Advice on starting a mall kiosk and hiring seasonal employees

[romels33]

Hi everyone,

I have been selling my custom made toy products solely online (eBay) for the past few years. I've been looking into expanding the reach a bit and possibly sell at malls. We're planning on starting in one location (our local mall) and rent a vendor kiosk / selling stand, and see how well it does. If all goes well or see if there is potential in the kiosk, then we plan on doing the same thing at different locations. Since I still work full time at my job at the moment, this venture would require me to hire seasonal employees to sell for me during the times we open the kiosk.

So, my questions are:

1.) Has anyone in here done this kind of thing before and if so, what's your experience with it?
2.) How do I get started with hiring employees for seasonal/part time work?
3.) My business is in CA, so I'm not sure if that makes any difference.
4.) Are there any services available out there where we can hire someone to help us get in the "right track"? In other words, possibly like a consultant or something like that, just to make sure that all is in order (HR, Legal, Accounting, etc) before we actually jump in?

Thank you all for your time and any advice or insight at all would be great. Thank you.

[journalist55]

I have not done anything like this before but I think it's a great idea to start selling at your local mall! This is another way to promote your company that is more personable as you can talk to customers in person!

[romels33]

Yeah we think it's a great idea too, but since I still work full time at my job, I need someone to do the selling for me when we open. I would like to know how to get that started and what we need to do and all that stuff. We are looking into hiring a private consultant who already know the ropes with hiring and etc (legal, HR, accounting) and hopefully set us up to the right track before we even open. Do you know if such service even exist? Thanks.