We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alisha Apergis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alisha, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
As a child, my mother and I had a love for all the strange or maybe a little unorthodox you could find in any thrift store or antique shop. We would go to so many stores and shops near and far to see what we could find. My amazing mom had an eye for real vintage glass pieces and other household items of value that she could flip on eBay. This was way before Google was on a phone and Google Images could basically find anything out about anything you had to really know your stuff and a thrift store flippers. Finding a chair or a dresser on the side of the road and cramming it in the car to take home and try to salvage. You can tell I was the kid on the block with 6 different chairs at the dining table and none of the decor really had a theme – it was just stuff. Our house became full fast with all the fantastic finds we made over the year and a bit overwhelming for my mom to try and keep up with posts and products when at the time she really didn’t know much about the selling and shipping process and caring for a family. We both still love to shop that’s how all this started mind you and the thrill of the hunt never goes away but neither does all the stuff if you don’t flip it fast.
As I grew older my taste in things changed and I knew I too had a good eye for things as well. I sought to find those one-of-a-kind clothes, shoes, and handbags that I would sell in various places around the valley i.e. My Sisters Closet and other consignment stores like this. I fell in love with the high-end brand names but not the price tag. I wanted a Louis Vuitton bag for a third of the price and knew others did too. I found my trusted market of sellers and people buying within my area and took my idea mobile.
My love for nearly new, unique treasures started so young it’s no wonder I turned this passion into a business. In March of 2022 when the worldwide pandemic started life changed as we knew it. I was a manager at my favorite dispensary Territory going on a year and a half hoping to keep advancing in my career as a manager and like many at this time felt like it wasn’t enough. As I said before the pandemic changed everything and so did the perspective I had on what I truly wanted to be doing with my life. I also had a hidden talent/skill none of my friends or family knew about as a tarot reader something just told me it would come in handy one day. My passion for reusing, recycling high-end items, and sustainable clothing paired with my love for helping people using my 7 years of experience as a Tarot card I created the first-of-its-kind mobile second-hand and metaphysical boutique!
In July of 2022, I opened Mystical Market Mobile -Mystical Market is a Gypsy-style metaphysical shop, market, and boutique! You can find us at Famers Markets, festivals, and events all over the valley with samples of our amazing homemade products, thrift & consign, and FREE tarot readings. Fun new inventory weekly and if you miss us at the pop-up shop events you can check out my space inside The Treasure Box 260 West Apache Trail with all our homemade products and forever-changing inventory available anytime. The best part of this is my whole family plays a huge role in my success in the market and the support I get from them is everything.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Coming from a family of 6 I grew up with a “nothing goes to waste” mindset. From all the hand-me-downs from cousins, thrift stores, garage sales and trade we took and used anything offered to us. My mother is a brilliant woman with so many skills and was very resourceful when it came to getting the things she need for the family. I remember when I was 8 years old and I joined the Girl Scouts and the fees were not in the family budget so my mother traded accounting services and sewing alterations to the troop leaders to cover the cost. I learned all the useful life hacks and tricks of the trade from her.
As an adult I fell in love with the thrill of the hunt as they say. My mom and I would take an entire weekend and hit every single thrift shore, sale, going out of business you name it if it was free, discounted, or something we could trade for we found it. Years of treasure hunting as we call it really dose add up and we found ourselves with lots and lots of stuff. My mom thinks she got this “waste not want not” motto and way of life from my great-grandmothers and grandmother who was raised in The Great Depression and never threw anything away. If something stopped working as it’s intended need then repurpose it and use as something else but never throw away.
Fast forward 20 years later and many treasure hunts later we had accumulated so many things that we ourselves were at a lost with what to do with it. We knew with some sanding, new paint job, and fancy handwear the dress we found on the side of the road still had lots of life and many years of good use. I knew we had a really cool thing but I was not sure how to make it into an income. Ebay became a thing so we opened a store and sold the more expensive, collectables, and fragile items online. Slowly but surely items started to sell from the online shop but we still needed to do more with the years of things we have collocated. One of a kind items, collectibles, antiques, vintage, class. We knew the glass artiest by work and name before you could drop a picture into Google images and find out instantly its value. Not only did I have a 6 sense for finding cool things I was a long time tarot card reader and loved to help people with some guidance. My husbands passion for cooking and 25 years experience as a chef I knew we had the foundation to build something great.
I absolutely understand the perspective my parents and grandparents had my whole childhood and saw the value in the lifestyle of renew, reuse, and recycle EVERYTHING. My dad also would trade his carpentry work and handy man skills for childcare, tools, or and good old cold cash. All I knew growing up was work hard and hustle harder, “buy low sell high” is the advice my grandfather Curtis would say to me as a 30 year Trust Officer/Banker and I took that and ran with it. When I started to pictured my business in my mind two things would always stick out. The location of my shop and I vividly saw people, and a lot of them. I already knew the product and services my shop was going to offer, I had been unknowing building my inventory for my entire life and most of my parents as well. I just needed to find the perfect location and everything else would fall into place from there, so I thought. With my husband and I both working full time, raising 5 children it was hard to meet the realtor to just keep seeing spaces that got more disappointing each time and the rent being shy-high for a shoebox worth of square footage. I wanted what I saw in mind and this was not it, it felt like I was settling for less. One beautiful Saturday morning in March of 2022 I was strolling the colorful tents of the local farmers market with my 5 kiddo’s as we do most weekends, it hit me like a ton of bricks. If I can’t find the perfect location for the people to come and shop, I will bring my shop to the people and in August that same year I quite my long time management in the fast growing cannabis industry and bought a 1957 camper and turned it into Mystical Market.
A Gypsy Style mobile shop/consignment store and market was born. One year later and you can find us at events, markets, music festivals and now inside The Treasure Box Boutique located at 260 W Apache Trail, Apache Junction AZ 85120.
If you would have told me 5 years ago this would be my life I would have ugly cried laughed so hard and told you nah-bro. Yet here we are, living this crazy dream I had in my head out in real life and is CRAZY but I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Once i finished the build-out of my now new mobile store I needed an opportunity to setup and sell my items and not just to sell but just to set up and take pictures of all my hard work. I had applied for so many Farmers markets, events, you name it I tried it and got denied. Whether it was my size, my items not being handmade or homemade or people just couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea i was told no. I really started to think I totally f’ed up after months and months of trying to just into one event just one and no after no. Just when I started to loss hope and thought maybe I could ask for my job back I get an email from an event host asking if I wanted to set up at a cannabis event The Lit Luau and of course I jumped at the chance. I remember pulling up to the event shaking and ready to cry from how scared i was. Scared to fail, scared of what people are going to say, scared I was going to fail before I event parked my camper. I stated to set up my space and think to myself well its a flop as least I got some good picture. This event not only was a huge success it was the just seeing my vision come to reality. Thank you to the beautiful soul Nicole Creech for taking a change on this big, weird, non-cannabis vendor and saying yes to me at your event when everyone ells said no. I also want to say a huge thank you to Cannatainment and Deep Stories event companies for taking that same chance.
Nicole, Krystal and David thank you from the bottom of my heart for chance, all i need was a chance and you gave it to me.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
Still today word of mouth as been my best source of new clients. Of course advertising/marketing on all social platforms and a website is never not be part of the way I promote and are great tools to build off of but nothing will ever beat some ones personal testimonial about their experience.
Contact Info:
- Website: Mysticalmarketmobile.com
- Instagram: @mysticalmarketmobile
- Facebook: Mysticalmarketmobile
Image Credits
Brittany Libby Photography