Finders Keepers Consignment is home to three of the best consignment stores in Atlanta, Georgia. With over twenty-six years in business, their award-winning stores have the pleasure of working with thousands of consignors and customers nationwide.
Throughout the month of January, Finders Keepers will be offering FREE workshops to help you get organized in 2011! Geared to help you get started, they are bringing you four savvy organizational pros who will teach you how to make the process easier. Click here for more information.
What are your most popular products or services?
Well I have 3 stores, one does men’s and women’s clothing, shoes and accessories, one does designer women’s and one does furniture and home furnishings so the answer is tricky.
Probably our most popular category is shoes and purses! We recently did a 40% off all shoes at the Avondale store. We have done sales before but this one was CRAZY! I ended up in the back room where we keep the left shoes for 4 hours pulling shoe mates for the girls. I had just stopped in to make sure everything was all set for the sale (it was my day off), we opened to a line of shoe-crazed women (I know them because I am one) and the madness did not stop for hours. I literally pulled shoe mates for 4 hours before it calmed down! We sold about 225 pairs of shoes in 2 days! And handbags are always popular! We rarely have to mark them down. Sometimes I think having a store just for consigned shoes and handbags would be fun!
People may be surprised to know…
I am an Atlanta Native, you know we are rare these days. I have sold other people’s stuff since I was about 10. A friend and I used to set up our little shop of treasures on a street corner near our homes on a regular basis and sell stuff to Emory Students returning from class. I love keeping merchandise out in the universe and am a big believer in feng shui. I think hording stuff in closets and basements is bad feng shui and once you don’t love something anymore, it is your responsibility to return it to the universe so that someone else can have it and love it!
What or who inspired you to start your business?
My Dad, Casey Jones. He was an entrepreneur who started a business in his garage at night, after working all day at his regular job and caring for his family. He did all this after coming home from World War II. I have a great deal of love and respect for this man. He has always been my cheerleader, believing that I could do anything….and he loaned me the money for my first store! He said consignment as a business is genius! You don’t have any money tied up in inventory so if it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t matter. The risks for a new venture are minimal so he was all for it…and it brought me and my family back from North Carolina.
What business mistake have you made that you will not repeat?
I now own 2 of my buildings and rent one. Many times when I was renting, I passed up commercial buildings that were for sale because I thought they were overpriced and I was afraid of the mortgage payments. I look back and the buildings are worth WAY more than the prices that I passed up. I finally bought 2 buildings and it was the smartest thing I did. Don’t pass up opportunities to buy commercial real estate, especially if it is to run your own business out of them! Why pay rent when you can pay a mortgage? There is one particular building in Avondale that was $180,000 in the early 90′s. Now it is worth probably 2 million, even in this economy. That is one I will never forget, I could have owned that!
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