How To Set A Table

I’ve been setting up at shows for nearly 50 years, so I’ve seen a thing or two and experimented with many ways of doing things. I think there are some things that work and some that do not. Here’s my $0.02 on it.

If you really want to do this, invest a bit in the right equipment. A four-wheel collapsible cart is an absolute necessity, especially if you are over 40. I didn’t have one for my first two big shows, and the Anaheim show in September 2023, the lugging to and from the car nearly killed me. I can’t do a farmers’ carry for 500 feet like I used to when I was 25. I gotta have wheels.

If you find that you like doing shows and want to do them regularly, invest in a few showcases. Payback on buying versus rental is just a few shows. I bought aluminum and glass showcases in the early 1990s and still have them. They are practically indestructible, though they weigh a ton. Today’s plastic and Plexiglas showcases are a lot lighter and easier to handle (no sharp edges, either) but I don’t think they will hold up over time.

Learning to pack is actually a skill for card shows. You must figure out how to pack for efficient breakdown and load in and out. I prefer boxes that can be placed into large packing tubs like modules. Makes it easy and fast to break down. Whenever I can, I try to use dual-purpose containers; I strongly recommend it. If my packing boxes can be converted into picking bins, I reduce the amount of crap I have to pack, unpack and repack at the show and way speed up both setting up and (more important) breaking down my booth. I also prefer plastic to cardboard for durability reasons. I don’t need boxes that fall apart on me after a few uses.

Know your space size and plan accordingly. Most shows will offer you an eight-foot table, but some will only offer you six feet of retail space. The 2023 Anaheim show I did was 8; a table at the hows at the Pasadena Convention Center is a 6. I strongly recommend you mock up your table space and play with the layout, especially if you haven’t set up a table before. It will help you have a smooth show. I lay out my table for every show and photograph it so I can easily refer back to what I designed when I am setting up.

Standard showcases are 2 feet wide and three feet long. Each holds about five slabs across and seven down, or roughly thirty cards, unless you overlap. That is some expensive real estate at a show: you can get maybe 50 slabbed cards into place visibly in your case. Now compare that to raw cards in Card Savers. Over a two-foot long by six-inch wide area of table, you can line up roughly 1,000 cards. That’s about 6,000 cards in the same space as a showcase. If you have hundreds of expensive cards you want to sell, congratulations, get the showcases. If you are like me and have thousands of raw cards of much lower value, slabs of low value, and lots of oddball memorabilia, just own it and don’t bother with showcases. Or put out one showcase on an 8-foot table at one end and use the other six feet for boxes.

Having defined myself as a low-end dealer with thousands of items that will be continually handled by the public, how do I set up a picking table for maximum security? It’s a fair question. Let’s start with overnight security. If you are working a multi-day show, you have two choices: pack out and take your inventory every night or leave it in place. If your inventory is a Zion case of slabs, no problem. Tens of thousands of items in picker boxes, big problem. The solution is a body bag. You will want to invest in a lockable zip-up bag that covers the entire table and allows you to enclose your merchandise overnight. It will deter all but the most serious thieves and is probably safer than storing your stuff in your hotel room with you.

Next is table design. Ideally, you want a table that is both readily policed and that draws in the customers and encourages them to look. Start by understanding the limits of what you can reasonably police. My arm span is a bit over six feet. I can readily cover a 4’ wide area of a 2’ wide of table without moving my feet. I can cover six feet with a single step. Eight feet takes two steps. Six feet is about the limit of my effective direct vision as well; at 8 I am using peripheral vision. I design my table layout to fit my direct vision. Showcases are secure in and of themselves: your items are not going to walk out of them unless you are stupid and leave them open or unlocked (they come with locks for a reason). If I have showcases and an 8-foot table, I put one showcase on each end. That leaves me with a four-foot swath of open space in the middle for my picker boxes. I can cover that readily. Now, assume no showcases. I bring tubs of larger items too: publications, photos, oddball larger stuff. Those go on the ends of the table. Big items are a lot easier to keep track of than small items. The big stuff tubs serve as security zones.

Which brings us to the psychological components of table layout design. The goal is to create an environment that engages the customer and makes him stay at the table going through your merchandise, because the longer a customer stays, the more he gets to see and the more he becomes invested in finding something to buy so as not to have wasted his time. You also want ‘buzz’ at your table: people need to think your table is worth visiting, and nothing says “good stuff here” like a busy table.

There is a science to layout that taps into basic human traits. A slot machine layout in a casino is the best example. Ever wonder why some slots have a huge payoff but few small wins while others have many small wins but no giant jackpot, and why they are placed where they are? Because different people react to different incentives. Some will stay there for hours pumping quarters into a machine chasing a life-altering jackpot (the lotto mentality); others like the action of frequent small rewards and cannot stand sitting there with nothing happening. They choose machines that have limited jackpots but that return frequent small amounts. A casino has both and has them arrayed in specific locations selected to draw you in and keep you there. The same is true of table layout design. Ever wonder why some tables are appealing and some you just walk by? Because they tap into your mindset. I start by creating a funnel effect. I use showcases and big tubs as velvet ropes directing the customers to the center of the table. Bunching the pickers at the center is like making people line up outside a bar behind a velvet rope to wait to get in. They will assume there is something good there and stay to see what the others in line are waiting for.

