Packing up “bright and early” for a flea market usually means waking up “dark and early” for many vendors. Some markets open for vendor setup at sunrise, which can make for an extremely long day after the process of packing and unpacking. While this can be time consuming and tedious if you don’t have a game plan beforehand, a few simple preparations can help cut down on the amount of time spent on setup. In this case, it works well to think of the end display and work backwards from there.
The first step you can take is to make a plan for how you want your table to look. Create a diagram of where you want items to go, which ones you want to display together and what, if any, merchandise you plan to store as a backup supply. Write this plan down for reference and bundle grouped items in the same boxes.
Additionally, when you’re stowing the boxes in your vehicle, load them in order so that most of your organization is already taken care of when you arrive at your booth. This way, you spare yourself the hassle of searching through every box for one item.
When you get to the market and all of your boxes are unloaded, arrange your merchandise from the shoppers’ side of the table, as opposed to from the vendor side. Being able to see your display from this perspective means less time rearranging items after they’ve been unpacked.
Use a tablecloth in a solid color. Drape it over the boxes or containers used to transport your merchandise to create visual interest. This gets rid of the clutter without requiring you to make a separate trip to bring extra materials back to your vehicle.
Also, consider floor lamps. If hanging lights is too time consuming, but you want to highlight certain products, a lamp that rests on the floor is a quick fix. Some have multiple arms that allow you to direct light onto specific spots, and because they rest on the floor, not a table, they don’t require you to rearrange your merchandise the way a table lamp or rope lights would. These are the fastest type of auxiliary lighting to set up.
Finally, be slightly over-prepared. Keeping spare tools, batteries, extension cords and other small essentials will save you from wasting time on an extra trip to retrieve them.