Marketplace Antiques & Flea Market — Local services in Hattiesburg

THIEVES! I don't mean because of rip off prices or something in badd taste that could be debatable I mean quite literally thieves. Guilty of stolen items in their store! I should know because I was the victim.

They used to have rent own portable buildings out front and even though I picked a portable building out from a different location in Ellisville for a temporary event and I used it as a ticket booth when I had it return for whatever reason the driver that picked up the ticket booth returned it to this place. That shouldn't be a problem right? But the building was picked up on a different date by mistake then we agreed on and that's OK cause that was completely able to be remedied. All I had to do was go pick up My things and I had arranged to do that and I even went into this antique store and spoke to the owner and made him aware of the situation and said I'm gonna make a couple trips using my suburban putting as much as I can get in and each trip to get my things out and he seemed friendly and said "OK that will be fine" . After my 1st trip filling my suburban with my personal belongings from this retrieve portable building before I could even get back they busted the door handle offer the portable building and took out whatever they wanted before I could get back there and make the 2nd trip to get the rest of my things right after I made them aware of what I was doing! How do I know that it was them you may ask? Because upon returning and seeing the door handle the way it was and entering the portable building and seeing all of my things gone I went into the store to ask them to call the police and before I could speak to anybody I noticed a couple of my things already had price tags on them so I started walking around the store covering more ground in there and began finding even more things of mine the add little white price tags hanging on them so I brought it to their attention and at 1st he said oh I'm sorry and acted very embarrassed so I started collecting my things and putting them in my Vehicle so I had no choice but to take what I filled my vehicle with and come back to get the rest of them but when I came back the rest of my things at price tags on them will removed from the store and were nowhere to be found. I suggest that he call the police and I never wound up taking it so far as to have anyone arrested or to take them to civil court or what you would call small claims court but even though I've put it behind me I never have left a review stating these facts and I just felt like people should know this period that when you go into this establishment you could very well and probably are purchasing someone else's stolen goods because God only knows how many things they retrieved from people out of those recovered portable buildings before they had the right to the property because you're given a certain amount of time legally to retrieve any property that happen to be in those portable buildings when they were picked up. These people are thieves and they should not even be in business and someone argue that the owner should have been held responsible for this act. I guess said I put it all behind me I decided not to pursue anything and it's been a few years now but I felt a responsibility to leave a review for anyone who might take the time to read it before purchasing anything...

Everyone working there was really sweet so this isn’t a negative review against them personally. The negativity comes more from the pricing of the items. Two things really gave me a good indication early as to how overpriced things were here. Every dvd being priced at $7 was the first sign that they were really unrealistic about their stock. I’ve personally never been to a antique shop where used dvds were more than $2-3 a piece. The second warning sign was how they price their graphic novels. As one of the owners explained to me “all books are half off on Saturday and Sunday we take half off (points to the MSRP on the back of the used graphic novel) this price on the weekend. That kind of blew my mind that that’s how they price their items. Does that mean during the week he charges people the MSRP?! I presented a small binder with 20 pages of very random trading cards and wanted to know the price since it wasn’t listed. I’m assuming it was the owner took the book, flipped through it and threw out a price of $25 because (I see it has a couple marvel and DC trading cards in it). It was a binder of extremely random, no complete sets of cards from the 90s. I asked if I could take the cards I want and just be charged for the sheets separately to which he replied I could but it would cost more. It was kind of amazing to see him make a potential sale so difficult when the fact is that he held maybe $10 worth of stuff in his hands and something that will continue taking up room for years to come. For being a antique store that’s is overflowing with items they don’t really seem to be in any hurry...

Checked out the store today after visiting a couple others around Hattiesburg. The back room, where large furniture is kept, has multiple parts of the ceiling missing. There are trash cans, tubs, and buckets placed around the floor to collect the massive amounts of rain pouring through the ceiling. The room was also very cold, as it was a cold day, and the ceiling is partially missing.

I still continued to browse their products and actually found two items I was interested in—neither had a price labeled on them. I went to check out and the female at the register acted as though it was my fault there was not a price (most items in the store do not have a labeled price). She then ignored me and got on her cell phone, where I assume she was on EBay or some other internet competitor they probably complain about all the time. She waited for her husband to finish his conversation with another customer, then asked what she should charge for the items. He said $12 for both items, which I reluctantly agreed to. Then, the wife interrupted and said “oh I found it” and showed the man her phone screen, saying “it’s going for $26.” The man then told me “so it’s going to be $26 for this one and she’ll have to find the other.” I confirmed that the man just raised the price by $14 after looking online (because he is unfamiliar with the products he sells to people) to which he confirmed and I left.

Very unprofessional, dismissive, low-down, and unsafe business practices at this establishment. I can recommend—LITERALLY—every antique store within 100 miles other...