Serendipity Marketplace is a brand new vendor marketplace that currently has booths featuring 50 local artists. Ashley Skaer-Tilley saw a need for a marketplace in Palm Coast and worked to fill that need.
Serendipity Marketplace is Skaer-Tilley’s second business. She is an event planner by trade, and when she saw the lack of vendor markets here in Palm Coast she decided she would be the one to get it started.
The market opened August 26th, with a packed grand opening ceremony. Cathy Heighter from the Palm Coast City Council, and Leann Pennington from the Board of County Commissioners were among those in attendance.
Since the Grand opening, Skaer-Tilley stated that they have been steady in their business although during the week the traffic is slower. The vendor waitlist is already 20 vendors long. She has also already started making calls to other storefronts for rent, as she feels a bigger location is already necessary.
We talked with Skaer-Tilley on some of the challenges she faced in getting this marketplace off the ground. “The City,” according to Skaer-Tilley “So I wanted this to be a consignment and vendor marketplace but unfortunately the City did not like the consignment because it was used items. They shut me down for that. It was a huge ordeal. I was on vacation fighting it, I had to come back four times to fight it. I had to actually rearrange my whole vision for this place.”
Every week Skaer-Tilley is putting on a class at the marketplace. This is a great way to build a community, and the classes include paint night, truffle making night, candle making night, wreath making night and more. Future classes being talked about are jewelry making classes as well as crochet classes.
Skaer-Tilley has talked to similar shops like the Pink Turtle and Coconut Barrel and they all love the idea of working together to help each other out. Skaer-Tilley said, “I am all about supporting everybody else, like I said the lady who owns The Pink Turtle is one of my vendors, Coconut Barrell came in here and I met her. It’s all about working together, if you don’t find something here, let me tell you to go to this store or that store to find it there.”
Working with nonprofits is something that is close to Skaer-Tilley’s heart. Not only is she an event planner, but part of her degree is in fundraiser. She believes in helping the organization who truly need it.
We know that Serendipity Marketplace is a unique business within Palm Coast, and we wanted to know what the most memorable moment of getting this off the ground was. “The people that were here, the words that were here, the words of encouragement; that was the most memorable part.”
“This is a place to come if you are looking for a birthday gift, a wedding gift, both together. There is something here for everything, men, women and children. Everybody is welcome,” according to Ashley Skaer-Tilley.
To find Serendipity Marketplace, you can look them up on Facebook by clicking here.