How you place your cards on the table can also affect your success. While everyone is slightly different, at core all humans are hunter-gatherers: we are hard-wired to seek and find. Show attendees are highly motivated hunter-gatherers. A good part of going to a show is searching for an opportunistic item. I went to a dink local show and found nothing of note except one guy was selling a small stack of pristine uncracked 1970 Kellogg’s cards. If you got those cards 40 years ago and stored them well, they are beautiful. If not, the paper and plastic aged differentially, the cards curled, and the plastic cracked as it got brittle. These were stored right for a long time. I didn’t go there looking for Kellogg’s cards, but I was pleased to find them. What you want in a table layout is to tap into the hunter-gatherer vibe and provide the opportunistic find while avoiding too much order and too much chaos. Too much chaos appears to be an unrewarding mess that isn’t worth your time to pick, but too much order indicates that there are no bargains. You must balance it. For example, people who will happily go through a thousand baseball cards may not stay around and go through a thousand mixed subject cards: too much disorder and a perception of a low reward for the time invested. I divide my inventory by categories and clearly label the picker boxes accordingly, say as “baseball” or “boxing”. I do not break it down further by years or teams or players. That would inject too much order and serve as a disincentive for people to stay and look. If you are not a Yankees fan, you would not stick around to look at a row of Yankees cards but if they are in a baseball picker box, you will see them as you go through it. I engineer the ‘reward’ of a small slot payoff for those who stay at the table and go through the boxes.

Next is inventory mix. Stars. Commons. modern. Vintage. How to balance them? I generally try to keep commons and stars separated and try to keep vintage and modern separate. Commons I usually put up a note that I have them, but I don’t put them out with the stars unless they are really crisp and older. I have had people clean out an entire year of older common cards because they are working a set and mine were really nice. I’ve also created inadvertent dead zones by putting out too many commons. If I have a few hundred 1975 commons and they are nice I will put them out. If I have a few thousand beaters, not. Modern I try to separate from vintage, at least by putting them in different parts of the box. Put the vintage up front. The interesting thing there is that modern buyers are much more likely to look at vintage cards than vice versa. Vintage collectors usually sneer, mutter some version of “shiny crap”, and walk away. One thing that I find amusing is how our timelines and cutoffs vary depending on age. I think of anything made after 1980 as “modern” but to a collector born in 2000, cards from the 20^th century are vintage. One young man at my table got very excited looking at the 1980s cards I had because “these are the really old ones!” Which they were, I guess, to a kid born in 2002.

Another trick borrowed from carnival midways is to engage the customers. Seems basic but also seems to elude most dealers. I cannot believe how many dealers look like they are standing in line at the DMV. When someone is looking at the table, don’t sit there like a bump on a log. It is a turnoff to have some disinterested, sullen stranger ignoring you, so say hello and ask questions. Be inviting. I spoke to one guy in Anaheim who said he was looking for oddball Warren Spahn items. That sold an obscure item I had. Oh, and your bad week at work or the unexpected bill for your broken drain, leave that at the door. There was one dealer who used to do local shows here in Los Angeles who I used to call “Debbie Downer” because a stop at his table was like listening to a depressive at a therapy session. “How you doing?” is a greeting, not an invitation to unburden yourself. Another place where I see a remarkable level of cringe-worthy encounters is when interacting with kids. Use some common sense. Talking with a middle-aged man is different than with a kid, especially one who is alone. Children are trained not to speak to strangers (stranger danger!), so try to avoid the creepy perv vibe when dealing with children. If a parent is present, ask the parent for permission to give the child something free; don’t just try to give a kid something. Remember, stranger danger training includes men trying to hand kids gifts to get into the van; don’t tap into that vibe. I had some junk wax at a show that I just wanted to get rid of. I sold most of it but still had a few boxes around on a Sunday afternoon. A father with two young boys was going through my stuff and bought a stack of cards. With his permission, I handed each boy a wax box to rip. Good will and smiles all around.

Last, know your inventory. Understand what you have and what you do not and don’t waste the customer’s time. Nothing pisses off a customer more than when he asks for a 1986 Topps Update Bo Jackson and you offer him a 1987 Fleer instead. Also know where the heck it is. If you can at least pin it down to a specific picker box, customers will take a look. Don’t ask them to pull a needle out of a haystack if you can’t. And then there is my pet peeve: “I have it, but I left it home.” I hate hearing that, especially when the item is a tough, significant one. All that tells me is that you are an unprofessional, disorganized clown who couldn’t even get his act together enough to bring your best inventory to the show.

Too judgy? Yeah, gotta work on that…