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  • Toy Store Saga

    Part There Can Be Only One

    (Story is here because there's a little bit of everything here.)

    Warning: This is a long story. It took place over two and a half years.

    When we start our story, Kanalah is a homeless newlywed living out of her car. At the time, I still though Grandma and Mom knew the Secrets of Retail [TM]. This is the story about how I learned the truth.

    So here we are, living in our car. Hubs is trying to freelance and both of us are filling out applications everywhere we could find. Grandma and Mom at the time were co-owners of a historic bordello that had been redesigned and opened up as a craft-mall-type place. Since I had already been working on and off there for a while, it seemed easy to just open a store. There was an open room, and G'ma and Mom missed having a little toy shop. How hard could it be?

    Yeah, famous last words.
    Last edited by Kanalah; 04-27-2012, 06:36 PM.
    https://purplefish-quilting.square.site/

  • #2
    ...you can't just leave it at this, kana D:
    By popular request....I am now officially the Enemy of Normalcy.

    "What is unobtainium? To Seraph, it's a normal client. :P" -- Observant Friend

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    • #3
      Quoth Seraph View Post
      ...you can't just leave it at this, kana D:
      Agreed. Seraph, now you too can join in the demanding of further entries in an epic tale, as I once did to you.

      Keyboard, best be ready for possible abuse. And don't you eyeball me.
      PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

      There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

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      • #4
        Unfair... you didn't even leave it at a cliffhanger. We haven't even gotten to the cliff. There aren't even any hills around.

        You have left us in the middle of a plain, and we are confused in which direction to start walking!

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        • #5
          I was trying to do the background first. >.>

          I'm typing, I'm typing.
          https://purplefish-quilting.square.site/

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          • #6
            Quoth Kanalah View Post
            How hard could it be?
            Just posting again to note...

            Learn from Top Gear UK. You NEVER want to utter those words. Even Hamster's started getting worried when Clarkson says them.
            PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

            There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

            Comment


            • #7
              Quoth Dilorenzo View Post
              You have left us in the middle of a plain, and we are confused in which direction to start walking!
              If I didn't have my perfect signature, I'd so steal that.
              Engaged to the amazing Marmalady. She is my Silver Dragon, shining as bright as the sun. I her Black Dragon (though good honestly), dark as night..fierce and strong.

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              • #8
                Quoth Dilorenzo
                Unfair... you didn't even leave it at a cliffhanger. We haven't even gotten to the cliff. There aren't even any hills around.

                You have left us in the middle of a plain, and we are confused in which direction to start walking!
                Awesome post!

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                • #9
                  Quoth Dilorenzo View Post
                  Unfair... you didn't even leave it at a cliffhanger. We haven't even gotten to the cliff. There aren't even any hills around.

                  You have left us in the middle of a plain, and we are confused in which direction to start walking!

                  Kinda like living in Ohio

                  Just sliding down the razor blade of life.

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                  • #10
                    Part Mewtwo

                    Hubs and I talked it over for a few days. Yes we'd have to pull money out of his retirement fund, but surely with the Retail Gods on our side, we'd make our money back easy right?
                    We decided just in time for Market. For those who don't know, Market is a biannual event where vendors have "storefronts" and sell wholesale to store owners. Everything from furniture to cards to toys to food is in this 14 story building. I've been before when mom would drop me off at the toy showrooms. (Go go awesome parenting there)

                    So we drove down to Dallas and split a hotel room with Gma and Mom. Using thier guest passes, we check out Market. Now usually when you order stuff from Market, you have to wait for it to ship. They have a special building called "Cash and Carry" where you can pick up new things for your store and take them home right after Market. Oddly enough, Cash and Carry seems to be full of jewelry and clothes. Apparently since most of the store shoppers are women, they buy themselves gifts at Cash and Carry...which smells illegal to me. Gma and Mom spend an entire day at Cash and Carry, and Hubs and I are bored after a couple hours. I forget that when they go to Market they have to look at everything since they think they're stocking Wal-Mart.

                    Hubs and I grab some food and walk back to the hotel. After being confined to a compact car, this hotel room is almost a mansion.

                    Next day we finally get to head into Market proper. Gma and Mom insist on us hitting the temp booths on the top two floors first before heading into the showrooms. At this point I would like to say that because we decided on a toy store, this made our market trip really easy. Because Gma and Mom have a generic gift store, they have to look at everything. And I mean everything.

                    We do a quick lap and there's about 8 toy related booths, one that we're actually considering purchasing from. Most vendors have minimum orders and that can really bother people like us who have a 15ft x 8ft room for a store. We literally have no room.

                    We stayed at Market for 4 days. Gma and Mom filled up the passenger van with Cash and Carry stuff. There was hardly room for Hubs and I. Hubs and I ordered $250 worth of wooden toys, plastic and stuffed animals and some stickers and temp tattoos.

