Sixth Week At Home
Here we are at week 6 of the stay at home order. With the month of May brought a loosening of the restrictions originally put in place in March. Retail businesses are now allowed to offer curbside pickups in addition to shipping purchases. This has allowed us to try and help some of the folks for whom we scheduled sales and have house closings in May. We are going to have online sales for some of the folks for whom we will have sales in June as well. The online estate sale preparation started this week in Arlington Heights, Chicago West Town, Deerfield, Des Plaines and Mount Prospect. The Marketplace platform on EstateSales.net will be used, items can be purchased by credit card and picked up on a designated day by appointment. The plan is to post all of the sales to Marketplace this coming week.
On the jewelry front, I posted nearly all of my Native American jewelry inventory to the Facebook groups this week. I posted the fabulous Southwest style rings and pendants by Thane DeLeon to the online store. They can be found in the Southwest Style Jewelry category on this site. These pieces are real conversation pieces, literally 3-dimensional works of art. I also switched gears for a bit and posted the above lot which is a mix of vintage Mexican, new Native American, Southwest style and Windy City Jewelry handmade by us. So far I have found new homes for the multi-stone inlay ring, the Carolyn Pollack beaded bracelet, the red Mexican earrings and our necklaces in the center and to the right. This is just an introduction to the amazing pieces I have to offer in these styles!
On Friday we took our longest trip since the stay at home order and drove out to Naperville to pick up a huge amount of jewelry which was on consignment at a local Native American gallery. Since the gallery is closed at this time and I was in need of more Native American jewelry offerings, I asked to have the jewelry back. I enjoy working with this gallery owner and having my finds represented there so I will definitely be back once things get back to normal. I am so appreciative that the Native American jewelry has been well-received online and it is helping me keep afloat at this difficult time with no government assistance.
The online store is building up nicely - I have my websites and store hosted through GoDaddy and they rank their websites on a scale of 1 to 100 based on a number of factors. During the stay at home order I've been able to boost my ranking here at C'est La Brie's from a 42 to a 99 and Brie's Estate Sales has moved up to a perfect 100. I had the online store for nearly a year and with the estate sale business running full tilt I had no time to work on it. One good thing about this time at home is that I was able to master it and it's working for us, both with online estate sales and jewelry sales. I love it when customers go to the site to buy an item and then find more items to buy. I'm able to link products to eBay and Etsy listings as well where appropriate and it's been a lot of fun seeing the orders come through from the various venues. I'm glad I didn't give up on it.
Saturday evening I posted the first lot of Native American jewelry to my Facebook pages and Facebook groups. A lot of buzz was generated when I announced that this was the first lot of many gallery-worthy items. Receiving this jewelry back is like my "stimulus package" and should get me through the month of May. The hope is that once June rolls around we will at least be able to conduct by appointment sales. Time will tell, it will be interesting to see how folks are feeling and if they're ready to get back to estate sale shopping, albeit in a different form. In the meantime, I will keep on truckin' with the jewelry and see how far I can get. My goal is to post lots of Native American jewelry twice a week, alternating with a lot of Mexican and Southwest jewelry. Below is a summary of the other jewelry lots I posted this past week. Continue to stay safe and healthy!
On the jewelry front, I posted nearly all of my Native American jewelry inventory to the Facebook groups this week. I posted the fabulous Southwest style rings and pendants by Thane DeLeon to the online store. They can be found in the Southwest Style Jewelry category on this site. These pieces are real conversation pieces, literally 3-dimensional works of art. I also switched gears for a bit and posted the above lot which is a mix of vintage Mexican, new Native American, Southwest style and Windy City Jewelry handmade by us. So far I have found new homes for the multi-stone inlay ring, the Carolyn Pollack beaded bracelet, the red Mexican earrings and our necklaces in the center and to the right. This is just an introduction to the amazing pieces I have to offer in these styles!
On Friday we took our longest trip since the stay at home order and drove out to Naperville to pick up a huge amount of jewelry which was on consignment at a local Native American gallery. Since the gallery is closed at this time and I was in need of more Native American jewelry offerings, I asked to have the jewelry back. I enjoy working with this gallery owner and having my finds represented there so I will definitely be back once things get back to normal. I am so appreciative that the Native American jewelry has been well-received online and it is helping me keep afloat at this difficult time with no government assistance.
The online store is building up nicely - I have my websites and store hosted through GoDaddy and they rank their websites on a scale of 1 to 100 based on a number of factors. During the stay at home order I've been able to boost my ranking here at C'est La Brie's from a 42 to a 99 and Brie's Estate Sales has moved up to a perfect 100. I had the online store for nearly a year and with the estate sale business running full tilt I had no time to work on it. One good thing about this time at home is that I was able to master it and it's working for us, both with online estate sales and jewelry sales. I love it when customers go to the site to buy an item and then find more items to buy. I'm able to link products to eBay and Etsy listings as well where appropriate and it's been a lot of fun seeing the orders come through from the various venues. I'm glad I didn't give up on it.
Saturday evening I posted the first lot of Native American jewelry to my Facebook pages and Facebook groups. A lot of buzz was generated when I announced that this was the first lot of many gallery-worthy items. Receiving this jewelry back is like my "stimulus package" and should get me through the month of May. The hope is that once June rolls around we will at least be able to conduct by appointment sales. Time will tell, it will be interesting to see how folks are feeling and if they're ready to get back to estate sale shopping, albeit in a different form. In the meantime, I will keep on truckin' with the jewelry and see how far I can get. My goal is to post lots of Native American jewelry twice a week, alternating with a lot of Mexican and Southwest jewelry. Below is a summary of the other jewelry lots I posted this past week. Continue to stay safe and healthy!
Here is a lot of new sterling silver earrings purchased from Sunwest Silver at the Tucson Gem Show. This photo also shows off the piece of petrified wood I purchased on Etsy as a jewelry prop and received this week. These earrings are priced at $15-$25 each including USPS first class shipping with delivery confirmation and since I purchased more than one of each style they are all available.
Here is the first lot of "gallery-worthy" jewelry I posted to Facebook groups Saturday evening. The leaf ring in size 8, the teal turquoise earrings, the kachina enhancer pendant, the cuff bracelet with elongated stone and the slab earrings have all sold. The remaining items are available for sale, including the leaf ring shown which is size 8.