Flea market: just asking

[logic]

Thanks Fancy - there's hope for WK yet!

[Hmmm]

I stand by my comments. Something to consider is you need a location big enough that's right off the hwy. it has to be a nice area and building too. These two things equal big rent. It's 99% certain it'll take more then a year to generate any real traffic. Your tenants will leave before then and you'll be stuck with the large rent and no revenue to advertise properly.

Find a small area and start it with much fewer booths. You won't need the high traffic location to support 200 people.

[logic]

I appreciate your concern Hmmm but frankly I've been kinda retired for many years after a successful entrepreneurial 40 year career. But I do live here and was hoping someone would take up the challenge when someone mentioned the flea market. It will work if the planning begins at the start and not half way through like most businesses seem to do - and then fail. ALL eventualities can be predicted and planned for - business is business and not much changes really - just the characters - basic principles remain which if adhered will ensure success - providing one considers ALL the variables and is prepared to back-out if everything doesn't gell. One thing that does remain is "nothing ventured nothing gained"!
Good luck to anyone that pursues this potentially viable concept.

[kibbs]

The rutland flea market is more like a big garage sale,For something of this scale to fly you would need high end vendors that would compete with walmart.I can see a smaller one like rutland on weekends but one that sells new dollar store crap and local crafts, would be a big gamble,you'd get vendors at first .but once they realize how cheap people are here they would bail.

[LoneWolf_53]

West Kelowna has already been down that "flea market" path and it didn't pan out in the long term, not then and I can't see it happening now either.

If it got started sure it would have some initial success, but the challenge is to keep something like that going in the long haul, so those paying for spots can actually make enough to cover the costs.

That last one kept getting smaller and smaller, until barely anyone was there anymore, except for sellers.

[Fancy]

Just curious when and where was that one? I don't recall anything quite like a flea market but that doesn't mean anything.

[acidrain]

I'd definately go to a flea market on the Westside. People in the area are always looking for good deals. I used to go to the Cloverdale flea market growing up and loved it. I could usually suck my parents into buying a barbie or two.

It all depends on how much you charge vendors to rent a space. I considered selling a bunch of fruit off my property at the Peachland market and when I factored the cost it wasn't worth it. I think 200 vendors is too ambitious. I'm not sure if you could get 50. Why not approach DWK about using one of the vacant parking lots and do it during the summer months? There is always the old Extra Foods or Zellers buildings too but not sure if it would be economical considering most of the traffic would solely come on weekends.

Would you be looking to rent spots to short or long term vendors? What will you charge for a spot? Someone isn't going to bother renting a spot out for $100 if they could use their house to have a garage sale. If the price was right and properly marketed a person might consider it. How much overhead would all this cost you (marketing, tables, etc.)? I'd definately consider what your overall plan is before venturing out.

[janalta]

Are you talking about an actual Farmer's Market style place....with fresh produce, homemade goods, crafts, etc....like a verson of Granville Island?
Or....a bunch of nasty used garage sale junk and dollar store crap?

[sislonski]

That is my question as well, are you actually speaking about a farmers market or a Flea market? A Farmers Market has been tried and failed and the tried again with hat looks to be minimal success by the community center in westbank. A flea market on a sall scale one day a week would be good, but something on a larger scale such as you see in OK Falls or the one just outside of Enderby forget it. It turns the area into a giant junk yard, I'd hate to see that.

[kibbs]

I think we have enough places to shop .we need more to do.Someone said we need an I max.

[TreeGuy]

Soooo, is thing for real or not? Anyone figure it out?

[Darlin06]

I would love an indoor farmers market...As long as it something like mentioned above...fresh produce, baking, crafts etc...It'd be a fantastic place to sell my knitting :)

If its something like a big indoor garage sale where its nothing but people's non working junk, then no...There's enough garage sales on my way into town...

[Spocky]

Quick followup on my earlier posts here.

200 booths x 5 days a week. So you gotta figure that you have to staff each booth with at least one person. And that person has to work for no less than minimum wage. So let's assume that the booths sell their goods at a 50% gross margin the location has to generate:

200 x 40 x $20.50 = $164,000 a week, or over $8.5 mil a year.

This is just to make minimum wage for the sellers and that doesn't include the cost of the booth itself.

Yeah... that's gonna happen in West Kelowna... maybe once everyone in town wins the Lotto Max. :dyinglaughing:

[Fancy]

The sellers would rent the booth and then make the profit off their own proceeds.

[Spocky]

The sellers would rent the booth and then make the profit off their own proceeds.

Yes, but the economics are still next to impossible to achieve. Where are the sales going to come from to pull in $32K+ day in and day out?