I am starting to organise the melbourne fringe festival op shop tours after a very successful Adelaide fringe run. I have a few questions for my devoted melbourne op shoppers. If you have time let me know what you think.
We are running a bus tour going to a number of locations, at the moment its set at four hours do you think that is enough time? too much too little?
We are planning to run them on Saturdays and mid week, what day would you be more likely to attend if you went on one? Wednesday, Friday or Saturday?
Would you be offended if we stopped at any vintage shops that are not charity organisations?
I would love any feed back, its going to be big, its going to be grand and hopefully it will ge a lot of great op shops some great exposure.
Feel free to shoot me an email on joanneocall@hotmail.com
or reply to this blog.
13 comments:
Wednesday would be good as the shops wouldn't be so busy. I wouldn't be offended at shopping at vintage stores as long as they were on the itinerary when I booked!
Wednesday seems like a good day to me, too. Could you work the hours around school drop-off and pick-up times?
That sounds like a great idea.
I'm a Wednesday vote as well, it's the middle of the week so I'm not too tired.
I think a stop at a vintage shop would be OK, as long as you weren't advertising it as a 'Charity Shop' tour.
Good luck with it all and don't forget to let us know the details, so we can all come and join in the fun.
~Silvia~
Me again, I think the idea of working it around school times is good as well.
Say 10am to 2pm, that would leave some time for lunch and be back in time for school pick up time.
~Silvia~
Thanks for your help guys keep the comments coming :)
hello what a great idea, i think it should stick to charity shops so we can all feel better about ourselves buying lots of treasures, if it is between school times one week day and on the sat for those who work all week, we can all come. thanks for arranging it.
Sounds exciting!
I think Saturday will be good for all the working people. Four hours should be enough, especially if it's mainly for exposure and a chance to visit the oppy!
You can't get as many good bargains from a vintage store, but something like Savers would be good!
maybe you should encourage people to take a bag of clothing/items to donate as well, you know, encourage the cycle of buying from op shops as well as giving back to them :)
Do you notify shops that you'll be arriving at a certain time? I imagine you try to choose suburbs that have a few op shops close together, and yet are a bit off the beaten track?
TO anonymous,
Yes it is about celebrating and exposure for op shops, unfortunately for op shop experts like us the shops we will be visiting will be pretty standard, if I had my way Id eb going to the frankston salvos and woodend but time is of the essence. op shops will all be within a close radious to the city.
many things need to be taken into consideration but I think I have a good strategy. YES i notify the shops first AND we run to a very tight schedual. In adelaide we did a lot of promo work between shops and shoppers, so even if you have been to the shops already if you are on the op shop tour you get special discounts etc.
Thankyou for your thoughts though, its good to know that people are on the same page as me.
These are just my opinions:
1) Nope, four hours isn't enough.
2) Wed or Fri would be better in terms of the shopping, Saturday in terms of work availability. It'd probably be worth taking a mental health day during the week for though :)
3) Not offended by non-charity shops, but prefer they're kept to a minimum (they're simply not as good)
Other thoughts: I'm not sure how affordable something like this would be? (obviously a factor), and every op-shop is new to someone: there are areas of Melbourne I haven't explored at all, so speaking for myself I'd be more likely to go if it was in one of them (for me that's Footscray as opposed to Brunswick, Williamstown as opposed to Croydon, etc.). For everyone it'll be different, but since not everyone lives/works in the same place, no matter how "standard" the locations they'll be "off the beaten track" for some.
Sounds like a great idea - you just dont want someone in the group to get to the fab dress..book..etc before you!
School hours are good / or Saturday. I would focus on an area and then have a time limit in each shop.
good luck!
I work on Wednesdays, so it would have to be a Saturday for me. But it depends on how many opshops are open Saturday afternoons, if you stretch it into the afternoon? I know Savers are open all day, but not so many of the smaller ones run by volunteers. If you don't get enough people for a Saturday, I'd be willing to take a day off work just once! Another thought - as there are so many opshops around Melbourne, why not have two trips on different days - one for the western suburbs and one for the eastern suburbs? (or north, south, whatever).
Post a Comment