There are many things you do not think of in regards to running a staging business until you actually have to deal with the problem that occurs because you did not think ahead. This is one of those things that I learned from a narrowly avoided mistake.
From time to time, we are called on to stage vacant listings using the some of the sellers belongings mixed with your own inventory. During the early days of my staging career, I was called on to perform such a task. Being inexperienced and giddy over the opportunity, I set out on a huge shopping trip and carted my new purchases straight to the listing without a second thought.
In my naivete, it never occurred to me to keep a record of the items I had placed in the home, or that I should mark them in any way to establish what was mine. The problem was not that the seller would assume possession of any of my inventory, but that the seller had not lived in the house for some time and could not remember what had been left in the house. Likewise, after the house sold - six weeks after staging - my memory of what I had purchased that day was not as clear as I had thought it would be. In short, when it came down to it, we had a hard time deciding what belonged to who. Most things were obvious, but when it came to generic greenery items and a massive amount of red pillows, sorting it out was not that easy.
From that day forward, all of my inventory is properly tagged and recorded before it is used in any staging project. How I do it? Well, it's actually quite simple.
1. Bring your purchases home first if at all possible.
2. Photograph items.
3. Tag with a sticker or sharpie marker.
4. Done.
I use small round stickers that state the business name and my phone number - in case something is left behind, they don't have to go searching for my business card - or I write this directly on the item when appropriate. In the case of soft items like pillows and towels, writing on the tags seemed the obvious solution to me. (I hold them down with double stick tape so that they don't show when displayed.)
Should I need to pick something up on the way to a project, I keep tags and a sharpie in my staging kit so that I can mark any item before use. I also take a photo of it at the property to be filed appropriately later.
With all of the items marked, even if it fails to go on an inventory list, I know unequivocally that the item in question belongs to me and there is no issue during a mixed de-staging as to what belongs to who.
I know that this question is going to be asked, so I will address it now. The photos are filed on my computer by category: bedding, accessories, chairs, etc. I download them into what I call the 'inventory bucket' as a whole, then go back and separate them into category with a description and purchase price. When an item becomes unusable, I move the photo and its description to a file titled 'damaged' to help keep track of what is taken out of circulation during the course of a year -and can easily tabulate the loss. When making my inventory list, I simply create a word document based on the finished photos of the property.
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