[Review] ForFleaSake Queen's Market

Flea at Queensway again!

My second flea and my second time holding a flea here ;)

If I will come back means it is really not bad.

Queen's Market by For Flea Sake

Venue: Queensway Shopping Centre (In front of LED Screen)

Jocelyn and I each booked a table for Saturday and Sunday.

As usual we had to ballot for our slots.

I had a booth very near the entrance :)

Jocelyn's was opposite so we weren't exactly near each other.

Tip: If you book two table in the future, go early and let them know before balloting.

If you go early, they can arrange for the two tables to be under the same canopy.

So you only have to ballot once.

We went a lil late on sunday. So there were only individual slots left and we had to split.

We had a canopy to ourselves on saturday though :)

Look at the crowd!

It drizzled a little around 11am but stopped very quickly :)

Ikea is nearby too! Just across the street.

So if you have any cravings you can easily cross over to buy ;)

Raymond helped both Jocelyn and I buy Ikea hotdogs and drinks!

Me and my customers :)

Luckily Raymond was there to help out Jocelyn!

So he was walking between our stalls to pass us stuffs,

helping us take photos and helping us buy food and drinks!

Btw, no matter how hard I try to pack the table,

it still becomes one lump of mess! So... no point packing lols.

They just like to dig through the piles of clothings to find treasures.

There are really good deals at fleas!

We saw this second hand clothing stall selling really pretty stuffs at $5 each only!

Noticed I had a box of books there?

They were Jocelyn's. We sort of swapped things here and there.

Those that we are selling at $2 will come to my side,

while dresses and stuff goes to her side.

Conclusion: You can really sell any second-hand stuffs there!

(of course excluding stuffs that they don't allow)

My huge huge bag.

Came with a full bag and went home with 1/5 of the bag filled.

Had lots of tees to sell, not many dresses this time round.

So at the start, I started selling at $2 each already :)

It started to rain heavily around late afternoon.

BUT I was fully protected.

Tips:

1. Always pull your table behind before the start of the flea.

It is okay to have lesser space for yourself.

But create some shelter for you customers just in case it rains.

So even if it rains, you will still have customers coming to your stall ;)

2. Prepare extra plastic table linings!

You know those kind that you will use to lay on the table for dinner gatherings?

Disposable plastic table "cloth".

What you can do is to tie it on the canopy stands when it rains to shelter you from the rain!

Because sometimes when it rains heavily, rain often starts splashing in :(

The stall right next to me was fully protected.

What they did was to nicely fold these plastic sheets, line them around the canopy and clip them.

The moment it started raining, all the had to do was to unclip and release it!

The good thing about using clips was also so that it will be secure.

But you will need those really huge ones cause those stands aren't that thin.

But the super thick black paper clips will do.

What some others did was to use large canvass sheets and connect the stalls.

Reasons:

1. The area under the canvass sheet will stay dry and can shelter your racks.

2. It can shelter and direct customers from one canopy to another.

3 Plastic table linings because one will be used for the table, two will be used when it rains.

I didn't use the clip method/canvass method because:

1. I don't hold fleas that frequently (those we uses canvass are usually there weekly)

I don't want to have such a huge canvass taking up space at home.

2. I don't plan on keeping the plastics after using.

Since I don't plan to keep them after use, there is no point clipping.

I can just tie the plastics to the stands when it rains.

So I bought those super cheap 70cents plastic linings.

Tip: Have a small sling bag with you. Carry it on you at all times.

Keep all your loose change and valuables inside.

Rather be safe than sorry.

My pile of clothing that reduced by A LOT by around 5pm!

That's like maybe 1/4 of my stuffs left.

Around 6pm Jocelyn and I decided to drop prices.

