More Polish Markets

Today I want to share with you some photos from the other markets we visited on our recent new product sourcing trip to Poland.  In addition to the traditional "farmer's" markets for produce that I shared last week, there are many markets focused on goods.  We visited these markets as part of our product sourcing activities.

The market in Zakopane is popular with locals and tourists alike.  Zakopane is a mountain resort town in the Carpathian Mountains which we love visiting.  It has lots of fun activities as well beautiful scenery.  This particular booth is run by one of our suppliers.  We stopped in to see some of his new products as well as pick up a few items for our latest shipment.  I loved all these beautiful wood products!

Almost every tourist site we stopped at also had a number of market booths set up.  These would sell your typical themed tourist items as well as locally made goods.  It was a great place to scope out new products as our daughters loved all the tourist gifts, and we were able to focus on the local goods!

In addition to finding new products, it's also fun to see some of our existing products for sale in Poland.  Our folk art umbrellas feature a design which is very popular in Poland right now.  It was fun to see them for sale here at a booth in the Cloth Market in the main square in Krakow. 

However, when you are looking for unique products, you can't just visit the popular tourist markets.  We also visited this huge market in Nowy Targ, Poland.  This market is very different from the other markets because it is mostly for locals, not tourists.  Nowy Targ is only 5km from the border with Slovakia.  Many people from Slovakia will travel to this market in Poland to buy goods because the prices in Poland are much cheaper than Slovakia.  You could spend days in this market and not see it all.  We saw everything from baby strollers, to horse tack, to iron work, to piglets and cows for sale!

We spent our time in these markets getting ideas of products that are available.  Next week I will share about the next step in the process - visiting the suppliers who actually make the goods we found in the markets! Stay tuned for more details on our recent Poland trip!