Do you have policies which are designed to help your business run smoothly?
Of course you do. We all do, no matter how flexible we are. Opening and closing hours, for example. The length of a lunch hour for our staff. How long our consignment period is. Even, perhaps, how many items you can “accept” per day per consignor (some shops even have MINIMUM amounts a consignor can bring in!) And you know what THAT does.
But what I wanna talk about today is… are they set in stone? And if so, does that really help business or hurt it?
Remember, you made those policies. So you can, with impunity,”break” them. Often or just once-in-a-while. Three customers waiting in the rain for your 10am opening? Of course you’ll open early! Slow day, Valued Helper really wants to take an extra 10 minutes on her break. Of course you’ll say yes (at least once in a while!)
All sales final? Many of you use the TGtbT-approved “On Approval” system, which requires that returns come back in a specific time period… which of course, messes up any holiday gift-buying for your customers. So of course you will figure out some way to accommodate those precious, lovely, wonderful folks who are shopping resale for presents. Right? Right? Do I hear a sickening silence out there? Or a oh my gosh if we did that we’d get cheated all over the place?
Then there’s the sticky situations. The consignor who has to come on Saturday even though you don’t accept consignments that day. The shopper who wants you to hold that wedding gown until 6 days from now, when her daughter gets home. A needy family who really needs to have you lay away their purchase, when you don’t do layaways. That’s when policies are ready to be bent a bit.
And finally, there is GROWTH as a reason to fine-tune established policies. Yes, you did set some policies way-back-when that might need a little polishing or chiseling, now that you know more, your shop is a bit more established, you can afford certain things which were luxuries before…
So how do you know if your policies are too strict, are mismatched to your current business, or just plain hurting your potential?
Look to your mission statement. Examine every “rule” you created and its fit with your mission. This is a great time of year to do so, because you can start the New Year off fresh.
More of Kate’s retail and resale wisdom at Too Good to be Threw, home of The Complete Operations Manual for Resale & Consignment Shops, as well as consumer-focused thoughts at HowToConsign.com where you can find a professional resale shop near you.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
Thanks Kate. It’s good to know that I don’t have to stick with all of our policies. I don’t have a layaway but for some reason I have a few customers who put things on layaway every other month or so. I don’t have a set time either. I ask them how long they need to come up with the rest of the money and usually they say about a week or two. After two weeks if they haven’t picked up, I will call them to give a reminder. Then they come within a few days. I’m not sure why I do this but so far, it works ok for me. I don’t want to set a layaway policy because I don’t want to actually do them all the time. I don’t have room.
Once upon a time, I volunteered at the local Police Department and there was a joke about the DA and the lack of follow through on his prt in the prosecution department… in the DA’s Office, the laws are written firmly in Jello. I would have to say that my rules are Strawberry or possibly Wild Cherry Jello!! 🙂 !