IF there’s a trick to running – and especially stocking – a second-hand store, it’s knowing when the place is just full enough. It’s very easy to over-cram it. Oliver Davies thinks he’s got the ratio of stuff-to-space about right. “I want full shelves, but not crowded,” he says.
“There’s not much point in putting out a couch for sale, but having to move everything around to get it out of the door.” Oliver Davies has been doing this since 2014.
“I started Oli’s Garage the way many of us get into this kind of business,” he recalls.
“A double garage-sized space, sanding a few tables for resale. The idea is that you can always put the sander down, and attend to a customer coming in the door, but it really doesn’t work out. “The moment you do something else, especially picking up the vacuum cleaner, is the moment a customer walks in. Always been like that! “It’s definitely a more a lifestyle than it is professional retailing,” he adds.
His wife Raelene has just taken over the Clare Street store, literally across the bridge in New Norfolk, leaving him, at least in a business sense, to his own devices. Those devices, by the way, vary from the electric-powered to battery-driven and the mechanical, the hand-turned to the foot-driven.
And then there’s the just plain stuck. The main movers at Oli’s Garage are furniture, largely tables and chairs.
“They sell well,” he says, “although they tend to crowd out other parts of the store. “One of the legends of this business, down at the Margate Train, once told me: You’ve got to see the furniture. Don’t hide it!”
You’ve got to be aware, too, that in the second hand business, things come into fashion, and go out again. Easily recognised at Oli’s is a classic Singer ‘treadle’ sewing machine. Prices for these lovely old wood and-steel machines have fluctuated a great deal in the last few years. A good one can be currently had for less than $200. Vinyl records, particularly 33-rpm albums, are also hot right now.
Spotted on a window ledge is a gentleman’s travel case, perhaps from somewhere around the Art Deco era of the early 1900s. It holds an all-chrome shoe horn and lace puller, shaving and grooming equipment and room enough for some underclothes. Oli’s got a pretty good collection of toys for sale, too. He personally collects square headed robots.
“That collection over there is my superannuation,” he tells me, laughing