I had approached my Aunt a few months back to see if she was interested in distributing her designer label in the markets in Brisbane. My Island Baby sells very successfully across a number of markets in Sydney. Although she gets approached almost weekly by other shops for wholesale opportunities at the moment her plan is to “Keep it Simple”.
We did a bit of market research to see what markets would be the right ones for this product. We assessed their location, approximate thoroughfare, how regular the markets are held (weekly, once a month, once every four months) and what niche the market was in (lifestyle, farmers market, handicrafts, baby or trash&treasure). Over the last few months N, the girls and I went on little trips to see firsthand what kind of stalls each market had and whether the label would fit nicely and sell. On Friday was trial number 1 and these are the results.
Friday night Brisbane Southbank Lifestyle Market.
This was our obvious first choice market as it is the main market in Brisbane and held every Friday night and weekend at the Southbank parklands. The benefits of this market are you only have to set up and pack up once as the stalls are locked down every night. An additional bonus is you do not have to supply your own stall. On the Friday the opening hours are 5pm and you can’t close before 10pm. It was a long and cold night. Kathy and my cousin Jess had carried all the stock up from Sydney and spent hours placing the clothes on new hangers. A Friday night crowd includes families going out to dinner but it was mostly young people hitting the town for drinks. The aim of the venture was to test it, find where to go and if we make enough money to buy dinner it would be a bonus. It was interesting to watch the dynamics of other stall owners.
As we were only booked in on the Friday we needed to pack up for the next day at the Mathilda markets. We were the only ones packing up. As we rolled the trolleys down to the car a group of lovely women oohhed and arhhed at the displays. We had a sale! No make that two! Two sales by some sweet ladies.
Looking forward to reading about the other markets. Wonder why this night ws slow? Are they always slow or do they ebb and flow? I wonder if you need to establish a prescence? I would not have thought so but perhaps one night is not a good example? Hope things start to go better!!