Merry Market: A cultivated shopping experience
BY KADIE TAYLOR
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
WEST POINT — A spectacular shopping event, The Burrow Warehouse is holding its eighth annual Merry Market with an Early Bird Friday on Nov. 7 from 4 to 9 p.m., with discounts and deals — tickets are $10, and General Admission Saturday on Nov. 8 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. — tickets are $5.
“It is a curated shopping experience,” said owner of the Burrow Warehouse and coordinator for the Merry Market, Kesha Coniglio. “We have a tremendous amount of vendors that apply, it’s juror by selection of jurors that are friends and family of mine, and so we look at what they’re selling, the aesthetics of how it’s presented, their price point and what category they’re fitting in. We don’t want saturation of a specific category, and we want everybody to do really well and thrive off of our events. So we allow between three and four [vendors] per category, and this just gives a lot of variety [for shoppers].”
Coniglio said Merry Market stands out from other community markets because it is cultivated and curated for an entire week before shoppers arrive.
“We set up for an entire week prior to the event, because we want it to look like one big store and for it to be presented very well,” she said. “It is not a pop-up where you come and you set up in 30 minutes or something like that — no, we decorate everything fully… People come here to shop; they don’t come here to browse. It’s not like an outdoor event where people bring their family and their kids. This is not really a kid-friendly event, because it’s just shopping, and it’s not kids’ toys — not very often do we see children there. This is a great time for women to get away and come shop at Early Bird or come back on Saturday.”
At the Merry Market, shoppers can browse furniture, paintings, boutique finds, accessories, handmade and homemade products, jewelry, gifts, home decor, stationery, holiday goods, treats and sweets.
“The building is about 13,000 square feet of shopping,” Coniglio said. “We have about 30 vendors, everything from boutique to jewelry. We have food — like canned and jarred food. We have a rug company. We have Christmas gifts — and we have a good variety of people that come from the Lagrange area, and we have a few right in the Greater Valley Area. Then we have even further people from like Newnan in Columbus.”
Those who make it to Early Bird Shopping Friday will see much more than just discounts, Coniglio said.
“The first night is our Early Bird shopping — you get a reusable bag, and we have a new one printed every year,” she said. “That is when we have all of our vendors offer a discount — this is the only day that they do a discount, they don’t do it on Saturdays. It’s a perk for coming as an Early Bird shopper, since it’s $10, we also have food, mocktails and you get a two-day pass — so you get a pass to come back the next day because there are Saturday shoppers that are set up in our courtyard during the daytime.”
Tickets can be purchased online before the Merry Market or at the door. For more information, visit www.eventeny.com/events/merrymarket-10940 or Merry Market - West Point, GA on Facebook at www.facebook.com/merrymarketwp.
