Building Up The Online Store

Working a bit backwards this week, on Sunday I posted what will be the last grouping of vintage Native American jewelry until I find more. It was a simple but striking combination of beautiful earrings and necklaces. The earrings at the center left and in the center as well as the 3-strand turquoise necklace on the left have sold, the other items are available.

Instead of posting other lots of jewelry online on the weekdays, I focused on using Vendoo to post individual pieces to eBay, Etsy, Poshmark, Facebook Marketplace and my Shopify store. I started with vintage Native American cuff bracelets because there are so many and got through about half my inventory. I am excited to report that I sold four of the cuff bracelets already - one on eBay, one on Etsy and two on Poshmark which was my first sale with them. I also sold some more Federico pieces and this beautiful Southwest Style turquoise ring directly from Shopify. I was touched that the customer trusted me enough to make a purchase from my little shop. CLICK HERE to see the newly posted items.

I had signed up for an ambitious 250 items to post for my first month on Vendoo because I received a 30% discount for that first month. The process has been awesome but it still takes item to post the items, especially when the photos and descriptions had not been done previously. It also has been admittedly tedious only posting cuff bracelets. I am up to about 65 items and have until March 3 to at least get the 250 items up on Vendoo or I will lose the listings I purchased. In the scheme of things it is not a lot of money so I will just do my best to get as many items as I can posted and try not to stress out.

Friday was Mother's birthday and we decided to try a place we had not been to before for lunch. There are literally about 300 restaurants within a 5-minute radius of the house due to our close proximity to Old Town Scottsdale. There are so many to try but we went with Brat Haus Scottsdale which is a few minutes away. This is Mother's kind of food but we all really enjoyed it - the weather was beautiful and we ate in the beer garden. I had brat sliders on Hawaiian buns with tater tots and both Mother and Kuochun opted for the haus brat with their choice of toppings. Mother tried the Belgian fries which she loved. We shared a Bavarian hot pretzel with beer cheese for an appetizer which was great as well. The individual size pretzel was plenty for us to share. I saw a giant pretzel go past on the way to another table and it is literally as large as an extra large pizza! There was nothing but '80s music which I thought was awesome and lots of people brought their dogs which is common here. The atmosphere and food were both great and I would definitely go to Brat Haus again. We all liked the little metal trays the food was served on and Mother really wants to get them for serving food outside at home.

We also made a trip to AJ's Fine Foods which are the nicest grocery stores in town. I have mentioned before that Phoenix is really a burger town and it is hard to find hot dogs. AJ's has all beef hot dogs with natural casing as well as Nathan's hot dogs in their butcher case. We went with the natural casing dogs and they were great. At the other grocery stores in town, it is hard to find anything other than Oscar Mayer or Ball Park.

Since we arrived, Kuochun and I have been working out at the local senior center, they have a very nice fitness room with a variety of equipment. Kuochun was very motivated to keep up his rehab schedule on his own, following his cardiologist's advice. The price is very reasonable as well at $40 for three months for each of us. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the room is closed to the public in the middle of the day for a private class so we have been shooting for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We did miss some days due to traveling or the center being closed on holidays but by encouraging each other we have been keeping a good schedule as much as possible. I feel myself improving and the plan will be to continue once we return to Mount Prospect in the spring. The goal for me will be to reintroduce resistance training on weight machines in addition to doing cardio.

Exercise was always a big part of my life through my 30s but it was difficult to keep it up once I went from regular corporate jobs to working on my own. We try to get to the senior center by noon which is working well for me since I can do some work in the morning and complete the workout before lunch. I am not a morning person and it is challenging for me to get right up and exercise first thing. Also, as a bonus we can make the post office right on the way and I have been dropping off packages before workouts. Because these packages can have significant value I prefer to drop them off myself rather than having a package pickup done. Cutting the dropoffs down to three days a week has been much more efficient and I am providing nearly the same level of customer service.

In the near term, I am looking forward to continuing to post to the online store and to start shipping jewelry home for the caravan. It has been a pretty slow holiday and winter season for estate sales but come mid-March, it looks like we will be back to a full schedule again. Not only that, we have some great sales coming up in Highland Park, Kildeer, Lake Barrington, Lake Forest and Prospect Heights just to name a few.

I have started to put together the first box to send home - to start, I am sending this collection of beautiful costume jewelry necklaces which feature genuine stones, crystals and ceramic pieces. There will also be vintage sterling silver and amber jewelry as well as vintage sterling silver jewelry with and without stones. The budget-friendly pieces from Mexico will make their way home and I will save the high-end pieces for the online store. This will probably be enough for one box and I will pack a second box with new jewelry, including Tucson Gem Show finds from Mexico and the beautiful and slightly edgy pieces from Bora.

That's about it for this week, see you next time!