costs you nothing to look at the ads (unless you purchase something).
In addition to listing your business and location, we can "link" your Facebook or Website info through our page, to yours. All of this increases traffic, either physically in your shop, or digitally to your information.
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