It's in the presentation, stupid.

And stupid is referring to me, of course.  Since I moved into my large booth, I had a stack of vintage suitcases that I couldn't wait to set up and sell quickly.  I was pretty proud of myself when I built a little colorful suitcase tower in one corner and thought it looked adorable.  And it stayed looking adorable because they didn't sell.  My customers didn't even open any of then as I could tell from the way I had arranged the price tags. Whatever happened to all the people searching for cute vintage luggage?

Suitcase tower, aka wallpaper

Then, before Christmas, I needed a small overhaul in my booth and was short on space and decided to use a couple of the suitcases to display other merchandise.  The red and blue ones became toy chests, while the brown one displayed office accessories. 

 

 

And guess what?  All of them sold within days!  I am assuming that people saw what great storage solutions they are and also how darn cute they were on the inside.  Something that basically looks like it could be on an airport conveyor belt (albeit a few decades ago) did not have a chance against an open and welcoming treasure chest.  Lesson learned.  For suitcases as for many other other things in life, it's all in the presentation.

 

Have you had something sitting around forever and then changed its presentation and seen it get accepted into the popular crowd?