Flea Market business

I was thinking of trying to start a flea market business in my area when the weather gets better. I need to look a bit further but it seems all I need is a tax ID # and a place to do it. There is a school by me that has a fenced in area that is always empty. I was thinking about talking to them to see if I can use / rent it from them for the weekend. I figure I can get about 25 vendors in there and I would charge 25.00 a spot. I live in an area where there are many co-op's and they don't let you have a garage or yard sale so I figure I should be able to get plenty of people who need to sell their stuff. If I can get 25 people at 25.00 on both sat and sun that could gross 1250.00, not too bad for a weekend. Does anybody have any flea market experiance?

You will probably need city permits, even with permission from the land owner. Local ordinances will probably prohibit such an activity ... do the diligence!

I'm not sure what part of New York you are in, but you might consider renting a commercial building. This will allow you to have an established market for repeat customers and it eliminates the head ache of setting up equipment every weekend. Having a building also allows you to stay open in bad weather (great around Christmas time).

It could be presented as something like "The Hometown Market" even though it would function as a flea market. Other names might be "Main Street Emporium" or "Downtown Marketplace".

You really have two routes you can go with this. The first is to buy or rent a large empty warehouse type of building. Don't invest much into remodeling it and then buy some tables to be rented out. Once you are established, you'll find a steady clientele of lower income customers and bargain shoppers. I'm not trying to be derogatory, just honest.

The positives of this are that you'll attract a lot of weekend entrepreneurs that just want to clear out their garage. You'll be able to rent out the tables at a fair rate and you'll have a few dozen people that want to contract with you for permanent spaces. These people are actual business owners that have retail licenses and order new merchandise wholesale. We have a flea market here in Wichita that uses this model. The building is bigger than a football field and the vendors all have rag tag kiosks (tables). Some of the permanent tenants are paying the owners $1,000 monthly for each 200 sq. ft. area. The other benefit is that the market is only open Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday. All contracts are signed on Wednesday by an office staff that only works a few hours. The negative aspect is that some clients are argumentative and you have to watch for theft.

The second type of market entails targeting middle class customers. You wouldn’t need to rent as large of a building in this case. If you could generate themes it would attract niche customers. For example, instead of just having an open market (anything goes), you could dedicate one section of your business to Women’s Crafts. Find vendors that would sell scrap booking materials, sewing supplies, decorative items, and other things that women like. The other end of the store could have a men’s theme where vendors sell power tools, camping/ hunting gear, and sports equipment. You could also have a children’s section. Just try to group some of the vendors together so they’ll draw in each niche. You could charge higher rental rates even though would have fewer vendors. I would also consider allowing various groups to meet there (Sports Club, Painters Society, Etc.). By doing this, they will advertise for you and you’ll be drawing in “warm” customers each week.

Once you start generating traffic, you could approach large vendors such as Cell Phone Stores (Verizon, Sprint, etc.) or other nationally known franchises. Try to sell them a kiosk space at corporate rates. If they aren’t interested in a staffed position you could charge for posting advertisements (ad boards) or card board cut outs.

This second type of market will cost more for maintenance (professional appearance) and advertising, but you’ll have fewer vendors to worry about. The down side is that you’ll have to locate in an area where you KNOW a market base exists.

Going back to what PhxMJ said, you’ll have to learn about the State and Local requirements for you to do this. Get a tax I.D. and the permits that are required. Also become aware of local fire codes and safety provisions. Final thought is that many commercial building owners don’t allow subleasing. You’ll either have to find one that does or convince them it is an essential part of your business model.

Who knows? Maybe you’ll grow big enough that you can hire managers to run it for you while you relax over the weekend. Sorry to ramble. I just had a few thoughts.



Good Luck!



Additional: If you have trouble filling up with vendors you could rent out the additional space for storage. This would have to be sectioned off but would generate income while you get the retail side going.

Interesting idea, I'm sure there are plenty of commercial spaces who would rent out pretty cheap if you stayed flexible on a month to month while they have the property advertised for long term lease or sale.