Pop Market

"Me, selling bracelets at a *pop market!!!???", I gasped. The mere thought was staggering! I didn't know the first thing about my merchandise! "What if the shoppers come in droves? What about toilet breaks? What about shoplifters? What if I screw up?", I spluttered.

But I couldn't possibly refuse my good friend, A, who only out of sheer desperation, sought my help. She knows what a klutz and muddlehead I am. Both of us had visions of me tripping and tipping the table over, bracelets and money scattered everywhere!

I owe A big time for the many favours she had done for me in the past. Her son, T, who owned the business was out of town to attend to an emergency and he had booked a stall for the weekend at the pop market months ahead. Not turning up for the event meant getting him blacklisted and he may never get a spot again in the future. He had been on the waiting list for vendor selection for a long time. Moreover, the stall rental was not refundable.

Freaking out at the daunting task ahead, I tried to enlist the assistance of Rodney, my sixteen year-old son. "What!!!???  Sell girly stuff at a market stall and horror of horrors, with my mother!!!!", he baulked, mortified by the thought. "What if my friends see me?"

After my desperate pleas, much cajoling, blackmailing (I was going to tell his elder brother something he did) and finally a bribe (a set of  new headphones), Rodney relented.

*Somewhat like a flea market, a pop market is a seasonal bazaar organized by and for young urban adults. Stall vendors are members of a pop culture club.

Can you spot Rodney trying to look as inconspicous as possible?

Turned out, the  bracelets were unisex and a great hit with the guys. Rodney bought these 3 for himself.

Sharing what I learned from the 2-day experience

1. Men are easier customers than women - they are decisive and quick with their selections. Women, on the contrary are picky, picky, picky! We had a lady who spent almost an  entire hour rummaging through the bracelets, finally snagging one only to return a minute later to exchange for another design!

2. Crowd attracts crowd - An oddity of human nature, people naturally follow the crowd, assuming the stranger in front of them knows more than they do!

3. Product display - Our stall attracted more people when the bracelets were disarrayed than when they were neatly organized in rows according to sizes!  Trolling through the merchandise in the hope of snagging the ultimate find made her less guilty, a shopper shared.

4. It pays to be trilingual!

5. Malaysians are an honest lot! Not one bracelet was pocketed despite the crowding!

We sold a total of 197 bracelets! Not bad for a first-time effort, I was told.

So will I do this again? Nah! While I enjoyed the two-day experience, I don't see myself doing this everyday. I would really rather have a work-at-home job.

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