                    Everything will be arriving at Gma's house (also known as the Warehouse for future reference) in 2 months. We need to sign a lease on our room and get it painted and ready.
                    Last edited by Kanalah; 05-01-2012, 06:53 PM.
                    https://purplefish-quilting.square.site/

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                    • #11
                      Part Triforce

                      Okay so the bordello has 16 "rooms". Back when it was a working bordello, there were curtains hanging in the doorways, now they're just empty. There's a central parlor where the 3 co-owners can put thier larger items out for sale, but everyone else can only have merchendise in their room. Okay no biggie. Rent is $50 a month and you have to work 2 days a month. I've already been working 4 days a month for 2 other store owners at $35 per day. Of course getting them to pay me is like pulling teeth, but eh.

                      Each room is supposed to have a different "theme", but the owners all have multiple rooms. For the sake of the story we'll call the other two owners "Crazy Lady" and "Health Issues Lady". Mom and Gma are the other co-owners, and they have 3 rooms - the "candle" room, the "Christmas" room and the "garden" room. Crazy Lady has two rooms, both full of antiques from her deceased relatives. She's even trying to sell an old photo album with family photos in it. Health issues lady has the "doll" room and a room full of cards/personalized items. The room that was for rent was called the red room, because both the floor and the four-foot high wainscoting are painted race car red. Honestly it stood out for me in a good way because the rest of the place looked like an 80's nightmare. We're talking burgandy, sky blue and pepto bismol pink here.

                      So no big deal. Hubs and I decide to go with a bright happy semi patriotic theme for the new toy room. We sanded the wooden floor and wainscoting, and bought primer, paint and sealant. We didn't tell the other store owners what we were planning and actually got the giggles when they saw us putting down the pink primer and heard them say "Oh thank god, they're getting rid of that awful red!" We found out later that all the other store owners hated the red. We were happily oblivious.

                      No we repainted it fire engine red. The walls were a lovely fresh white, and we stenciled in blue around it. Also while we were painting, I took off my wedding ring to keep it clean and lost it. We looked all over and even went to the local PD to file a report. We were worried that someone stole it since the store was open and busy while we were working. We did buy those plastic painting tarps to keep the floor clean while we painted the walls and ceiling white. When we were finished, we threw the paint-covered tarps in the trash. Big mistake as we would find out later.

                      Once we had the room painted, we put a chair in the doorway with some tape over the doorway and a sign that said "Do Not Enter! Wet Paint!" As we were leaving, we saw a lady walk by, read the sign, glance around, then try to push the chair out of the way. Lovely.
                      https://purplefish-quilting.square.site/

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                      • #12
                        Tarps, trash... cliff hanger... keyboard running away...
                        I am so SO glad I was not present for this. There would have been an unpleasant duct tape incident. - Joi

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                        • #13
                          Quoth Kanalah View Post
                          Part Triforce

                          We're talking burgandy, sky blue and pepto bismol pink here.
                          BTW, loved the "Mewtoo" on the last post - I'm assuming a reference to that awesome little Christmas special, the Greatest Gift, or something like that?

                          I remember those colours well, at least two of them - Williamsburg Blue & Dusty Rose, that was the most common names of those shades. That was my living room, it was the first place I really had some money to actually decorate, as opposed to "buy a few things in one colour and call that your colour scheme", LOL. Christmas that part of the decade, everything in the shops was the same dusty rose, paired with a sort of pale almost minty green.
                          I still have a remnant or two of that colour scheme around the house somewhere, I think.

                          Ok, stocking up on popcorn for the rest, bring in on

                          Madness takes it's toll....
                          Please have exact change ready.

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                          • #14
                            Quoth Merriweather

                            BTW, loved the "Mewtoo" on the last post - I'm assuming a reference to that awesome little Christmas special, the Greatest Gift, or something like that?
                            Pokemon's MewTwo I'm guessing.

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                            • #15
                              Part Four

                              Now every month the bordello hosts a meeting for all the shop owners. It's supposed to be to talk about business, advertisting ideas and stuff like that. What it really was, was for the co-owners to talk down to the other shop owners. Since we apparently have no clue how to run a successful business. Of course since our store wasn't open yet, Crazy Lady used the entire meeting time to give us a lecture on being wasteful. Apparently she thought our plastic tarps were trash bags and we were throwing away perfectly good trash bags. Stunned, Hubs and I looked at each other, then said "You mean the tarps?".

                              We got another lecture about how the whole place runs on a shoestring budget as it is, and we all need to chip in and help out as much as we could. This meant taking the store trash bags home with us to throw away, since they didn't want to pay for a dumpster, and cleaning up the store on the days that we work - which is really no big deal. Also we would have to bring our own cleaning supplies and toilet paper from home. And our "stockroom" was only for the 3 co-owners to use, but we could rent a small shelf (if they had time to clean it off) for an extra fee.

                              Our shipments come in and we check invoices and start to write price tags. It was then that I learn that we're planning on pricing things wrong - according to the retail gods. Now Mom and Gma buy the same things that Wal-mart and Hallmark sell. For example if it cost them $5, they would sell it for $15, Hallmark would sell it for $10 and Walmart for $8. I was very confused at all this, but they've been in retail for over 20 years, surely they know what they're doing?

                              We borrowed some display tables from Mom and Gma and got our tiny store up and running. My name was on the schedule and soon it was time to start selling.
                              https://purplefish-quilting.square.site/

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