Here is what we usually do:

Dresses - 1 for $6, 2 for $10

Blouses - 1 for $4, 3 for $10

Tees and Tanks - 1 for $2

When we drop prices (usually in the evening), the prices becomes:

Dress and Blouses - $2 each

Tees and Tanks - $1 each

Our aim is always to clear as much as possible :)

Also, we will introduce the grab bag offer,

where they can squeeze as much as they want into a small plastic bag.

We once squeezed in 12 pieces of clothes into a bag for them!

This photo was taken at 7pm.

As you can see, some stalls had already packed up and left.

BUT there were still customers around :)

All photos were taken on day two (sunday).

Day one (saturday) was raining the whole day.

No one wants to come one :)

Still had sales but not a lot.

Though it rained on sunday, it was still great! :)

Overall I received about $120 for both days.

Even if I had to deduct rental fees of $70, there will still be earnings of $50! I think it's not bad. 

Since these are clothings that I will no longer wear, why not change it for some cash right?

Tip: To save on rental, you can gather a few friends and book one table together.

This way, you will be able to split the rental cost :)

Those who are keen, ForFleaSake will be having Queen's Market Flea for February and March too!

To book a booth, you can email them specifying the flea name,
date and the number of booth you wish to secure at: sales@forfleasake.com

Happy Flea-ing Everyone! :)

My First Flea!

Had my very first flea with Jocelyn and ShuMin and yay it was a success!

I reached there first so I balloted for our spot and we were super lucky we had a good spot!

Here's a photo of our spot taken in the evening :)

It's very dark due to contrast. But you can see that the top of our canopy (this dark thing in the foreground) has something over it (the dark triangular thing in the foreground).

So our spot was actually sheltered (partially)! As in everyone had a canopy but our had an extra shelter.

We were sort of right under the shelter of Queensway Shopping Center, right under the LCD screen.

So even when it was raining, we had business! :) Cause everyone are stuck at the shelter and our shop was one of the two which was still open while it was raining!

The only problem was that when it's raining, people usually won't want to leave their house.

So all our business were from people who had went to the mall earlier and got stuck in the rain.

So while it started to rain at around 4.30pm, we had our lunch.

And thanks to our lucky spot, we could have lunch and have biz at the same time ;)

Here's a little review about the flea!

So our flea was organised by forfleasake.

It was $70 for saturday and sunday.

(I only joined them on sunday)

The crowd was decent I guess.
Since it's my first time having a flea, I have no idea how large a crowd I should expect.

It's like the moment you pour your stuffs onto the table,

people starts to come and see (cause they want the better stuffs).

Then after that there's no more crowd and after awhile, more people will come.

So business was like on and off type since the buyers usually come in groups.

Tips: Don't bother packing the stuffs neatly

(for second hand sellers)

Reason because most of the buyers will just dig through the stuffs.

Even if you pack it neatly, it will still get messed up.

So yes we started off in a mess.

We just dumped everything on the table hahahas!

When it was raining and we had no business, Jocelyn and I did pack the table.

(as shown on my instagram - @tanhuiping)

Our neatly packed table. But after 2-3 customers came, it became a mess again.

Tip: If you don't want to carry home all your stuffs, 

start selling them at $1 or grab bags during the last 3 hours.

 

This was what we did! Cause we didn't want to carry everything back home.

But overall I still did sell about 60 items and made a $110 earnings at the end of the flea!

So it's about $2 per item sold if you average it out.

If you think about it, it's actually quite worth it since they are clothes you don't want to wear anymore.

There is no point keeping them at home. If you throw away, you get $0. If you sell to garang guni, you get less than $1 for a whole bag. So why not just sell it at a low price at the flea?

And we were like santa clauses that day! Made a few people happy cause for the grab bags we really squeezed to the max for them. It's like 12 items in a small little bag. One old lady was super happy hahas. She keep asking really still can add more? And when we said can can if she want we will try our best to squeeze it in for her :)

Overall this flea was not bad an experience! :)

Might have another one again in the future cause I still haven't clear all my stuff in my wardrobe.

That's like only 2/3 of the stuffs I no longer wear.