The Market

You may recall I posted recently about how easy it is to acquire, and how difficult it is to dispose of 'stuff'.

Which is why, some six weeks in advance, we booked a stall at the Camberwell Market. For those of you who aren't local, this is a Sunday morning institution of trash and treasure (although in truth, it's pretty heavy on the trash and rather light on the treasure.)

We'd been gathering and sorting for weeks, so I was a tad annoyed when mid-afternoon the day before said booking, the Captain of Logistics (Geoff) announced that it wasn't all going to fit in his truck - he needed a trailer. Can I tell you how difficult it is to secure a trailer at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon? Very.

After the Captain had been driving around aimlessly for about an hour, my irritation reached fever pitch - which means I got cross and took over - calling places to locate a trailer. I hit the jackpot at Bunnings - for a mere $40, we could have a small trailer for 24 hours. Yay.

Sass had some friends staying over to join the 'fun' of a 5am start in the middle of a Melbourne winter to flog junk, so we recruited them to pack the trailer and truck. We got it all in!

At 5am we head on over - Geoff and I in the truck with the trailer and Elle driving the kidlettes. As always, the start was a bit stressful as we tried to unload and set up among other cars and sellers, and dealers harassed us for any anything of value. I did assure them there was nothing!

Sales were brisk until sunrise, when the traders eased off and the punters arrived.

At 12.30pm, we had only half an hour of selling left and I'd be buggered if I was taking all this crap home! I made an executive decision - everything was $1 or $2 - priced to clear. I was out the front spruiking like a pro!!

Priced to clear, all items, one or two dollars!!

One woman looked at my boring white mugs.
How much are the mugs? 
A dollar each.
Her interest waned.
You know what? You can have all 7 - for $1!!
SOLD!!!

One of the kids sold a lamp for $2. I gave them a small lecture - there was a matching pair - surely that was a BOGOF as we call it in the marketing game?? (Buy One Get One Free) In fact a short time later, a passing man looked at the now single lamp with vague interest and I gave it to him.
Free?
Yes, free. Please - take it!

We sold kitchen wares, plants in pots, prints, shoes, clothes, knick knacks, stationery, books, DVDs, CDs, shoes, hats, skipping ropes, snow domes, an electric guitar - we even sold a kitchen sink!!

At 1.10pm, one of the organisers came over and told us we had to stop our frenzied 'all stock must go' sale as technically, we weren't allowed to trade after 1pm.

Here's what we had left - yep - just 3 boxes and a few other random items - all destined for the opp shop. So excited.

Let me hastily add that you don't really do this for the money. For all the work, and after expenses, we netted a couple of hundred bucks - but our stuff had all gone to happy homes and avoided the environmental disaster of becoming landfill - for the time being.

When we got home, I asked Geoff about some items that I was sure we'd put aside for the market but hadn't seen.
Oh yeah, he causally said, I found a whole pile of things that we forgot to pack. They'll have to wait for the next market.

WTF??

Karma

Sass is an enterprising thing. She and her friends have run a series of stalls at the front of the house selling, well, junk -  DVDs, 1980s 'jewellery' (what the heck was I hanging onto that for?), stationery, toys. Without any input from me, she also implemented some classic marketing tactics; the BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) and GWP (Gift With Purchase). The latter was an outdated magazine.

They even worked out that if anyone asked what the movie on the DVD was like, if they said it was really good, they'd be more likely to get a sale - even if they'd not actually seen it. No wonder we people in advertising have such a bad rap!!

We live right near a cafe so they've actually managed to raise a reasonable amount of cash, not to mention getting rid of a heap of rubbish.

Ever the entrepreneur, she was trying to work out how the team could make money even when they were asleep. (Aren't we all??!) And here's what she came up with:

Wishing Well.

Where your 

dreams can 

come true!!

It has attracted quite a lot of attention. I've spotted people walking past and doing a double take - some even laughing out loud and then chucking in a coin.

I even had a very odd couple come and knock on the door to discuss it (and more so, them)  for a good 20 minutes before I could ease the door closed....

Anyway, someone's nicked it.

I think it must have been Saturday night. I don't recall seeing it when we got home but it was after 2am and I may have consumed at tad more of the bubbly stuff than's generally considered prudent... 

However, I did notice it was gone when I got back from my penance run late Sunday morning.

More annoying than the loss of what must have amounted to at least $4.35 was that they took my plastic container, god damn them, leaving me with yet another unmatched lid that's now just junk!!

We all know karma's a bitch so I'm guessing the small coffee that coin may have afforded them was crap!!

Thermomix

Hands up if you have one?

I don't.

I have been to two parties (thanks ladies!) and each time the hostess and I have been completely frank with each other - them about not expecting me to buy one and me confirming that I won't. But I do genuinely love a get together of women over a couple of glasses of bubbles, a bit of tasty food and to see what it's all about.

I was so dazzled by the recipes at the first party that I did go out and buy a new Magimix food processor to replace my ancient, cracked but still working one (do those things ever stop??) and managed to replicate the beetroot salad among other gems.

Converts swear by them. And people who have them say they use them regularly, so that's a good indication that they are practical. But the 'sell' is a killer.

I know I work in advertising - selling is my game - but these presenters have stepped it up to evangelism. All hail the Thermomix!!

Both presenters made a point of telling us its key components are all made from Surgical Grade Stainless Steel.

Do you know what 'Surgical Grade' means? That's right - not much. There is no specification for 'surgical grade stainless steel', (note use of lower case letters now), nor 'marine grade' as it so happens - they were probably made up by advertisers. There are various grades of stainless steel - that's true - but they're not specifically allocated to uses. Even more interesting is the Thermomix website refers only to 'stainless steel'. They keep the fluffy stuff for the presenters - they don't commit to it in writing - that would be silly.

I was also amazed that from the first to the second party the price went up from $1,784 (yes, I got much mileage from the 1, 784 reasons I wouldn't be buying one) to over $2k at the next party. Especially as the presenter had espoused that it was all made in Germany - and yet, over that same period, the Australian dollar had strengthen dramatically against all major currencies, including the Euro.

Being the smart-arse that I am, I had to enquire how that could be. Of course I already knew the answer - opportunism - but I was curious to see how the high-priestess of Thermomix would justify the hike. Somewhat predictably, she fell into her indoctrinated answer - to a different question. She was answering 'Why are Thermomixes so expensive?' because she had no answer to 'Why have they gone up so much when the dollar has also gone up and it's fully imported?' Naturally she started banging on about the excellent but expensive quality components of the machine, including surgical grade stainless steel - and I lost interest.

So, there you have it. I don't have a Thermomix but all power to those of you who do.

The hard sell is lost on me... which reminds me of the time I got suckered into going to a time share presentation. A topic for another post but let's just say that once my smart arse questioning got going, they couldn't get me out of there fast enough!!!