End-of-Summer Blues and Back to the Grind

As summer winds down I have fewer fun things left on my calendar. The little trips are done, the block party is over, the free summer concerts in the park are but memory. I feel myself heaving a little sigh. While summer is not officially over, it feels like it.

I know I will (eventually) find fun things to do this fall, but next week the only thing written on my calendar is a doctor’s appointment!

Perhaps that’s for the best. It’s time for me to knuckle down and get some house projects done that I’ve been putting off. And I need to pay attention to my online vintage biz. Now is the time to add a lot of new inventory, check shipping supplies and get as organized as possible in preparation for the influx of holiday orders.

Q4 is the most profitable time of the year for retail businesses and I think this holiday season might, just might, be a good one. As I look at my stats for this year, I am up 49% in revenue over last year and 10% in number of orders. (I make peanuts, but I have more peanuts this year!)

So one of the things I am tackling is my huge stash of sterling silver charms and charm bracelets. Typically I buy loaded bracelets and remove the charms to sell them singly or in small lots (some charms are not worth the time/effort to sell on their own). But it takes time to go through them. Sort them in groupings. Check for damage. Test those that aren’t marked for silver. Weigh them.

And shockingly I still have six jam-packed sterling silver bracelets that I haven’t dealt with. (I wrote about these in May!) These represent a chunk of money. Good grief. I need to get on the ball.

But a few of them are so nice I am loath to take them apart. That happened to one bracelet I bought a couple of years ago. I liked the bracelet so much that wore it for a while. When it came time to take it apart I couldn’t.

I later sold it for $175, making a small profit. (I had a scammer contact me several times about this bracelet sobbing that she wanted to buy it for her daughter but she was broke and had no friends or family, but her daughter loved it and looked at it every day, blah, blah, blah. The upshot being that she wanted me to give it to her. 😆)

So yesterday I started the daunting “charm project.” Got four listed. At this rate I will be at it for months!

I would love to know if you have any fun autumn plans.

Karen