Declutter!

I've been asked several times now why I would be so crazy as to hold a 50% off sale in my shop. Okay, fair question! I have asked myself the same thing several times. First, I want to make sure everyone knows:

FAB GABS IS NOT GOING OUT OF BUSINESS.

I will be the very first to admit that organization is a massive challenge for me. I'm constantly misplacing my own hats, frantically sifting through drawers and looking through the piles of recently worn dresses tossed over the back of my slipper chairs to find a frock I just *knew* I had hung up. Keeping track of own my only collection is challenge enough.

 

Take that, and multiple it by five. No wait, ten. No, by fifteen or twenty. I feel like someone buried me inside this art project:

  (only less color coordinated.)


Fab Gabs has grown. A number of fantastic opportunities over the past two years has caused the business to outgrow my home. There's a storage unit just for one consignor's damaged backstock that we have on the back burner to repair. We have other things that don't need climate control, stored in our 24 foot box truck. I can't get to one of my own closets due to backstock bins of unsorted recent-ish purchases.

Recently, a dress was damaged while moving inventory around, and I didn't catch it until it sold.

A rack collapsed - a very, very full rack of 50s and 60s dresses.

I tripped, and crashed into the stack of backstock shoes, boxed up in bins and boxes. I broke two original shoe boxes. I cut my chin.

Okay, enough is enough! I really liked the size my shop was in 2010 and 2011. Maybe 200/250/300 pieces, always fresh with good turn over.

So, I now have an action plan.

1.) Hold a 50% off sale (currently running) at Fab Gabs on basically all women's apparel and accessories.  Only some very special shoes didn't get the knife on the price. Right now, I'm planning to end the sale August 2nd at 11:59pm.

2.) Process through the photographed backstock. You guys have NO IDEA! I have so much awesome product measured and waiting to go, but I don't even have rack space for it once it is listed. So, once I've cleared room with the sale, I'll start listing items. Good, everyday vintage pieces will be listed at prices that are a little lower than what I've come to use recently. Definitely not 50% off. But perhaps 20% lower, on average, than my standard prices. Yes, this will mean less sales, because they will already be priced to sell quickly.

3.) Decide which items in backstock aren't quite awesome enough to get photographed professionally for the shop, and clear them out with a special Facebook or Instagram sale. Just a picture and size and killer price.

4.) Keep a steady flow. It's something every seller knows, and most are good at but me. I get so overwhelmed that I list in spurts and then avoid it for days and days. (Weeks, sometimes.) That does nothing to get vintage out of bins, into your hands and out of my house!

I'm hoping that in a month or so, I'll have reclaimed my workspace and will be able find inventory downstairs without walking sideways between the racks and stacks of bins.

Maybe one day, my business shoes and personal shoe collections will look as pretty and organized as Joan's!

Final note - at first, the low prices clearing out the inventory really freaked me out. I'm making really low margins on many pieces, and in some cases only recouping my cost. But this is absolutely the right thing to be doing - I need the space, and getting the vintage into YOUR hands is the only sane way to get it. I'm okay with it for now, and will see the sale through until I feel good about the space that has been made.

So, thank you, all of you, who have made a purchase and helped me clear some physical and mental space. Keep shopping - this is the first time in four years on Etsy that I've done such a thing, and I don't see it happening again - at least, not for a least another four years!