What to record when you sell from an antique mall booth

A booth sells while you’re somewhere else

A booth in an antique mall is a strange kind of shop. It’s often open six or seven days a week, and you may be there for a few hours of it at most. Customers pick up your stoneware crock, carry it to the front counter and pay the mall, not you. The mall keeps a record of the sale, takes its share and pays you later, usually with a statement covering a whole period.

That arrangement is what makes a booth workable, but it splits your records in two. The mall knows what sold and what it deducted. You know what you bought, what you paid to get it there and what it cost to keep the space. Neither half tells you whether the booth is working on its own. The job of good booth records is to bring the halves together.

Arrangements vary a great deal from mall to mall. Some charge flat rent, some a commission, many both. Some require vendors to work shifts. Some handle sales tax at the register, and some leave it to the vendor; the rules depend on your state. Either way, the tax customers paid isn’t your sales (how to keep the two apart). Read your vendor agreement closely. It’s the most important document you have about your booth, and it tells you what to expect on every statement.

What the booth costs you

A booth costs you in two different ways, and it helps to keep them apart.

The cost of having the space. These are running costs of the business. Record each as its own expense, when you pay it:

• Rent. The monthly or periodic charge for the space, including any change when you expand, move or downsize.
• Other mall charges. Advertising contributions, a fee for skipping a required work shift, a security deposit, a charge for a lockable case or extra lighting.
• Fixtures and display. Shelving, risers, rugs, lamps for lighting, price tags, a tablecloth for the front table. Some of this lasts for years, so keep the receipt.

The cost of each sale. These belong to the sales themselves: they exist only because something sold, and they shrink the payout rather than arriving as a bill.

• Commission. The mall’s percentage of sales. This usually comes out of your payout rather than being paid separately, so it’s easy to overlook. Record it from each statement.
• Card processing fees. Many malls pass on a fee for sales paid by card. These also tend to appear only on the statement.

Rent and commission are the two numbers most worth watching over time. Together they show what the booth costs to keep and to sell through, relative to what it sells.

What the booth sales actually were

Your mall’s statement is the main record of your sales. Each one is different, but most show some combination of:

• each item sold, often with your tag code or a short description;
• the price it sold for, after any discount the mall allowed;
• the sales tax collected, if the mall handles it;
• the commission and fees deducted;
• the amount paid to you.

When the statement arrives, record the sales from it. At minimum, record the period total of what customers paid, the sales tax portion, and each deduction. Record the sales at what customers paid, with the sales tax portion apart, and record each deduction once, as its own cost. Recording the net payout as the sale while also recording the commission as a cost would count the commission twice, and recording the payout as an extra sale would count the sales twice. If you use tag codes, check the item list against your own notes of what was in the booth. That’s how you catch a missed sale, a wrong price or an item that disappeared.

Watch the discounts, too. Many malls let staff offer a percentage off, or have mall-wide sales. A customer who bought your $60 dresser for $54 paid $54, and that’s the sale. If discounts happen often, it’s worth knowing how much they add up to.

The work behind the booth

A booth also costs effort and travel that never appear on the mall’s statement:

• Restocking runs. The drive to the mall to refill shelves, plus parking or tolls. If you keep a mileage log, note these trips.
• Sourcing for the booth. Purchases bought specifically to fill the space are part of what the booth costs to run. Record them as purchases when you make them.
• Supplies. Tags, string, pricing guns, cleaning supplies and furniture polish.
• Time. Not a cost in dollars, but worth noting if your mall requires work shifts. It’s part of what the booth asks of you.

Checking the statement

A monthly ten-minute check saves a lot of grief:

1. Does the rent match your agreement? Changes sometimes happen without much notice.
2. Is the commission rate what you agreed? Check one or two sales by hand.
3. Are the fees what you expected? A jump in card fees may be fine, or may be a mistake.
4. Do the items sold match what is missing from the booth? Walk the booth with the statement if you can.
5. Does the payout match the deposit? Compare the statement to your bank account.

When something doesn’t match, record it as a question. Don’t quietly adjust the numbers. Malls generally want to fix errors, and a clear record of what you expected and what you saw makes the conversation short.

Reading the booth over time

With rent, commission, fees, restocking costs and sales recorded each period, a few useful questions become answerable:

• What does the space cost each month, all in?
• How do the mall’s deductions compare to what customers paid?
• Is the booth covering its own costs? Is that changing with the seasons?
• Do some kinds of goods sell from the booth while others do better online?

That last question is where many booth vendors find their real answer. A booth that barely covers its rent may still be worth keeping if it moves furniture you could never ship. A booth that looks busy may be selling mostly low-priced smalls that cost more in restocking time than they return. The records don’t decide for you. They let you decide on evidence instead of a feeling.

Where Sellers Almanac fits

Sellers Almanac was shaped partly inside a working antique business. It has no booth features of its own yet (those are planned), but rent, statement sales and the mall’s fees can already be recorded in the founders’ test build. The step-by-step routine, including how to count each fee only once, is in antique booth sales tracking. Sellers Almanac isn’t available to download yet.