| Making money at flea markets |
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According to the National
Flea Market Association, America has more than 5,000 flea markets
(also variously called swap meets, farmer's markets and public markets)
that employ more than 80,000 workers. The association estimates
that more than 500,000 vendors sell in excess of $5 billion annually
at flea markets.
"It's a humongous industry," says Jerry
Stokes, founder of the association. "I consider it right up
there with Wal-Mart when you compare a half-million vendors to Wal-Mart
employees."
In addition to providing a livelihood for new immigrants
and others on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, flea markets
serve as a low-overhead incubator for new micro-enterprises. Starbucks
Coffee Corp. began as a vendor in Seattle's famed Pike Place Market.
The Cabbage Patch dolls were born in Southern craft fairs.
The association classifies flea markets into three
categories by number of vendors: large (5,000 to 10,000) medium
(500 to 5,000) and small (fewer than 500). The nation's largest
is an annual affair called the Highway 127 Corridor.
"In August, it starts in Covington, Ky., and
goes all the way through Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, 450 miles
long," says Stokes. "They just set up on the roadside
for 450 miles."
Gratz says that contrary to the perception of most
brick-and-mortar businesses, flea markets don't steal customers,
but actually generate new ones.
"They attract new customers who would not be
coming to that neighborhood if not for the flea market," she
says. "That customer then discovers your store and you've picked
up a new customer that would not have found you otherwise."
Find your niche and mine it
Three years ago, Tony Plumb was an Indiana diesel mechanic whose
body was giving out on him. Today, he and his wife Lori live the
life they always dreamed of, traveling the country in an RV selling
miniature die-cast cars at flea markets across the eastern United
States.
"It's a learning process and we're taking the
crash course," says Tony Plumb. "It hasn't worked as well
as we hoped, but it hasn't worked as bad as it could. We're having
the time of our lives, and we're real hopeful about the future."
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