Low Cost Brick and Mortar

Check into a local mall that has a good amount of open spots. Once they tell you rent you counter offer way lower. Their choice keep it empty or rent to you.

What about operating mobile with your cell phone, a tablet or laptop and some samples in your car? Drive to client's house, show them your decor products, make sales.

Flea markets and festivals in your state.

Buy a nice sized cube/step van and make it into a mobile sales room. You can then go to festivals, flea markets, retail locations, businesses and do home parties. They are cheap enough and can look nice w/ a vinyl wrap graphics package.

Get a cheaper but strategically located place.The place should be well accessed by your targeted clients.
Invest more in marketing than the hardware part of it.
This way,rest assured,you will make good business
Good luck!

I would see if you can place your stuff, on consignment, in other stores.

I don't really know what you offer, but the same people that buy your stuff buy other stuff.
Think of what people will buy before they buy your stuff, and what they buy afterwards.
Then, visit those places and work out a consignment and/or referral deal.

JV with people. For example, realtors.
Realtors could use your stuff to stage their homes, and your cards could be on a table in the home for the home shoppers.
You could also rent your stuff, for staging, to realtors.

Are you selling new product or used?

Flea markets are a great way to build your customer base. Make sure that every customer that buys your product is getting some form of advertisement from you so you can build a following. Put a flyer in every bag.

I would work the flea market circuit hard and build your customer base from there.
The cheapest route, but harder work because of loading, unloading and the weather.

You can usually find flea markets running 7 days a week within an hours drive of most places.

Consignment shops will allow you to show your products with low overhead, however, there's not many consignment shops that can give you the traffic you will need to make good money. You would have to consign in many shops.

Strip malls and malls in this economy have tons of open store fronts.

If you sell used merchandise, you will more often than not have to consider a strip mall, as indoor malls tend to require new merchandise only.

Some strip malls and few indoor malls can be had for a percentage of sales. Approach them from this angle first. You would be surprised at how low you can get a store front for if you work hard enough. Many of them already set up with shelves and racks.

If you are dead set on doing retail, tough nut to crack in this economy, I would find a strip mall location, 2000 to 3500 sqft, or more, with high traffic and set up a consignment shop where your products are the most prominent products in the store, and lease out extra space to other vendors to help offset the cost of the location.

If you have any specific questions about malls or strip malls feel free to post them here, I've leased space in lots of them.

I'm a flea market man from way back and that's the route I would go to start.

Whatever route you choose, make sure you post your items on CraigsList and other free classified ads sites.

Why you are asking Low Cost Brick

Get a kiosk in a store/mall that already has targeted foot traffic, otherwise you'll have to start out with zero traffic.

Try and sublease space from an existing business. Pick a non-competitive biz and if possible something complimentary. For example a home maintenance service like house painting or lawn care.

You might solve your need for space an end up with a "marketing co-op" partner as a bonus.

i would be considerably inexpensive if you hook up with interior designers in your locality. in this way you don't have to spend on rental and just wait for orders from the interior designers.